The Evening critic., 1881-08-23
TUESDAY, AUGUST as, 1881.


have never failed to apprchend the gravity
of the eminent patients injury, we have
steadily held TO the theory that whatever
chance of recovery the nature of the wound
might admit was certain to be improved to
the utmost by virtue of the sufferers splen-
did physical condition, his superb nerve
and the extraordinary care and attention
1avished upon him. As partial Offset to
to these favorable conditions we all along
realised the weight which should be at
tached to the heat of the season and the
unfortunate location of the building in
which the President has been doomed to
Ianguish.
Weighing all these considcrations-and
influenced perhaps to some extent by II
wish ardent enough for the parentage of
'conviction-wc have heretofore hoped
steadily, and have repeatedly sought to
cheer our readers by more or less vivid ex-
pressions of the hope that was in us.
But the developments of the last few days
have well-nigh wrecked all our expecta-
tions. 1t has now become evident that the
President is dying by inches; not from the
shock of his wound, not from bloodpoison-
ing of the active or virulent type called
pyemia; but Of what may be termed gem
cral debilitation, caused by tho joint drain
of protracted suppuratiou, of long confine-
ment at a most unfavorable season, and,
finally, of Kidwcll Bottoms.
We use the word dying with grain of
reservation; but it is rather the reservation
of a flickering, fitful hope in the face of de-
,spair than a belief based upon an intelligent
theory.
Men have often recovered from wounds
relatively as severe as that suffered by the
President, but the conditions were not all
identical with those Of the pending case
and the difficulties were not cumulative.
The Presidents chance of recovery at the
outset lay in the possibility Of maintaining
his strength by nourishment, and with it
the all-important element of his nerve
and endurance. But his decline of nearly
seventy pounds in weight, accompanied
with debilitation of the vital forces of the
system even more than relatively, tells his
story beyond the power of the skilfullest-
worded bulletin to contradict or gainsay.
Therefore, not because we desire to be SEN
sational, but because we deem it duty of
journalism to be candid, we reluctantly cx-
press at last the sad conviction that poor
Garfield is dying man, and that his de-
parture from us forever is question of days
only. In Wow of this prospect it becomes
the duty of every patriotic citizen to face
the certainty ofa change of Administrative
gnead and Herewith to do all in his power
Ito uphold the hands and empower the good
will Of the President that is to bo.
That Chester A, Arthur will disappoint
those who have distrustetaa ahd put to shame
|IatSse q who have maligned him we have
never doubted since we had opportunity I'd
witness his bearing while he was herea few
weeks ago. But he will be beset by difficult
ties, hampered by misfortunes, and hedged
about with obstacles such as no President,
either by election or succession, has ever
been called upon to encounterin the history
of our Republic. At the outset he will owe
his elevation to the crime of man who,
red-handed, proclaimed his desire for
Arthur's succession to be the motive that
made him murderer and while no man
of honest intelligence heeds such rawlings, it
is an unfortunate fact that at the precise
time when the spirit of public vengeance
ran highest group of assassins, no
less dastardly than Guiteau, and no moro
respectable, save for the circumstance that
they happened to be in the pay of the So
called Department of Justice, sowed with
fiendish diligence seeds Of suspicion deep in
the popular mind that may come to baleful
fruition. This is Arthur's greatest difficulty.
We shall do our feeble best as we call upon
all right-minded and patriotic citizens to do
theirs to avert from the succeeding Admin
istration the annoyances and impediments
likely to result from this devlsh work of
Mr.. Macveagh's hired fends in the guise
of detectives. There is no time to lose in
beginning to undo their work The seeds
they sowed were the seeds of anarchy and
revolution. Let us root them up and de.
stroy them before, in the renewed blaze OF
popular Indignation that will inevitably
follow the death of the President, they
find germ that will bode ill to our com.
mon country,
A CERTAIN MARK SMITH, living at
Beaver Dam, Pennsylvania has had the
temerity to invite all the rest of the Smiths
to come to see him upon next Thursday.
Before that eyentful day is passed Mark