The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-02-24

4
beast was not brook, but river, not
that way dedicated, be not sur
prised when l tell you that EN-
peror Probus on one occasion threw
into that arena of the Colosseum ], 900
stays, LOCO boars and 1000 ostriches
What fun it must have beeni the sound
of trumpets, the roar of wild beasts and
the groans of dying menl while in the
gallery the wives and children of those
down under the lions paw wrung their
hands and shrieked out in widowhood
and orphanage, while 10000 people
clapped their hands, and there was a
''Hai Hal'' wide as Rome and deep as
perdition. The corpses of that arena
were put on a cart or dragged by a
hook through what was called the
Gate of Death. What an excitement it
must have been when two combatants
entered the arena, the one with sword
and shield and the other with net and
spear. The swordsman strikes at the
man with the net and spear; he lodges
the sword, and then filings the net over
the head of the swordsman and jerks
him to the floor of the arena, and the
man who flung the net puts his foot on
the neck of the fallen swordsman, and,
spear in hand, looks up to the galleries
as much as to say: "Shall let him up,
or shall l plunge this spear into his
body until he is dead?' The audience
had two signs, either of which they
might give If they waved their flags,
it meant spare the fallen contestant
If they turned their thum bs down, it
meant slay him.
Yet it was far from being monotone
of sport, for there was change of pro-
gramme in that wondrous Colosseum.
Under a strange and wonderful ma
chinery, beyond anything of modern
invention, the floor of the arena would
begin to rock and roll and then give
away, and there would appear a lake
of bright water, and on its banks
trees would spring up rustling with
foliage, and tigers appeared among the
jungles, and armed men would come
forth and there would be tiger hunt
Then on the lake in the Colosseum,
armed ships would float and there
would be a sea fight. What fun! What
lots of fun! When pestilence came, in
order to appease the gods, in this Col
lesseum a sacrifice would be made and
the people would throng that great am
phitheater, shouting: ''rhe Christians
to the wild beasts, land there would be
a cracking of human bones in the jaws
of leonine ferocity.
But all this was to be stopped. By
the outraged sense of public decency?
No There is only one thing that has
ever stopped cruelty and sin, and that
is Christianity, and it was Christianity,
whether you like its form or not, that
stopped this massacre of centuries. One
day, while in the Colosseum, Roman
victory was being celebrated, and 100.-
600 enraptured spectators were looking
down upon two gladiators in the arena
stabbing and slicing each other to
death, an Asiatic monk by the name of
Telemachus was so overcome by the
cruelty that he leaped from the gallery
into the arena and ran in between the
two swordsmen, and pushed first one
back and then the other back and
broke up the contest. OF course, the
audience was affrOnted at having its
sport stopped, and they hurled stones
at the head of Telemachus until he fell
dead in the arena. But when the day
was passed and the passions of the peo-
pie had cooled off, they deplored the
martyrdom of the brave and Christian
Telemachus, and, as a result of the
overdone cruelty, the human sacrifices
of the Colosseum were forever abol-
ished.
What a good thing, say you, that
such cruelties have ceased. Ny friends,
the same spirit of ruinous amusements
and of moral sacrifice is abroad in the
world to-day, although it takes other
shapes Last summer in our country
there occurred a scene of pugilism on
which all Chris tendon looked down,
for saw the papers on the other side
of the Atlantic ocean giving whole col
umns of it. Will some one tell me in
what respect that brutality of last sum-
mer was superior to the brutality of
the Roman Colosseum? In some re-
spects it was worse, by so much as the
nineteenth century pretends to be more
merciful and more decent than the fifth
century. That pugilism is winning
admiration in this country is positively
proved by the fact that years ago
such collision was reported in a
half dozen lines of a newspaper, if
reported at all, and now it takes the
whole side of newspaper to tell what
transpired between the first blood
drawn by one loafer and the throwing
up of the sponge by the other lOafer,
and it is not the newspapers fault, for
the newspapers give only what the peo-
pie want, and when newspapers put
carrion on your table it is because you
prefer carrion. The same spirit OF
brutality is seen to-day in many an
ecclesiastical court when minister is
put on trial Look at the countenances
of the prosecuting ministers, and, not
in all cases, but in many cases, you will
find nothing but diabolism inspires
them.
In the worldly realms look at the
brutalities of the presidential election
eight years ago. Read the biographies
of Daniel Webster and Alexander II.
Stephens and Horace Greeley and
Charles Sumner and Lucius Quintius La
mar and James G. Blaine, and if the story
of defamation and calumny and scan
dalization and diatribe and scurrility
and lampoon and bilingsgate and damn
able perfidy be accurately recorded, tell
me in what respects our political arena
and the bowling and disappearing gall
leries that again and again look down
upon it are better than the Roman Col
osseum. When l read a few days ago
that the supreme court of the United
States had appropriately adj urned to
pay honors to the two last distinguished