The Russellville Democrat., 1880-10-28
ACCIDENTS OF HISTORY.
Great Events that Have Sprung from Little
 Causes.
 Jopdn,, Standard

Great Events that Have Sprung from Little
 Causes.
 London Standard,
 It was one of the maxlms of Catherine dc Medici that "a false report, if believed for three days, may be of great service to Government" A printers boy with q bad memory was few days since on the point of doing the ministry a service by forgetting to deliver Lord Beacons- fields amendment to the employers liability bill. Lord Redesdale gave It to his secretary; the secretary gave it to the boy, who put it in his pocket and forgot all about it, and thus Lord Beaconsfeld's views failed to reach the members of the House of Peers in due time. The incl dent in itself was trifiing, but it does not stand alone Tn history. M. Fournier wrote a book on events which never took place, and Lord Beaconsfeld's father was the author of learned essay on history which might have been en- acted. An equally curious volume might be penned on the trifes which have determined great events. Indeed, though 2 momentous historical incidents have been due to long concourse of clrcum- stances, all working toward common end, the final catastrophe has often been precipitated by the merest tri6e. It was but trifle that gave Spain for so many generations the lordship of the New World, and enabled her by the wrath winch she derived from that source to become the most powerful na- tion in Europe. It is well known that Columbus, dispirited with the refusals which he met at so many courts, de-
 I. +sl1 t.. ,l- aid from Henry VII of England. But on the way the messenger fell into the hands of the pirates, and by the time he reached London was so destitute that he had to try and earn the money to clothe himself in proper style before he could be presented at court. But by that time it was too late. Even the fact that Fer dinand and Isabella supplied the funds to equip the expedition was mainly dne to the accident that Jaun Perez de Mar cinema, the queens confessor happened to bepassing at the moment when the weary mariner was knocking at the door of La Rabda Monastery to beg little bread and water for his boy Diego, and was struck with the noble face of the dusty pedestrian. Had Bartolomeo Colon reached London in time, had Christoval been by any oh nee a iitde later or little earlier at the monastery door, the late of Europe might have been changed, and the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race altered. Three centuries later it was again nearly revolutionized, for in 1906 the English held Buenos Ayres, and it is no secret that Napoleon was almost persuaded to abandon Europe as field for his ambition and try what he could accomplish in the way of carving out an empire among the dissatisfied provinces of South America. When Citizen Bona parte seemed little likely to sit on the throne of Louis Capet, he was on the point of offering his sword to the sultan, as, at later period, Von Moltke actual ly dId.
 It is curious now to speculate what woul 1 have been the present state of the Eastern question had Napoleon car ried his intentions into effect; or, sup posing that Moltke had remained in the Turkish service. whether the Danish war would have been fought, or Prussa's supremacy established at Sadowa or Sedan. Had Bonaparte not had friend in tke Directory, would he ever have had the good fortune to keep hls head on his shoulders; or had not General Grant accidentally been on good terms NllH iut NONtTlOT Dl JlilIlOiS, NOuid hN have been lucky enough to have obtain cd that volunteer colonelcy which trans ferred him from the saddler's shop Tn Galena to the White House in Washing ton? Thackeray used to delight in sim liar speculations as to what might have been had not trife intervened to pre- vent history running it's course. In l7l5 the English Crown was much nearer the Stuarts' grasp than it was thirty years later. Scotland might have been the Pretender's had all his friends had the courage of the Earl of Mar and the eight thousand Highland gentlemen who rallied around him. Edinburgh Castle would undoubtly have been taken had not the men who were to escalade It tarried so long in tavern that while they were ''powdering their air" there confederates under the fortress grew weary of waiting, and the rendezvous was reached too late. But for that put reriS eriglti jactd of the jovial conspirators all Scotland might have been King James's and Northumberland and the North of England would have risen in force. In that ten minutes King James lost his crown, and was doomed to die a French pensioner at St. Germaln's, Prince Charlie to attempt to regain II under less favorable circumstances, and Cardinal York to end the hapless Stuart line amid the wealth of song and story which their misfortunes have evoked. Had Give succeeded in his attempted suicide, would not the English and the French have changed places in lndiaY If Lord John Russell had not shown an unwonted firmness when Louis Philippe was displaying a suspicious anxiety about priority of discovery" at the an tpodes, would our colonists have been enjoying to-day that peace which the absence even of such amiable neighbors