Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-11
HISTORY NOT INFALLIBLE
twRrrrEN roR rHr pIspArcH.1

On the day Of recent execution in the
county jail the morning papers all contained
elaborate accounts detailing mtnutely, FOL
the delectation Of the public which is sup
| posed to be interested In that sort OF thing
the entire progress of the tragedy to the END
But, OF these accounts, no two agreed TO
| gether. At a certain hour OF q certain day
certain man was hanged by the neck Till
| he was dead. In that fact they all agree
But, beyond that, these eye-witnesses, who
| wrote down what they saw in the very mo
ment in which they saw it, said one this, and
another that. Ono reporter declared that
the prisoner met his fate with courage
another declared that he was coward; q
third noted the fervency with which he said
his prayers and kissed little silver crucif1x,
The accounts might have been SO many de-
scrfptiens of half dozen different events
They were taken from half dozen different
points of view. That is the secret of 1t.
But what train of reflection is started
concerning the accuracy of history. II half.
dozen contemporary historians, actual eye.
witnesses of the behavior of q criminal in
the instant of his encounter with death. fail
to agree, what shall we think Of records
written down hundred years after the
EVENT. History is not infallible. That Is
certain. For history is always written by
historians, and historians share with all the
rest of us the common possession ofa human
nature. And human nature is prone to
error as the sparks fly upward.
In the Case of Columbus.
IT rs worth while to remember this in
evitable inaccuracy Of history in reading, as
we are all reading just now, the various
biographies OF Christopher Columbus.
Columbus, having been dead nearly 400
years, is.a perfectly safe man to abuse. And
he is getting his share of sturdy criticism.
Unfortunately. the centenary of the dis
coverer occurs at a time when nothing f5 so
popular as heresy; that is, when all people
are interested in any idea which is quite
different from the traditional idea. Henry
VIII. has long had a bad name, therefore.
welcome to Mr.. Froude who makes a hero
out of him. He shall be made professor Of
history in the University OF Oxford. Colum-
bus has been one of our great people, there
fore applause for Mr.. Wtnsor who begins by
showing that he was pirate, and in the end
leaves him no sort of decent reputation
whatsoever. We do not any longer agree
with Irving in decrying that pernicious
erudition which busies itself with under
mining the pedestals of our national monu-
ments." On the contrary, we encourage it.
Really, let us at least try to believe, this
hospitality to new truth is not so much re-
truth. We want to know the truth. We
are not content with anything short Of It.
And we are prepared by experience, and by
knowledge of human nature, to find that
even the most venerable of historians, like
the most veracious Of reporters, is liable to
error
Damaging the Discoverer's Character.
ALL this, after some centuries Of lauda-
ton, is damaging to the fair fame of Christie
pher Columbus. For while Columbus did
discover America he was not saint, nor
was he even. In all respects, our ideal of
hero. Columbus is being found out. The
combined result is that we are learning that
there are good many important facts in
the life of Columbus which at this late day
it seems that nobody is likely to find out.
Nobody knows where Columbus was born.
Probably in Genoa. ..t.-.%
Nobody knows when Columbus was born
Probably about 1448.
It is certain that he WAS from his earliest
youth exceedingly fond of water and Of
geography. He had relatives-though the
relationship is not certain, at all events
there were men of his name-who were
pirates carrying on an active business in
the Mediterranean and adjacent seas. He
cast in his lot with these corsair cousins Of
his, and got, probably, upon these expedi-
tions his first extended acquaintance with
the great deep. Several times, with other
seamen, bent on an errand which in that day
was much more respectable than piracy, he
went slave-trading to the coast of Guinea.
He also journeyed north, touching at Eng
land, where Henry VII. was the King, and GO
ing on, SO it is thought, to Iceland, where he
may have heard tales Of the great land
which explorers from that country had dis
covered in the west
These piratical and other ventures on the
sea Columbus interpolated by book selling
and map making in Genoa.
Not Exactly Devoted Husband.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS did not marry
the daughter of old Perestrello, the naviga-
tor, and inherit thus from him a collection
of ola charts and studies in cosmography.
That is settled. He did marry somebody's
daughter, but whose no man can tell. Alas,
for the women who marry men of genius!
Mrs. Carlysle is not the only wife who has
found a genius hard to live with. Columbus
cared more for geography than. he did for
his wife. He left her and their children, by
his own, confession, hastily, 1t would seem,
and not in dignified manner; urged there
to, it may be, less by love of geography than
by dread of creditors 1t is made plain in
the documents of the time that there were
prudent for him to revisit Portugal. II may
be that the brothers of Mrs. Columbus were
waiting for him with shotguns. At any rate,
within three years Of his ungraceful depart
ure he found another charmer to soIa ce him
for the loss of the joys of home.
The minds of men, in Columbus day, were
busy with the question of the earth's shape.
Is the earth fiat or round? The men of
science and the men Of religion were alike
divided into opposing camps. Pythagorus,
Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, among philos-
ophers, st. Isidore of Seville, st. Thomas
Aauinas and .Albertus Magnus, among the
had contended for the earth's !
sphericity. From the shores of Europe men
looked out over the wide waters and won
dered what could be upon the other side. AS
is the habit of human nature, they peopled
the unknown with terrors. The West, they
thought, was full Of horrible monsters and
hobgoblins. DR.. Adams, in his life OF Colum-
bus, quotes this question and answer from
an Anglo-Saxon tract:
"Question-Tell me, my son, why the sun
is so red in the EVENING"
"Answer-Because it looketh down upon
hades."
Such notions OF geography were not Of a
nature to bolster up the courage of adven-
turous navigators.
A Minority Faith Heresy.
: COLUMBUS, of course, was one of those
who believed that the earth was round.
That faith, however, was as yet in tfe
And when any article OF faith is
in the minority 1t is a heresy. And 400 years
ago, in the land in which Columbus lived, it
was extremely dangerous to be even so
much as suspected of heresy. For the Inqui-
sition was then in full vigor of enthusiasm.
was at the head of the Holy