The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-08-09
THE ARCTIC BUSINESS.
lPeck,s sua.l

THE ARCTIC BUSINESS.
 tPeck,s Sun.l tae
 The government has lately succeeded in just about getting its seed hack" l" in the result of the Greedy rescue. The government planted twenty-five healthy men in the iceberRs in the vicinity of the north pole, two years ago, and has nov harvested crop of six men nearly alive, and seventeen corpses of good men frozen and starved, hrought home in tanlEs of alcohol, and an to make New York holiday. When a lot ofdead bodies and few live ones are brought home from the Arctic, New York turns out to welcome the living and curiously stare at the cofins of the dead, flags are raised at halfmast, bands play dirses up Fifth avenue, and opera airs down Broadway, on its return from the funeral ceremonies, the sur vivors go to their respective asylums for the insane and blind, friends of the dead all over the country 60 into more quiet mourning, politicians get . chance to make speeches about our glorious and enterprising country, and the affair is over until another party returns from the Arctic in refrgerators. To men and wo- men who like ,to live and see others live this Arctic expedition business seems idiosie. The results do not amount to . row of pins to any person in this country that our citizens should go of into ice bergs to die. There are facilities for dy- ing right here at home, where brave men can pass in their chips surrounded by friends, and be cremafed instead of served on ice. The death of these seven teen men has resulted in naming some new icebergs after Bobby Lincoln, Chester Arthur, and one or two other persons whose names are not familiar, and be- lief that two men and eight dogs went few miles further north with Fourth of July flag than any other lunatics and dogs, from any other nation, have gone. What is the use of that flag up there, sticking out of the snow? Nobody will ever see 1t. There is not even a sign or adver- tisement of liver cure on the flag, or recipe for curing chilblains. The geog- raphers will, it is true, hereafter have hy-speck on the atlas, with the names of the politicians who were holding oflice in I884 stenciled in the vicinity, for children to get headache over in school, but no- body in all the earth is going to be wiser or happier or wealthier because those icebergs have been christened by explor- es chewing their sealskin boots, full of frozen toes. What shall it profit . country to gain few icebergs on its maps, when the discoverers have to eat dog harnesses, and die of starvation, and have to be brought home in sealed cans like pickles5 The act of trying to pene- trate the frozen north is as foolish as it would be foi men to take row-boat and go out to frozen lake Michigan, the cold est day in the winter, to sec how far they could go on the ice without breaking in. lf they could go farther than anybody else had been, and stick up an advertise. ment of clothing store, and then drown. and have their bodies recovered h the spring, it would be on par with arctic exploring, as far as glory is concerned. If this land that is discovered, CT which is supposed to be, under the ice and snow, could be utilized to raise beans, or lift could be cultivated for any practical good, there might be an excuse for this starving to death some of the bravex men we have, but the country is no good on earth, and the whole of it, from Fort Conger to the North Pole, is not worth the life of a single man. Every man, official or scientist, newspaper man or lunatic, who is responsible for the send ing of an expedition to that country, for saken by God and detested by msn, should be ashamed, and the ghosts of the victims should malDe the lives of pro- moters of expeditions intolerable. Off, cers like Greedy, who want glory, can ob- tain 1t nearer home without imperiline lives. Officers like Melville, who 70 on expeditions of danger because they can- not live peacesbfy at home, can find safer relief in the divorce courts, where there is no danger of freezing to death, or being compelled to eat rzw dog and boot straps. Secretaries of navies can ind enough to occupy their brains in scraping barnacles of from roeting yes. sells, or conducting political campaigns, 90 that they need not organize expeditions to die. If either of the political parties at their recent conventions had inserted plank in their platforms to the effect that no more North Pole expeditions should be sent out, that parry would have struck key note that would have en- deared it to people who do not care continental what other nation discovers icebergs the fartherest north. The gov- eznment should now bsry is dead de- gently, pension the survivors, and organ ire company of sharp shooters to kill men who show the first symptoms of arctic lunacy.
 The best is Browns Iron Tonic.
 A Cheap Pair of Pictures.
 For forty cents we will mail, postpaid, to any address, the splendid colored en- gravings The ArkansAw Traveler and