The Brookhaven leader., 1890-06-12

great pile the wooden saddles of his
cavalry and the spoils of the cities and
Kingdoms he had sacked, and placed on
top of this holocaust the women who
had accompanied him in his devastat-
ing march, ordering that the torch be
put to the pile. What power broke that
sword, and stayed that red scourge of
cruelty that was rolling over Europep
The sword of Theodore and Actius.
To come down to later ages, all in
telligent Englishmen unite with all in
telligent Americans in saying that it
was the best thing that the American
colonies swung off from the Government
| of Great Britain. 1t would have been
the worst absurdity of four thousand
years if this continent should have
continued in loyalty to throne on the
other side of the sea. No one would
propose a Governor-General for the
United States as there is a Governor
General for Canada. We have had
splendid queens in our American Capt.
toll, but we could hardly be brought TO
support a Queen on the other side OF
the Atlantic, lovely and good as Vic
toria is. The only use we have for
Earls and Lords and Dukes in this
country is to treat them well when
they pass through to their hunting
grounds in the Far West, or when their
fortunes have failed, re-enforce them by
wealthy matrimonial alliance. Imagine
this nation yet part of English pos
sessions! The trouble the mother coun-
try has to-day with Ireland would be
paradisaic condition compared with the
trouble she would have with us. En-
gland and the United States make ex-
celent neighbors, but the two families
are too large to live in the same house.
What O godsend that we should have
parted, and parted long ago! But l can
think of no other way in which we could
have possibly achieved American indie
pendence. George Ill, the half-crazy
King, would not have let us go. Lord
North, his Prime Minister, would
not have let us go. General Lord
CORVALLIS would not have let us
go, although. after Yorktown he
was glad enough to have US let him go.
Lexington and Bunker Hill, and Mon
mouth, and Trenton, and Valley Forge,
were proofs positive that they were not
willing to let us go. Any committee of
Americans going across the ocean to see
what could have been done would have
found no better accommodations than
London Tower. The only way it could
have been done was by the sword-your
great-grandfather's sword. Jefferson's
pen could write the Declaration Of In
dependence, but only Washington's
sword could have achieved it, and the
other swords bathed in Heaven.
SO now the sword has its uses, al
though it is a shcathed sword. There
is not an armory in Brooklyn, or New
York, or Philadelphia, or Chicago, or
Charleston, or New Orleans, or any
American city, that could be spared.
We have in all our American cities
ruffian population who, though they are
small in number compared with the
good population, would again and again
make rough and stormy times if, back
of our mayors and common councils,
and police, there were not in the arm
cries and arsenals some keen steel
which, if brought into play, would
make quick work with mobocracy.
There are in every great COM
munity unprincipled men who like
row on a large scale, and they heat
themselves with sour mash and old rye
and other deCoctiOns, enriched with blue
vitrol, potash, turpentine, sugar of lead,
sulphuric acid, logwood, strychnine,
night-shade, and other precious in
gradients, and take down whole glass
with a resounding "Ahr' of satisfaction.
When they get that stuff in them, and
the blue vitrol collides with the potash,
and the turpentine with the sulphuric
acid, the victims are ready for any
thing but order and decency and good
government Again and again, in our
American cities, has the necessity of
home guards been demonstrated.
You remember how, when the sol
diers were all away to the war of 1853
GA, what CONGREGATIONS were kindled in
the streets of New York, and what ne
groes were hung. Some of you remem
Der the great riots in Philadelphia at
fires, sometimes kindled just for the OPP
portunity of uproar and despoliation.
In 1S49 a hiss al a theater would have
resulted in New York City being de-
molished had it not been for the citizen
soldiery.
Because of an insult which the Amer
lean actor, Edwin Forrest, had received
in England from the friends of Mr.. Mac
ready, the English actor, when the lat
ter appeared in New York in MAC
BETH" the distinguished Englishman
was Kissed and mobbed, the walls of the
city having been placarded with the
announcement: 'Shall Americans or
English Rule in This City?' Streets
were filled with crowd, insane with
passion. The riot act was read, but it
evoked louder yells and heavier volleys
of stones, and the whole city was threat
ened with violence and assassination.
But the Seventh Regiment, under Gen
eral Duryea, marched through Broad
way, preceded by mounted troops, and
at the command: Fire! Guards! Fire!"
the mob scattered, and New York was
saved. What would have become of Chi
cago, two or three years ago, when the
police lay dead in the streets, had not
the sharp command OF military
officers been given. Do not charge
such scenes upon American in
situations. They are as old as the
Ephesian mob that howled for two hours
in Paul's time about the theater, amid
the ruins of which l stood last January.
They were witnessed in 1867 in London,
when the weavcrs paraded the streets
and entered buildings to destroy the