Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1886-08-26

IL,
or In private. If they earn the money thus put
at risk they can apply it to a much better pur-
pose; but the real danger Is that youngsters
who once acquire the habit will be tempted to
procure the means necessary for its indulgence
by other than honest ways.
The Rev. James Beecher, whose suicide at
Elmira last evening Is described in the press
dispatches. was the most eccentric member of a
family noted the world around for their eccen-
tricities. The mania which chiefly possessed
him was craving to get away from the COM
mon resorts of men. A dozen years ago he was
pastor Of astonishing church in Poughkeepsie;
but, in one of his walks abroad. he found bit
OF untrod wilderness among the mountains of
Ulster county which so fascinated him that he
resigned his charge at once and went thither to
live. He built a rude dwelling with his own
hands, nine miles from the nearest highway,
and almost Us far from any human neighbour.
Here he lived for years, preaching on Sundays
TO the woodsmen and berry-pickers, who gath
cred at a distant schoohouse to hear him. He
was a great favorite with these people; and his
wife, who Joined him after while in his her
mitage, spent her time and money literally for
the improvement of the women and children
OF the region. A peculiar feature of the clergy
mans insanity was that he recognized its ex-
istence, and voluntarily placed himself under
course of treatment for its cure.
Greater assurance was certainly never eXhi-
bited than that shown yesterday by Parsons
the anarchist, in sending out from the Jail in
which he Is confined what he Is pleased to re-
gard as an answer to the speeches lately deliv-
cred by Mr.. Powderly and Mr.. Blaine. In the
face of the fact that twelve good men and true,
acting under the solemn responsibilities of a
most binding oath, have convicted him and his
fellows of murder in its most cowardly and in
human form, ne has the effrontery TO challenge
Mr. Powderly to find a man who can truthfully
say that he, as socialist or anarchist, has ever
advocated or countenanced the destruction Of
life or property, 1t becomes man in the posi-
ton occupied by Parsons and his fellows to
withdraw himself as far possible from pub
lie attention, and in this course he ought to
have the friendly aid OF the telegraph and the
press. They should secure for him the silence
and seclusion mis- character deserves and he
meantime had better be giving his time to re-
pentance and prayer, leaving the business of
understanding to his fellow murderers who
have not yet felt the strong hand of the law
One of the dispatches from Windsor VT de-
scribing the accident to Senator Evarts' car
riage, speaks or MIR. Charles c. Perkins, OF Bos-
ton as a gentleman artist" This is O term
which would have given Richard Grant White
q text for a whole magazine article. If the pre-
TX gentleman" was designed merely to indi-
cate Tue sex, IL seems as ii IL might
have been omitted, in viewof the publication OF
his baptlsmal name, Charles, and the abund-
ant sprinkling of the paragraph with mascu-
line pronouns. II its force lay in its social sig
nifcance, the art world will learn with aston
tshment that its male membership includes SO
few gentlemen as to make q verbal distinction
necessary. There Is only one other hypothesis
left-the use of the term to indicate a person
who does not work for his living-and that mean
Ing for gentleman" let US give thanks, is still
unfamiliar TO American ears.