The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-06-21

positive terms is therefore timely and proper.
The Editorial Johnny HOrner-s'What
Big Boy Am I!'
In our happy country, the least of whose
glores is that it is the land of the free and the
home Of the brave there is constant produc-
ton of the most exuberant variations in the
human family. Variation and natural selec-
ton, as Darwin has taught the world are to-
gether the efficient causes of all the beautiful,
useful and especially well adapted types in
species; and when we consider the richness of
the variations produced in our atmosphere of
indiscriminate liberty, and consider in how
deep sense selection and even appropriation
are natural to us, the patriotic fancy becomes
bewildered in its endeavor to contemplate the
future in store for humanity in this ger-reat
and gel-lorious refuge of the downtrodden
races who are not permitted to s'variate" to
any extent in their own countries.
Our latest variation is Master J. Hor-
ner, from Great Britain. Johnny is a
fine fellow, though he is not the same one
who event tor a soger." He 'goes' tor
things OF greater promise. In his very infancy
he performed an exploit which has become
pulled out plum. But alas he was unduly
impressed with sense Of the Importance of
what he had done. He boosted tremendously
of his achievement. He kept on boasting
about it so necessarily that he became intoler-
able, and has been bore ever since. His
spasmodic declaration, "What big hoy am
IT. was one he could never get done with;
and he adds it, in brackets as it were. to
everything he has to say even to this hour.
Johnny saw the way to fame and fortune
open to him as he placed himself in the
editorial chair of city contemporary, which
till then had been genial, well conducted
journal, capable of instructing the people,
and not generally offending every day the
common sense of those who read it. But
Horner soon changed all that, and now he
rails so bitterly and biliously at an unappre-
ciative public that the once amiable sheet has
become as disagreeabe as sick monkey who
fancies he has the hydrophobia Indeed,
Horner finds in this world only one thing to
admire besides himself, which is the govern
ment Of this metropolis |; and he admires that
because he regards it as part of himself
mere extension of his personality. He
says to the public, "What big boy am I
Didn't pull out q PLUMP Didn't I rake
Tammany? And wasn't reform the result
And isn't this city government the result of
rsform?" And in this spirit he runs on and
gorifes what he has persuaded himself he
made, and what, indeed, is quite worthy Of
having been made by him.
Horner is part proprietor of one of the finest
islands in the world, and Of ''the flag that s
braved thousand years" the disrepute of
such allegiance as his. This fact of his
nationality, as we know and as Horner
feels, is altogether to his honor. So poor
country as ours could never produce
anything so splendid as Johnny, and he is
aware of it. He chuckles occasionally over
our .intellectual department. and airs his
self-complacency in the declaration that it is
only ''half foreign" which might provoke
| the i'll natured to reflect that, therefore, it
may be only half imbecile; but Horner thus
points out to the public its unfavorable COM
| parison with m intellectual department that is
''all European and that is carried under his
particular hat and peeps at the world through
single eyegass, supported with the true
cockney dexterity between ono of Horner' s
cheekbones and one of his eyebrows.
If Johnny were not such an awfully big
boy he would be one of the amusing points
in city life and guides would carry strangers
to see him. He would even be tolerable if
there were any likelihood as he gets bigger
and bigger that he would ever be man and
get sense. But he only grows in self-conceit
and acquires size without quality. That plum
was his ruin. What can you do with fellow
who wants to make one plum last him through
a whole career, and who must always throw
himself in a corner and begin and end every
utterance, whether song or sermon, bilet-dour
or answer to dun, with the unchanging
strain, 'What big boy am II"
The MUNICIPAL BILL IN THE FRENCH AS
sEMBLY.-The difficulty which threatened to
bring about serious crisis in France has, rs
will be seen from our special despatch OF this
morning, been temporarily got over. The gov
eminent has consented to accept an amend
ment to the municipal bill extending for two
years the operation of the present law, which
~ides for the nomination of the mayors by
nro,. 'rment. This, for the present. bridges
Tho o. 'vea- another illustration of the con.