New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-05-04
PERRYS GREAT ESCAPE.

1t is not impossible that Mr.. Perry Belmont
is coddling himself in complacent way over
the letters of cOngratulatOn he is said to he
receiving by the basletlul, and the favorable
newspaper notices he is pasting into his scrap
book in connection with his recent great act.
Perry seems to be the sort of young man to
gather himself darbly together and illumine
himself by tallow dips OF his own buying
rather than sit down in the open and accept
the revelations of the sunshine Qnite likely
incomprehensible as it may be to the average
diaintcrcsted spectator-he thinks that he has
been cutting a very fine figure and making
very decided impression upon the public
mind 1t taxes crcdulity, we know, to suggest
the possibility that young man who has been
through what Perry has in the last four or five
days may be proud of it, But then it must be
remembered that he is young man of pccu-
liar intellectual processes; that he could not
be tossed on the horns of IL bull without chuck
ling in his passage through the air over the
unmistakable indications that he had succeeded
III seriously annoying the bull. In this view of
Perry's idiosyncracy, we deem it by no means
improbable that the letters he has received,
with the comments OF three or four New York
newspapers, have engendered III him, in spite
of the bruised and mangled condition III which
he finds himself, notion that he has actually
done something to be proud Of. Indeed, we
have seen it stated that he is actually taking
pride in himself.
But we fear that Perry forgets when he reads
his congratulatory letters that a fellow who
passes through the discipline of a threshing
machine is always fit subject for congratula-
ton if he has bone left in his body and that
he forgets when he reads the ambiguous COM
pliments of the Ant-Blaine press that the
Anti-Blaine press is shut up by preexsting
conditions to the Anti-Blaine view that if
Blaine had actually mastcated and swallowed
him these newspapers would have represented
him as having got the better of the controversy
by putting himself in position to seriously
disturb his antagonists digestion. 1t might
also moderate Perrys admiration for himself
if he should consider somewhat carefully the
precise meaning of the favorable notices of the
Anti Blaine newspapers. One compliments
him for his courage in undertaking the task of
worrying Blaine-the blind courage of the book.
agent, whose stubborn persistence ends in a fly
ing leap from the door to the sidewalk Another
admires his GOODNESS, which to disinterested
person was simply the assurance of the most
ridiculous vanity and self-cOncet Another
pats him on the back because he evidently
caused Blaine great uneasiness-the sort OF
compliment that may be safely paid to the mos
quito or the flea. And some of them say it is
very credtable to him that while ten members
of the committee feared to enter the lists in q
cross examination of the ex-Secretary of State.
he dared impute dishonesty to him and under
take to entrap him into confessing it, 1t hardly
need be pointed out that this is the subtle
ilattery which is sometimes paid tho twelfth
juryman who holds out against tho other
eleven, or the class of people who 3rush in
Were angels fear to tread"
None Of PerrY's tiatterers 20 further than to