Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1890-06-06

Here, Attla, the heather monster, called
by himself the "Scourge of God, for the
punishment of Christians" his life a mas
sacre of nations, came to ignominious de
feat, and he put into one 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 o ! in
his devastating 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
Europe? The sword of Theodore and
Actius.
THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES.
To como down to later ages, all inteli-
gent Englishmen unite with all intelligent
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
1000 years if this continent should have
continued in loyalty to a throne on the
other side of the sea. No one would pro
pose a governor general for the United
States rs there is a governor general for
Canada. We have had splendid queens in
our American capital, but we could hardly
be brought to support n queen on the
other side of the Atlantic, lovely and good
as Victoria is The only use we have for
earis 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, REINFORCE them by wealthy matr-
monial alliance Imagine this nation
yet a part of English possessions!
The trouble the mother country has
today with Ireland would be a
trouble she would have with us. England
and the United States make excellent
neighbors, hut the two families are too
large to live in tho same house What a
godsend that we should have parted, and
parted long ago But | can think of no
other way in which we could have possibly
achieved American independence George
III, the halt crazy king, would not have let
us go. Lord North, his prime minister,
would not have let us go, Gen. Lord Corn
wallis would not have let US go, although
after Yorktown he was glad enough to
have us let him go. Lexington, and Bun
ker Hill, and Monmouth and Trenton, and
Valley Forge were proofs positive that
they were not willing 20 let us go Any
committee of Americans going across the
ocean to see what could have been done
would have found no better accommoda-
tions than London Tower. The only way
it could have been done was by the sword,
your great-grandfather's sword, Jetfer-
sons pen could write the Declaration of
Independence, but only Washington
sword could have achieved it, and the other
swords bathed in heaven.
1T Is A sHEATHED SWORD.
So now the sword has its uses, although
it is sheathed sword There is not an
=
Philadelphia, or Chicago or Charleston. or
New Orleans, or anv American city, that
could be spared We have in all our Amcri-
can cities q r1lffian population, who,
though they are small in number, com
pared with the good population, would
again and again make rough and stormy
times it, back of our MAYORS and common
councils and police, there were not in the
armories and arsenals some keen steel
which, if brought into play, would make
quick work with mobocracy There are in
every great community unprincipled men,
who like a row on a large scale, and they
heat themselves with sour mash and old
rye and other decoctions, enriched with
blue vitriol, potash, turpcntine, sugar Of
lead sulphurio acid, logwood, strychnine.
night shade and other precious ingredients.
and take down a whole glass with re-
sounding "Ahl" of satisfaction When
they get that stuff in them and the blue
vitriol collides with the potash, and the
turpentinc with the sulphuric acid, the vic
Tins are ready for anything but order and
dcccncy and good government Again and
again, in our American cities, has the ne
cessity of home guards been demonstrated.
You remember how, when the soldiers
We're all away to the war ia 1864, what
contagrations were kindled in the streets
of New York, and what negroes were hung.
Some of you remember the grent riots in
Philadelphia at fires, sometimes kindled
Just for the opportunity of uproar and de-
spoliation. In 1s49 hiss at a theatre would
have resulted in New York city being de.
molished had it not been for the citizen
soldiery. Because of an insult which the
American actor, Edwin Forrest, had re-
ceived in England from the friends of Mr..
Macready, the English actor, when the lat
ter appeared in New York, in Macbeth, the
distinguished Englishman was Missed 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