Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-09-26
4 o01IETARY C0MMENT.


The San Francisco E1u,niner comments
with a wonderful exhibition of vanity
upon an informal and generalized letter to
it at its request from Professor Holden
upon the work thus far accomplished at
the Lick O,a>rra.ory. This vas vel
enough. It is right thing for journal
to cla.@i - e.ta.. es......,..ci, 10 Gac.
But there is point in blowing the
bazoo, to pass beyond which is to make the
selfconceited blower an ass. For instance,
hear our contemporary
1t is in this connection a ground for deem re-
gret that Professor Proctors untimely death
should have preceded our publication of Prof
Holden's report. Imbued with the spirit of
journalistic enterprise, and himself q valued
correspondent of the Examiner, Professor Proctor
would nave felt personal pleasure at our being
the channel through which the resesTches;at the
Mount Hamilton observatory are given to the
public
Ungrateful Proctor; why did you not
postpone your dying until the San Fran
cisco Eraminer "got good ready? ?"
Perhaps, however, it was well that Proc
tor passed away, great as was his loss to
the world, before the channel" gave
these lines to the public eye, and which
would have narrowed his agonized soul:
The comets are a perpetual menace in our
placid skies, and the supeTstitious awe with
which they were contemplated by our fore
fathers hes been replaced by dread not less
tremendous. 1t is as if the air were thick with
shells, the collision of any two of which would
lay waste our habitation. 1t is an
appalling thought that the time may come when
those whom we depute to search the sky for us
shall apprise of an imminent catastrophe of so
resistless a nature. Scarcely any less horrid
announcement could thoroughly arouse us from
our petty preoecupations Less than year ago
yellow river floods and the matter was forgot
ten IN fortnight. Tomorrow, it may be, we
snail learn fhat not oniy our personal existence
OF our lives are about to be swept away.
Great goodness, think of that And after
Proctor had declared, as he did in his
lecture in this city and as cometary re-
search has almost established as GER
tainty that the nucleus and the coma as
well as the tails of comets are gaseous in
character. Indeed it is the accepted
theory by most astronomers that even the
possible solid in any comets head is in
earth. The visual contact of the great
comet of 1882 with the edge OF the solar
disk, and its sudden disappearance as it
passed between us and the sun reduced
quite te certainty the gaseous theory, and
this is fortified BIZ spectroscopic proofs.
The truth is the superstitious fears of the
EIaminer are in direct conflict with the
great burden Of astronomic authority that
comets are gaseous and harmless, and pos
sibiy, nay probably, important contribu-
tors to cur atmosphere Of constituents of
which it would but for them have been |
reduced to dangerous poverty. At any
rate the world knows, if the Examiner does
not, that for unnumbered ages members of |
the planetary system, including the earth, as |
Proctor himself held, have been sweeping |
through comets tails and possibly at times
through their gaseous heads, securing
through these erratic visitors lengthwise, !
crosswise and otherwise, and will continue |
to do so through all time Still, here |
comes the mightier authority, the Er-
Gntn.r, to overtun our faith, warning us |
that tomorrow, perhaps to-day, comet |
may come crashing along and knock the |
Erdminer's personal existence" spinning;
unloese the tenter hooks Of creation, wipe
celestial space with the Democratic party, |
and put the tariff question to eternal rest |
Er has been repeatedly stated that the |
Constitution of the late Confederate Gov |
ernment favored free trade. Recognizing |
the fact that the body which framed that |
document was composed wholly Of Demo
Gratis, men distinguished in the party for
their fealty to it, and who in better days
had proved their Democracy to be fine in
the grain, a correspondent ill-informed
upon the subject, ard who is also Demo-
cratic, asks what was the fact A mere
reference to the Constitution of the Con-
federate States of America, obtainable in
most libraries, would have better answered
the question. 1t was opposed to the pro-
tective principle, for it distinctly declared
that no duties, or taxes, on importations
from foreign nations should be levied to
promote or foster any branch of industry.
1t required that the levy of export duties
should be made only by concurrence of
a two thirds vote of each of the houses of
Congress. The Constitution was a pro-
visional one, bnt there is no reason to be-
lieve that had the Confederacy succeeded
any modification Of the instrument in
this respect would have been made.
1t is not an insignificant fact to be con-
sidered in this connection that the ma
iority of the committee in Congress that
reported and urge the Mills bill, upon
which the coming election now hinges, are
from the South, we're of the Confederacy
and believed in and sustained its Conslitu-
ton. 1t is also fact equally worthyof
thought that when one g!ances at to-day's
Democratic leadership it is discovered that
oli-time Democrats who do not believe in
free trade, are noticeable by their absence
from the front rank of advocates in this
.ca.npai-n. 4 San Francisco contemporary
names some of these; as, the brilliant and