The Portland daily press., 1871-11-16
DAILY PRESS.
THURSDAY, NovEMBER TO- 1911
=---.---------...;.naI Surrender.
PORTLAND.

rr.c0udi1IOuaI
We give it up. We are Doth siiehceu anu
oonyinced. With all the odds against us II
,uo,,,d be madness to persist, and we are
ready to sign any sort of capitulation. LII
was very wrong to attempt to show that any
nerson in this State of Maine has suffered for
the want of human aid or sympathy. Especl-
ally do we repent of our error IN believing
that any man or woman could know neglect
or want in this city. But we trust that we
are capable, notwithstanding our acknowl-
edged fault, of drawing the proper differences
from the not too carefully stated charges of
the Arqus, the retraction of the Lewiston
Journal, the Advertisers "unanswerabe ap-
peal to the thermometer" and Judge God.
dard's calm, courteous, judicial statement of
the facts in the Casa statement from
which everything savoring of ''the insolence
OF office" was So vigorously excluded. We can
at least learn lesson that will do US good
from the storm OF explanation, protest, denia
rldlcuie and invective that has Tor week
past rained upon us. And the lesson is this
The people of Maine are good, benevolent
people. If any person within the State lin
Its has the bad taste to be poor, or ignorant
or vicious or to suffer from want, it is has o,cn
fault. Oh men and young girls may die in
way that seems to the morbid apprehension
of sentlmentalists q1ite horrible, but wait a
moment-they like III 1t is just what they
want! Centenarians of small means invaria
bly, prefer to crawl away and die alone in pig.
pens. And while they yet live they find
something pleasantly stimulating in the i m
plnging of snow-balls and pebbles on Their
aged frames. To have their windows broken
and the quiet of their cherished pig-pens dis
turbed by the entrance of missiles is the on,
thing to which they look forward with emo
lions of delight.
And alb /! how bitterly we regret misleading
the public in relation to those eccentric girls
at Lewiston. 1t is binted quite broadly thai
they were not very good persons. They were
great girls fourteen gears Old-old enough to
have mastered the whole philosophy of life
and the whole science of morals. 1t might be
said by the thoughtless that they were igno-
rant, and that one of them, at least, was
thrown at very early age on her own re
oouiCcS3 dDSoiuIcly lrlenuleSS. buG IL was
their own fault! AS for their fasting, "tha
sort OF people" like to fast. Young working
girls enjoy leaping into rivers and drownin,
in the exhilarating GOODNESS of Move mbe
mornings! They go to their deaths in The
same light-hearted way that their more
fortuneate sisters pack their trunks and star;
for Saratoga or the White Mountains. We
want our manufacturing system in this State
to be productive of just such singular but di
verting mental and moral peculiarities. A.
great cities grow up on our marvellous water
courses we want them filled with Just sucI
operatives.
1t will be with US a lasting regret that in a
moment of thoughtlessness we have disturb
ed respectable people, who have bank-accounts
and'go smugly to church and thank Heaven
for making them SO good, with disagreeabl'
reflections about persons who live and die il
an appropriate way which they voluntarily
choose. We have joined the optimists, ant
hencefcrth, no matter what happens, nj
Democritus shall out-laueh US.