The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-14


anticipate this act of wanton vandalism.
Many and bittor will be the reproaches
levelled at the Pbilistine brutality of Bed R'e-
publicanism, and for long time to com Q
English visitors will take up their parabls
about the curse of mob rule as they turn in,
angry disappointment from the vacant site OF
what has been for the last sixty years one of
the most conspicuous ornaments Of the
French capital. We are very far from saying
that such reproaches will be unreasonable.
The love of destruction for its own sake, and
especially destruction of anything that may
he considered a badge of superior authority,
is passion strongly developed in the manly
bosoms of those who delight to call them
selves ''the Peoples; and we may we'll believe
that the men of Paris gazed on the downfall
of the column in the Place Ven
dome with much the same feeling
of coarse satisfaction which inspired 'the
men of London" as they witnessed or helped
to effect the smashing of the Hyde Park rail-
ings. Only their satisfaction would be so far
more intense, as the column was not only
symbol of sovereignty, but a very beautiful
and costly work of art. We are not disposed
to think very highly of the culture of the
Commune, notwithstanding Mr.. Bridges
favorable estimate of It as compared with the
results of an Oxford education; and the indig-
nant censors of the iconoclastic tendencies of
Republicanism might point their moral
by reminding us that the Partisan
democrats of to-day are but treading
in the footsteps of their ancestors in the
first Revolution, who destroyed tho statue
of Louis XIV on the very spot afterwards
selected by Napoleon for the monument
to commemorate his victories. NoH is the
analogy merely one of outward form. Neither
| Louis XIV nor Napoleon was a model of
exalted virtue, and history has heavy indiet-
ment to bring against the principles and
4, Il ,;,;a Put hot thaxr
were two of the greatest rulers that ever
swayed the destinies of France, and that they
raised her to height of material spendor un-
equalled at any other periods of her history,
is beyond question. Their rule may not un-
fairly be characterized as an immoral des-
potism; but Frenchmen might be expected
| to treat with some decent respect the
memory of despots whose faults repre-
sented and f1attered the national character,
and who contributed so much to the
realization of its, ideal of national greatness.
The sans culOtteS of the 80 Revolution, like
the Commune of to-day, were otherwise
minded. No sense of historic continuity or
/ aesthetic grace could avail to stay their hand
in defacing the beautiful records of mag
nifcent but monarchioal past. They cutie
deserve all the hard words that are said of
them. But it would be a mistake to regard
| iconoclasm as o mere incident of republican
| excess. It is one Of those natural instincts,
partly good, partly evil, WHICH have played
an important part in tho. history of the
world. --
We spoke Just now of the passion of de-
struction for Its own sake among the unedu-
Gated masses. Perhaps MIR. Darwin would
tell us that it is relic of that earlier stage of
development when we were gradually fighting
our way to full humanity by the process of
natural selection, and with the aid of those
destructive organs which have gradually dis
appeared since the struggle for existence
ceased. At all events it is fact. The plea
sure felt by q baby in smashing toy is very
much akin to the pleasure felt by boor in
smashing work of art. Probably in both
cases it consists partly in a rude sense OF
power, or consciousness of the ego,
which finds its intellectual expression in Tx
man fuhH SiGh of the German student who
is breaking loose from the t,ammels o.
hereditary belief. 1t is the same sor
Of feeling that leads a savage to valu,
himself on the number Of men h
!, has killed in battle. To make is o
| course q much higher test Of power thar
t to upmake, but it is also much more difficult
3 | and children and saTages naturally catch a
5 that exercise of independent action whic
r comes readiest to their hand. And men VIII
: have little or no education remain in. man
= respects grown-up children all their lives
!. This goes far to account for the-often quit
!, purposeless-m mischief of mob who are Sc
t free for the time from all restraints,o of crs
t tom or police. There is story in the life @
f John Wesley of lawless rabble who sui
s rounded the house where he was stayine
f somewhere in the North of ENGLAND, an
s spent half the night in carrying him aboy
d from one place to another, with occasions
# threats of ducking or more serious outrage
and then took him home again. Yet the
J, had no particular spite against him, an
# cheered Justify when he addressed them.
a was simply stupid and brutal frolic, whic
Is the local magistrates we're too orthodox or to
/, inert to interfere with. The midnight reve
% lers who destroyed the Hermes busts
10 Athens were probably of very differer
n class, but probably also they we're drunk; an
If the Characteristic 'insolenee" of Aloibiadt
is made him act more like an oyergrown schoo
RS boy than man OF genII
a. and high culture But b
ly iconoclasm was not tee mere instinct of mi
IN chief, still less the boorish pleasure in q
n, facing what one cannot appreciate. TT
or Hermes busts, like most popular idols, a.
G. said to kave been exceedingly ugly, but the
s. were the object of profound if not very i
g. telligent veneration, and to deface them W
le to infict one of the keenezt possible insul
u on the national religion. It gratifed Il
d. sense of power, not SO much by an act /
O. wanton destruction as because it was an oU
ae rage on public decenoy, which, if suffered
n 90 unpunished, would show that the perpetI
to tors could hold themselves superior to Il
ur laws by which the rest of their countrym,
1t were bound And thus it was more refine
as but not one whit a nobler, form of loon
as clasm than the vulgar pleasure of Parisi
n mob in pulling down imperial statues, or OF
ey Protestant mob at the Reformation in fossil
= -.