John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia bargain-counter fame, is now seeking a United States Senatorship. He'll "shore" get it, for John is a master of finesse as well as of finance. In 1888, when the fate of the g. o. p. trembled in the balance, John came to its rescue with a barrel o' coin. By advertising that "French thoughts are sewn in our underwear," he turned the trade of all upper-tendom to his doors and was enabled to purchase a cabinet portfolio. Cleveland sent a substitute to confront the Southern Confederacy; but when, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to tie a few double bow-knots in the British lion's tail and adorn them with pink ribbon, he does not shirk the task. If England sends her crack Irish regiments over here, Tammany Hall will put the last one of them on New York's police force. Then Johnny Bull will have to keep off the grass. The Washington correspondents inform us that Cleveland wrote his famous war message in a few hours; but they neglected to inform us whether he was in his usual condition—that of maudlin inebriety. Perhaps, in view of his literary product, they considered that what Col. D. C. Jenkins would call "a work of supererogation." The death of Judge Nugent leaves the Texas Populists without a leader. They are political orphans. Among their jawbone artists and wind-jammers there's not a name to conjure with. Nugent was a patriot and a statesman; Kearby, Davis, Walton, et al., are but monstrous bags of fetid wind. This being the glad New Year, good resolutions are in order. I beg to suggest that "our heroic Young Christian Governor " swear off on professional poker until he learns to play. A correspondent sends me, as a Christmas present, a doll which he thinks resembles Rebecca Merlindy Johnson, the only lady I ever truly loved. It does look somewhat like Houston's beauteous belle; but no doll architect can ever reproduce the b'Jesus dignity and Junoesque pose which have made the private secretary of Epictetus Paregoric Hill the wonder of the world. *** THE GILLY WHO GABS. 66 WHAT this country needs even more than currency reform or defense of the Monroe folly, is an antidote for the awful affliction of flatulent talk. Man has been described as a speaking animal." The definition is apt, but not exhaustive. He is an animal whose distinctive characteristic is garrulity. Webster defines speech as "the faculty of expressing thoughts by words or articulate sound"; hence man is not necessarily a speaking animal, for he can utter articulate sounds for ages without ever an idea. His words are usually empty wagons that, like Tennyson's brook, run on forever, but bear no freight, his articulate sounds mere Christmas crackers that tire the ear and pollute the atmosphere to no purpose. Man forgets that the hole made in his face by an all-wise Providence was originally intended for feeding purposes, and to enable him to exchange a few pneumonia microbes and diphtheritic walking delegates with lackadaisical young ladies addicted to lallygagging, and he proceeds to transform an otherwise useful chasm into a veritable Cave of the Winds. A woman talks to entertain her companions; man gabs for no other evident purpose than to air his ignorance. The burden of his song is usually himself. The he-parrot infests every portion of the habitable globe. His cackle transforms the streets into a mental chaos. He fiddles with his jawbone in the busy marts of trade while the commerce of the world waits. He invades the private office of the worried banker and spills his inane dribble in the library of the student whose soul is above the stars; but it is on the railway train that he looms up an insufferable bore, a nuisance unabatable. When two of these featherless geese get together in a crowded coach and settle down to a 500-mile cackling match, that permeates every corner of the car like the odor of an assisted immigrant, one can easily understand how imperial Rome was saved-the invaders fled lest the self-constituted sentinels talk them to death! *** CHRISTMAS CRIMES. "MERRY Christmas" has come and gone, leaving in its wake the usual appalling crop of crimes. The Christmas holiday as observed in this country is becoming an insufferable nuisance and should be abolished. Whenever Christmas rolls around I'm really glad that Christ is dead. Were he cognizant of the manner in which his birthday is celebrated in this supposedly civilized country he'd be sorry he was ever born. The Saturnalian revels of ancient Rome were not a circumstance to the shameful orgies held in commemoration of the birth of Christ. They are such as only the Prince of Darkness could afford to father. Christmas is a day upon which the police are reinforced and the fire department expected to do its duty. It is a day upon which the careful citizen slips a six-shooter into the bust of his breeches before venturing down town, lest he be insulted and trampled upon by a mob of drunken bums, who are glad that Christ is born. It is a day upon which gentlemen forget their breeding and hobnob with hoodlums, and usually sedate communities are transformed into howling, whooping segments of hell. Everywhere giant crackers explode distractively and destructively; conflagrations blaze; murder runs riot and the barrooms and bagnios, the doctors and the undertakers do a rushing business. Those who do not get drunk and express their joy by adding to the infernal din or trying to do somebody to death, stuff themselves to the muzzle and lie dormant like boa-constrictors, and during the rest of the year dose themselves for the dyspepsia. These conditions are especially true of the South in general, and of Texas in par ticular. Our Northern neighbors observe the birthday of the Prince of Peace in a more befitting manner, indulging in their annual debauch and powder burning on the Fourth of July. In the North the national holiday is a holy horror. The birth of freedom is made the excuse for unbridled license, a general debauch that might cause barbarism to blush. With us, all the inherent savagery that lurks behind even the most perfect civilization, is permitted to break forth at a time that should be sacred to meditation and prayer. Perhaps it is not so much our fault as our misfortune that we welcome the anniversary of the Savior's birth with cannon crackers and bacchic revels and stain the day with bestiality and blood. Truth to tell, this entire nation has so few holidays that it knows not how to utilize them. The American people are inclined to "celebrate " as they work-under the highest possible pressure. Whether at work or play, we are under whip and spur. The nervous energy of the Nation is abnormal. The American can do nothing with moderation. We need more holidays over which to spread our enthusiasm,-to enable us to cool down and strike a moderate gait. We should be given more than two or three days in the year in which to get acquainted with turkey and truffles and drink all the liquor in the land. We should have more time in which to be thankful for God's mercies and indulge in fisticuffs with our fellows. Our savagery should be afforded an opportunity to come to the surface on the installment plan instead of by explosion. If we could spread out Christmas murders over a month they might not attract so much attention from those barbarous pagans who hail the birth of Mahomet and Buddha with songs of gladness instead of rivers of gore, with Arabian perfumes instead of villainous saltpeter. Just imagine Waco on Christmas day-a seething maelstrom of semi-savagery-weeping because the Brahmins of India have not been brought beneath the soothing and sanctifying influence of the Christian faith! *** RELIGION A DISEASE. THE papers have had much to say about a young man at Muncie, Ind., who was recently "converted " by a professional" revivalist," and who has been "going into trance visions" ever since and seeing most remarkable things. It may yet become necessary to suppress the revivalist in the interest of public health. The brand of religion he peddles is simply a disease. One of them recently stated in his sermon that religion and morality were in no wise synonyms. If he was referring exclusively to the camp-meeting or revival brand of Christianity he was eminently cor |