The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1883-11-10

Not SO in New York. The man who gets
robbed in one of the vile resorts is more
apt to get arrested than the thief who
robs him. The present police institution
is so firmly grounded in our corrupt polit-
ical system that nothing can reach or
move it. The police are a compact force
firmly bound together by self-interest.
and recruited from the ward associations.
A whiskey saloon in the slums has a
hundred times more political power than
the largest church congregation. The
dead robber who was killed week ago
in a thieves den was the keeper of Il
policy shop and a rum mill. No thief in
New York was better known to the
police than Jack Walsh; but he had pc
litical power enough in his ward to elect
an alderman, and SO secured his sister
appointment as a teacher III our public
schools. | don't know that Miss Walsh
was not quite worthy of her position,
and may have been very good teacher,
but this do know, that there is hardly
an avenue of public prelerment so diff
cult of access as the teacherships in our
public schools, yet Jack Walsh did that
singlehanded and alone which not one
church congregation in twenty in the city
could do. And SO it is with all of the
departments. Our parks were never i'll
such miserable plight, yet the outlay
on them is four times what it was when
they were in the highest possible condi-
ton. This would be bad enough if we
were poor, but We are not, we are rich.
Never in the memory of living man was
there such an ostentatious and offensive
display of wealth. 1t meets you every
where. Walk Broadway of an afternoon
and dudes pass you by, sucking diamond
headed canes. They have rings on every
finger of each hand, and here and there
a supre-extra swell will wear a ring upon
his thumb. Grand danes sweep by you
laden with wealth like Spanish galleon,
wearing diamonds and jewels that would
be princes ransom. The lacquey who
blacks the boots of these monied k iEgs
is better housed, eats better food, and
wears better clothes than school teacher
or respectable mechanic.
If you want to see Dives aud Lazarus.
go to either of our grand opera houses
of an opera night. Nine tenths Of the
audience go to exhibit themselves and to
look at their neighbors, to gable scandal
and criticise the dresses. Not one in fifty
goes from the pure love of art, or who
knows artistically the difference between
pure gold and Brummagem, but they
must go to the opera. Lazarus stands
at the door surveying the dazzling splen.
eyes; he looks with envy on the we'll fed
turnkey who opens the carriage door, and
we'll he may, for the tlunkey's coat is the
finest of beaver cloth: it cost his master
eighty dollars his hat is the glossiest of
silk surrounded by baud of gold, his
boots ale fifteen dollars pair; q collar
of the finest otter keeps the wind from
his worShip's neck, and the otter gaunt-
lets on his delicate hands are twenty five
dollars a pair. Is it possible that this
gorgeous individual is only q .unlley :?
That's all. Yet Solomon i'll all his glory
was not arrayed like unto him. No Won
der there is diScon tent, when the starving
wretches that gather around the door
and shiver in the cold know and feel that
the twenty thousand dollars which is
paid by our money kings and queens for
their pleasures each opera night is wrung
from their sweat and blood, for il is the
millions of the poor who pay the opera
bills, though they die without ever hear
ing a note of fine music, Or getting {, look
at the inside of an opera house.
The tax budget of 1888 is th,rty-four
millions OF dollars, or about twenty nine
dollars head for every man, WON IN and
child in New York city. With an army
and navy and diplomatic corps, with
hundreds of millions of pensions and an
interest to pay, and a sinking fund to
provide for, sixteen hundred millions
more, legislative and judicial expenses to
provide for, and many millions for Incl
dental expenses, yet the tax imposed by
the general government amounts this
year to less than three dollars head and
counting all received from customers as
a tax, not six dollars. 1t may need 4
revolution to get rid of the army Of har-
pies who are fastened on the city's throat
and if it would only rid us of the entire
pack, fire, revolution, pestilence, or any
thing else would be welcome.
We are now in the midst Of great
disappointment. Notwithstanding the
balooning that has been given Matthew
Arnold and Mr.. Irving, they both fell as
fiat as stale beer. Every distinguished
foreigner who comes to this country
seems to be seized with the cucoethes
loquendi. They don't seem to realize that
it is one thing to speak well and another
to write we'll. Lord Coleridge could cx-
press himself like a gentleman and a
scholar, but Sargent Ballyntine made 4
regular mess of it on the platform, and
so did Matthew Arnold. His matter. no
donbt, was very elegant and scholarly, but
nobody could hear him twenty feet away,
and the cries of "Louder, louder. we can't
hear you," failed to move him, and when
man has paid five dollars for a seat he
likes to get something for his money.
Arnold's audience did not get it. Henry
Irving is another isappointment-not to
me, however, for saw him in his own
theatre in London, and if not an exceed
ingly bad actor, he seemed to me very
far from being good one. How an
actor with his offensive mannersms ever
captured the British public is a mystery.
Compared with McCready, Keene, VAN
denhoff, Young, or James Anderson. it
would be difficult to place him. lie is
not as good an actor as Barry Sullivan
or Dibden Pitt, or many others could
name, who within the last thirty years
have only occupied second or third
class position on the English stage.
will not compare him to any American
actor, for such comparison would only
be offensive, but tried by the high stand
ard of dramatic art, which has been the
model for the English stage from Gar
rick's time to the present, Henry Irving
is the smallest great actor that England
has yet produced. AS an artist deeply