The Bossier banner., 1885-04-23
COLLAPSED.
Disappearance of the ''Naming'' and Court
Martial Bugbears.


Martial Bugbears.
The collapse of bugbear is an event.
Few American children come to mans
or woman estate without experiencing
thrill of pleasure at the discovery that
some terror to which they have been
paying the homage of fear for years is
pure creature of the imagination, in
vented for their express benefit. 1t may
be the comparatively innocuous "sand
man." whose worst fear is putting sand
in their eyes to drive them all too early
to bed; or it may be the grim goblin of
an hundred names and ten times as
many shapes whose predicted coming to
swallow or otherwise destroy has sub
dued their widest tempests of infantile
rage and sent them covering to the
nurses arms or some other hiding
place. Whatever it is, soon or late its
harmlessness or non-eXistenee is discoY-
cred and the disenthralled youngster
revels in a joyful sense of freedom
which few experiences of after-life par
allel or approach.
There are grown-up bugbears, how
ever, before which the adult world trem-
bles as unhappily as the child does be-
fore those invented for his repression.
There have been two, in particular,
which have long enjoyed dominion;
and by singular coincidence they have
both fallen from their high estate in the
same week-almost on the same day.
One of them was the awful bugbear
which had done duty for generations in
the British Parliament, the awful bug
bear of being named" by the Speaker.
1t was remarkable illustration of the
power which an unknown terror pos
sesses. Nobody within the recollection
of any human being now living ever
was named by the Speaker. Nobody
ever had the slightest idea what the
consequences would be of being
named" But for this very reason the
bare threat of a Speaker to name a
member has always been sufficient to
reduce the most turbulent to subsection.
The effect not being defined, the imagi-
nation pictured the threat as full of all
the direst possibilities from the
anathema maranatha to annihilation;
and no one, consequently, dared to
brave the operation. But during the
past week a venturesome Irish member
what will not an 1rishman yenture?-
drove the maddened Speaker into
spotting out the venerable bugbear and
actually naming the member. For a
moment the House held its breath with
feeling that chaos might possibly be
coming. Then, as nothing happened,
they began to inquire what snamingn
actually amounted to, only to find that
it simply involved suspension from the
floor for week. And the venerable
bugbear was dead past all hope of
resurrection.
About the same time, on the other
side of the ocean, in the land of the
free, etc. (see patriotic songs) another
venerable bugbear yielded up the ghost.
Like its British cousin it had held its
place for generations, exercising chief
sway over the men-at-arms who serve
their country on the. tented field and
occasionally in office at Washing grOn.
1t was the bugbear called court-martiaL
For untold years it had been held up
before the military eye as frightful,
awesome contingency which must on no
account be dared. But In an evil hour
court-martial was actually called in
the case of Judge Advocate General
Swain and by the time the proceedings
were brought to a close the time-hon-
ored bugbear had ceased to be service
able. 1t will be trotted out again, per-
haps, with its tattered garments patched
and its hideous lineaments outlined in
ghastly colors. But its power to in.
spire terror is gone forever. While il
was vague and indefinable horror
which might mean anything, the soldier
shrank from it with tremor which nc
belching battery or shower of leader
/ rain and iron hail had power to produce
Now that he knows it means only hal
| pay and no work he can no longer be
affrighted with it.
The British loss we can not regret
for it does not affect us; but it really il
| pity that good working bugbear like
the court-martial should be suddenly
and hopelessly dethroned. The wors
of it is we have nothing to replace it
| There is the ''reprimand,n it is true
| which has often done good service il
| the bugbear line. and the efficiency O
which is not wholly destroyed. There
is fear, however, that in the reckless
ness engendered by the discovery tha
naming a member of Parliament il
not equivalent to death warrant anC
that a court-martial is rather pleasan
picnic, some one may compel the rep
rimand" also to show its colors. Ant
the minute it does that it, too, is doomed
| Detroit Free Press.
| -
just a Family Affair.