Wichita eagle., 1888-05-05
-SsSNALlAw
ga1ly Eagle
COWARD OR HERO?
EVERY MAN PROBABLY HAS THE IN
NATE CAPACITY TO BE ETHER,

on Occasion. if Circumstances Favor.
Heroes Are of Different Breeds and
Natures.
An Indian lad at school recently produced
an essay on the subject Of courage, which
had, as the young ladies say, quite a sue
cess" in the way of circulation. If that suck
ing brave had lived from half a century to
century ago he would not have written,
though he might have acted, the sort of
moral courage of which he speaks Some
people say that l have been in forty two
fights of one sort or another. At any rate, l
have been under fire at least on twenty diff
ferent occasions, and my experience leads me
to tie belief that though any man has the in
nate capacity to be hero. every man is
more or less of a coward, and most men more
rather than less at the start. Every old
soldier despises shell fire; yet if any old
soldier were to tell me that he did not feel
awfully like either fainting or being sick at
the first shell which burst actually near him,
would tell that man, if he were smaller
than myself, and there was good reason to
believe he had no revolver i'll his hip pocket,
that he trifled with facts. Nevertheless, be
it said, have seen such a man daring to look
ter hand, and yet ducking at the ''sif1iing" of
q conical bullet, though if he knew enough
to tell an oyster from clam he must have
been aware that when any one hears the off
f-w" of bullet that bullet is far past him,
and incapable of finding its billet in him un-
less it ricochets like boomerang.
The man who bolts today may tomorrow
earn the Victoria cross in the English service
or the cross of st. George in that of the car
There are plenty of instances Of men con-
demned for cowardice who have faced the
platoon that shot them without culver Of
the lip OF the fiutter of pulse. Some peo-
pies courage is better on the start; indigna-
ton, impulse, revenge all play their part in
this sort of courage. But the trIler courage
is calmly to face danger that is realized.
Carey. who deserted the Prince Imperial in
Zululand in a moment of panic, might have
resolutely stormed a breach in happier hour.
Many man who proudly wears the bronze
cross ''for yalorn in the British army prob
ably wonders how the inspiration came upon
him to earn it.
Hearing some firing one day in central
Asia, and three others who had been out for
an afternoon ride jumped a little river into
the camp and pelted away down its main
street in the direction of the shots. As we
passed headquarters a general officer begged
us to stay with him and get the men turned
out in the camp of the nearest line regiment,
as he chad feared surprise from the town
all along" One of the party stopped be-
cause he was on that generals particular
staff, but the rest, unbuttoning their holsters,
galloped on. Five poor fanatics, carrying
rusty blades under their sheepskin coats, had,
as a chaplain observed prayed themselves
silly" in a mosque and then had lost their few
remaining wits through hasheesh, SO they
sought immortality and at least ended NOR
tally. This was all there was of il, and the
Did general was vastly reserved that night.
Yet that same old general had been in the
Crimean trenches and in the mutiny fight
ing in India, and he showed he was no cow
ard nine months later. Was he q coward
that day the Ghazis from the bazaar attacked
the camp. Why, certainly. But he was a
coward on impulse and a hero on calcula-
bon. Forty men to lead the Sortie!' he
said on one occasion; item will be killed"
Four hundred volunteered and thirty were
killed. But the general who was inspired
months before, by the idea omne ignotum
pro magnifico led that sortie all the same and
did not gain the death he sought. One of the
bravest officers l ever knew had been NOR
tally wounded in the leg and was hoisted on
to a camel Presently he cried, Take me
down, they are shooting at mel" So loss Of
blood ard physical pain in this case turned
hero into a coward.
The beau sabreur is the popular ideal of a
hero, but is he the finest hero after all!
Skobeletf the younger shone III both phases
of the character, but in his heart he
cherished more the thought of his tenacity
on the Green hills at Plevna than his dash
into Khiva, or his swim under fire across the
Danube, or his planned movement to take
the central redoubt on the Tehataldja lines
at Constantinople. On the other hand,
Mehemet Bey, 1.-The captain" as the Turks
called him, prided himself more on his
successful dash up the slopes of Kill Tepe in
Armenia than on his heroic defense of Yahni
against an apparently overwhelming force of
Russians, or even upon his defense of one Of
the forts at Arabian, for which the generous
Muscovites mentioned him with approval IN
their dispatches, none the less readily, per-
haps, because he was Pole in the Ottoman
service Yes; heroes are Of different breeds
and natures, but none the less heroes, what
ever their manifestation of the heroic quality.
1t is a curious illustration of the absurdty,
not of the special decorations for heroism,
but of the popular appreciation of them, that
neither of the two most widely circulated Of
British annual books of reference takes the
slightest notice either of the Humane society
medals for life saving or of the Albert medal
for heroism Ill civil life, while VIII ole page
is devoted 70 the Victoria Cross. Yet 1t was
said by the great teacher greater love hath
no man than this, than q man lay down his
life for bis friends" How much less cen it
be to lay down or desperately risk ones life |
for a strangerF-"Cuilrathen" in New York
Times.