Morning journal and courier., 1883-07-04
THE INGLORIoUs FOURTH.

To-day is the day when Young America declares it's independence and dictates the terms of peace, but all the same there is no peace. Nowhere upon the footstool is there another day like the Fourth of July in un- happy America. It is the one and only oc- casion when the grown-up world abdicates and the infantile world rises in successful re- bellion and tramples all authority under foot. The irrepressible small boy fires his fire cracker, thorws his torpedoes and shoots his rockets with 8 reckless disregard of life and property and nobody ventures to stand be- fore him. The Fire departments are on the alert to put out the fires, the police are on hand to carry of the dead and wounded, but nobody thinks of checking the obstreperous cause of the universal noise, misery, danger, destruction and waste. The Emperor Nero is said to have set fire to the city of Rome in order to amuse himself. Nobody thought of calling him to account for 1t, only few pa triotic citizens tried to stop the fire. To-day thousands of little Neros will blaze away at their own sweet will, and all that the repre- sentatiyes of law, order and good government will hope to do will be to put out the fires and prevent them from burning the town. The fathers and mothers of the nation, so far from doing anything towards putting down this insurrection of the youngsters, have become so cowed by years of submission that they will even purchase the ammunition to enable their obnoxious sons to blow out their eyes or the eyes of their fellows, set fire to the paternal mansion or perhaps the next house to it. The venerable judges, sstute prosecuting attorneys and vigilant chiefs of police who ordinarily very promptly send people to jail who indulge in explosions to the damage of life and property will buy pis- tols, powder and small eannons to be used by very irresponsible persons, and will even assist in shooting rockets over hundreds of shingled roofs and thousands of defenceless heads, and will notify the firemen and the police to prevent them from d oing any seri- ous damage if they can.
 Is all this a celebration of the national in- dependence? We should say it was rather a vigorous celebration of it's loss of independ- ence. Every grown-up person is consenting and conniving at, if not actually assisting in, what he knows to be absurd and senseless,  and so far from rsjoicing over the nations independence is probably in his secret heart wishing the Declaration of Independence at the bottom of the sea for the time being. Even British tyranny would be preferable to that of the small boy. The patriotic citizen cannot but reflect that while the Stars and Stripes are proudly floating in an intolerable racket and in a nasty haze of powder smoke the double cross of St. George and St. Am drew is modestly unturled in an unclouded atmosphere and in 8 decent tranquility which nobody ventures to disturb with un- lawful explosives, and will wish he could spend the day in the Queens dominions, where no one is permitted to make fool of himself. We suppose preaching will do no good, but we heartily wish the country could cut g loi of birch switches and put down this iasur- rection and return to the oId-time method ot celebrating the day, by reading the Declara tion of Independence or Washington's Fare well Address, and in listening to an oratior on the virtues of our anc estors, and, above all, when evening comes by going to bed in peace,