St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1885-05-02
COLLAPSED.
Disappearance of the ..Saming' and Court
Martial Bugbears.

Disappearance of the "Samins" and Court.
Martial Bugbears.
The collapse of a 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 NAV
be the comparatively innOcuous '.sand
man." whose worst fear is putting sand
i'll their ewes 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 SUBJ
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-eNistence is discOv-
cred and the disenthralled youngster
revels in 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 unhappilv as the child does be-
fore those invented for his repression.
There have been two, in particular.
which have long enioved 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 buobear
which had done duty for generations in
the British Parliament. the awful bug
bear OF being named by the Speaker.
1t was a 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 bein.
named" But for this very reason the
bare threat of a Speaker to .name''
member has always been sufficient to
reduce the most turbulent to subsection.
The effect not being defined, the imari-
nation pictured the threat as full of all
the direst possibilities from the
anathema maranatha TO annihlation:
and no one. consequently. dared to
brave the operation. But during the
past week venturesome Irish member
what will not an Irishman renture?-
drove the maddened Speaker into
spottin@ out the venerable bugbear and
actually naming the member. For a
the House held its breath with
a feeling that chaos might possibly be
coming. Then, as nothing happened.
they began to inquire what naming,
actually amounted to. pnly to find that
i simply involved suspension from the
floor for a week. And the venerable
bugbear was dead past all hope of
About the same time. on the other
side of the ocean. in the land of the
free. etc. (see patriotic songs). another
bugbear Welded up the ghost.
Like its British cousin it had held its
place for generations, exercising chief
sway over the men-at-armS who serve
heir country on the tented field and
in office ut Washington.
1t was the bugbear called court-martial.
For untold years it had been held up
before the military eye as frishtfui,
iwesome contingency which must on no |
account be dared. But IN an evil hour
q court-martial was actually called in |
he case of Judge Advocate General
Swain and by the time the proceedings
we're brought to a close the time-hon-
bred bugbear had ceased to be service
able. 1t will be trotted out again, per-
laps. with its tattered garments patched
md its hideous lineaments outlined in
chastity colors. But its power to in
'pire terror is gone forever. While it
vas vague and indefinable horror
which might mean anything, the soldier
'hrank from it with tremor which no
,elching battery or shower of leaden
ain and iron hail had power to produce.
Now that he knows it means only half
BAY and no work he can no longer he
.tfrighted with it.
The British loss We can moi regret,
or it does not affect us; but it really is
pity that a good working bugbear like
he court-martial should be suddenly
md hopelessly dethroned. The worst
# it is We have nothing to replace it.
There is the ''reprimand, it is true,
which has often done good service in
he bugbear line. and the efficiency of
which is not wholly destroyed. There
3 fear. however. that in the reckless
less engendered by the discovery that
naming" member of Parliament is
lot equivalent to a death warrant and
hat court-martial is rather pleasant
'icnic, some one may compel the rep
also to show its colors. And
he minute it does that it, too. is doomed.
Detroit Free Press.