The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1882-05-11

MRS. JOSEPH WooDs, Of Blanches-
ter, daughter Of prominent citizen
of Chillicothe, committed suicide a
few days ago, by drinking laudanum.
GAIL HAMILTON has a most inter-
esting article in the May number Of
the North american ReUieao, the first
part of which we copy, as it is Of gen.
eral interest, now that the scientific"
doctors are asking about one hundred
thousand dollars for their able treat
ment of the late President:
THE SPENT BULLET.
Never again let this generation, at
least, hear one whimper from science
against religion. In the long war;
fare, religion has often chosen her
ground with stupidity, selected her
weapons with ignorance, and welded
her forces with passionate feebleness;
but she never made so pitiful dis
play and so futile use Of her re-
sources, as science made over the
death-bed of President Garfield.
When the question is of nebula, Of
atoms, of the rocks growth and the
earth's age, of the spirits substance,
of life's origin, of the infinite in space,
the inconceivable in time, the un-
movable in eternity,-science has it
all her own way. We cannot bridge
the chasm between mind and matter.
No man hath seen God at any time,
to prove him the Creator From the
grave no being has arisen to our eyes,
and from the stars no voice comes to
our. ears to dispute whatever the wise
men may say.
But here was solid ground for sci
ence to stand on and demonstrate her
power. She had nothing to do with
the remote, with the past, with ab-
stractions. Before her eyes, under
her hand, lay a human soul in sore
strata human life hunted into the
valley of the shadow of death, longing
to come out again into the sunshine
of the fair and open day. The whole
nation, the whole world, shared in the
longing. Whatever love and wealth
could proffer was ready to the hand Of
science. Everything that gratitude
could inspire, everything that ambi-
ton could desire, lay in wait to re-
ward the man who should conduct the
august sufferer back through the gates
Of life.
And science accepted the trust man
fully. The most celebrated and the
most accomplished brought to that
darkened chamber their highest
knowledge with ever renewed and un-
wearying effort. The railroad and the
telegraph were put under their con-
troll. No cost hindered any expert
ment or curtailed any care. The ma
ton stood behind, not only permitting,
but urging every expenditure Of brains
and money; to the same end, urged
their own self-interest, patriotism,
and humanity. Day and night they
ceased not to work and watch, and
the result was-failure, absolute, thor
ough, undisputed failure-failure so
minute and complete, that only it's
terrible gravity kept it from being RI
diculous, and not even its terrible
gravity could keep it from being gro
tesque.
Science can spin the world back be-
tween her thumb and finger billion
years, and we 60 spinning with it be-
cause we cannot help ourselves. Sci
ence can locate the soul in the grayish
matter of the brain, and we submit
because we cannot dig deeper than
that grayish matter to search for a
deeper soul. But when science comes
into practical realm where we can
prove or disprove her accuracy, her
keenest scent for truth, her finest
touch of skill is to grope till the man
is dead, and then find the bullet in
wash-bowl. Nescience could do that.
What availed science to Garfield?
She never treated or touched the
wound which the bullet made, and
which she was summoned to heal.
She never even found it. She made
two CHASTITY wounds herself, and for
eighty days she clawed at them. The
bullet which the surgeons could not
find, nature carefully encysted. The
bullet-wound which they never touch
ed, nature safely and silently healed.
Surgical science is reduced to the
pitiful claim that she alone kept Gar
field alive for eighty days. This is
suicidal self-relegation to the unprov-
able. Routed on the tangible field of
fact, she fees to the cloud-land of
speculation, and again throws up in
trenchments. So claimed the pious
and thrifty Winchester for bluff King
Hal
1.-THE church's prayers made him prosperous
And as grim Gloster thundered back:
"The church, Where is itg
lis Hfa hpesd hGt of e ha nS So soon decaye
so in response to this claim, which
can never be demonstrated, is it equal
ly irrefutable and perfectly fair to say:
Hs R2edd de Of f soon
Nescience has precisely the same
right and the same reason to speculate:
take man in perfect health, and give
him into the control of surgeons, un-
wounded, and let them make two such
wounds as Garfield suffered at his sur
geons' hands, and let them bore into
these wounds every day as Garfeld's
wounds were bored sometimes
with seven different catheters of
different sizes at single dressing,
and let them feed the man as Gar
field was fed, and furnish him with
the malarious air that Garfield
breathed, and seauester him as Gar
field was sequestered,-and not ons
man in ten thousand would survive
the horror Of it for eighty days!