The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-14

The late Matthew Arnold, while visiting
Boston reading room, saw a little bare
footed newsboy sitting in one of the best
chairs reading the Life of Washington"
Arnold said: There is not a reading
room in all Europe where that boy,
dressed as he is, could enter. The reading
Of that one book may change the whole
course Of that boys life, and may be the
means of making him useful, honorable,
worthy citizen of this great country"
Mr.. Arnold saw and confessed that I'M
der our popular institutions natures
nobility had chance to get upward and
onward that was practically denied
them even in Great Britain. England's
army and naval heroes are, with few
exceptions, children of the aristocracy,
the gentry or the well-to-do middle
classes. There is scarcely representa-
tive of the poor, peasant class, from which
Webster, Lincoln and Sheridan sprung.
Cromwell won his own spurs as absolutely
as Bonaparte, but neither Cromwell or
Bonaparte would have found any way open
to fame if revolution had not made a
the hands that proved the best title to
WELD it. Under Charles the First English
men went to defeat and disgrace under an
aristocratic incompetent like Buckingham,
whose title to command was the favor of
his king. \ Cromwell was no more pos
sible under an English court than a Bona
parte under the court of Louis the Six
stock, and owed his first rise to the fact
that he was the favorite lover of one of
Charles the Seconds mistresses, and 10
the still more dsgraceful fact that his
own sister was the mistress of James the
Second, the mother by him OF an able
soldier. the Duke Of Berwick. Wellington
was the son of Lord Mornington, and the
brother of the Marquis Wellesley. Nelson
was the son of a clergyman of the Church
of England, and owed his midshiplnan's
appointment 10 aristocratic interest.
Family influence gave Give his clerkship
in the East India Company. \ sudden
attack on the company's factory gave the
clerk chance TO prove that he was born
soldier, and he owed his advancement not
10 the English government, but to the
gratitude and confidence of the East India
Company.
Lord Clyde (Sir Colin CampbelD is the
only English general of distinction who
sprung from poor, peasant stock, and yet
he waited long and YEARLY for the promo
ton so CALAMITY earned. His real name
was not Campbell, but he changed it 10
help his advancement, and he was so
| ashamed OF his humble origin that he
never visited his old parents when he be-
| came famous. Campbell entered the Eng
lish army in 1879, fought CALAMITY under
Wellington at Waterloo, rendered distin-
| guished service in every quarter of the
| globe in all the wars waged by England
after Waterloo, and vet when the
| Crimean war broke ont in 1884 he
was, after forty-tive years service,
| only brjgadier commanding the High
| land brigade. His commander-in-chief
was Lord Raglan, who entered the ser
| vice in 1904 and was on Wellington's staG
| AT Waterloo Lord Raglan after Waterloo
never saw any service of consequence,
and yet forty years after Waterloo found
| Raglan eommsnder-in-chief. while Camp
! bell, wearing the laurels of long years of