The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1888-05-18
COWARD or HERO?
EVERY MAN PROBABLY HAS THE IN
NATE CAPACITY TO De EITHER,

EVERY MAN PROBABLY HAS THE IN
NATE CAPACITY TO BE EITHER,
And He is Quito Likely to he thc Other
on Occasion, if Circumstances Favor.
Heroes Are Of Different Breeds and
Natures.
An Indian lad ut 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
q 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 I have been in forty-two
fights of one sort or another. AT any rate, l
have becl under fire at least on twenty diff
ferelt occasions, and my experience leads me
to the belief that though any man has the in
nate capacity to be q 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,
I would tell that man, if he were smaller
than myself, and there was good reason to
believe he had no revolver in his hip pocket,
that he trifed with facts. Nevertheless, be
it said, I have seen such a man daring to look
calmly at a shell bursting close on his SIMS
ter hand, and yet ducking at the "sifling" Of
q conical bullet, though if he knew enough
to tell an oyster from u clam he must have
been aware that when any one hears the IF
NV" of a bullet that bullet is fai past hiii1,
and incapable of finding its billet in him I'M
less it ricochets like a 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 tic
platoon that shot them without a culver OF
the lip or the futter of a pulse. Some peo-
pies courage is better Oil the start; indigna-
ton, impulse, revenge all play their part in
this sort of courage. But the truer courage
is calmly to face a danger that is realized.
Carey, who deserted the Prince Imperial III
Zululand in a moment Of panic, might have
resolutely stormed a breach in a happier hour.
Many o man who proudly wears the bronze
cross ''for valor'' in the British army prob
ably wonders how the inspiration came upon
him to earn it.
Hearing some firing one day in central
Asia, I 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 mea turned
out in the camp Of the nearest line regiment,
as he chad feared q 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
tality. This was all there was Of it, and the
old 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 a 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-
ton. "Forty men to lead the ~sortie!" he
said on one occasion; ''ten will be killed"
Four hundred volunteered and thirty were
killed. But the general who was inspired
months before, by the idea omne ignotum
pro magnifco led that sortie all the same and
did not gain the death he sought. Ono of tho
bravest officers I ever knew had been NOR
tally wounded in the leg and was hoistcd Oh
to O camel. Presently he cried, "Take mo
down, they are shooting at me-" So loss Of
blood and physical pain in this case turned q
hero into a coward.
The beau sabreur is the popular ideal Of Il
hero, but is he the finest hero after ali?
Skobeleff the younger saole in both phases
of the character, but in his heart lie
cherished more the thought of his tenacity
on the Green hills ct 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, ''the captain" as the Turks
called him, prided himself more OIL his
successful dash up the slopes Of hizil Icoe in
Armenia than Oh his heroic defense of Iai.i
against an apparently overwhelming folcecf
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 a Pole i'll the Ottoman.
service. Yes; heroes are of different breeds
and natures, but none The less heroes, what
ever their manifestation Of t:,e heroic quality.
It is q curious Illustration Of the atsurdity,
not of the special decorations for heroisra,
but of tho popular appreciation Of tiscln, 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 in civil life, while a whole page
is devoted to the Victoria Cross. Yet it was
said by the great teacher greater love hath
no man than this, than u man lay down his
life for his friends" How much less can it
be to lay down Or desperately risk ones life
for q Observation-Disclosures" i'll New York
Times.