New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1894-01-21

Urron his most recent photograph
hard h,t transient. They often connect them
selves with the circumstances of the hour rather
than with the mans whole career. Time sets
This right CYRUS Field and other great bene-
factors will in the long run have the place IN
history to which they are entitled. The obserVa-
ton is trte There is another equally trltei lhdl
wher man has come under cloud then 1t Is that
his friends should show themselves his friends
/ never can think of Field otherwise than as d
friend or otherwise than as the convinced ana
coura peous adyenturer to whom America and
Europe owe the Atlantic Telegraph. 1t Is no'h-
ing to say that 1t would ultimately have come
without him. So would the discovery or America
without Columbus. but We do not for that reason
belittle Columbus nor do we deny him the merit
of his immense achievement because we Know
that in his history also there were unhappy
passages.
OF Sir Samuel Baker the same thing may be
said If he had not led the way TO the Albert
Nvanza IN the Nile somebody else would sooner
mr. later have done IT, In no respect does that
diminish the honor due to the actual agent or
discovery He did 1t, and the others did not; that
fs a worldwide distinction. And Baker was
man who, IT, to assume the impossible, he had
never done anything. would still nave been
thought and would always have been, when
is more to the purpose remarkable parsonage.
He had in him the energies. not OF Raleigh
only, but Of a race Of Berserkers and Vikings
He was a relic of an earlier civilization: or or
time when the struggle for life and the passion
for conquest were more than civilization
Such men are less common than aforetiine' put
the breed does not die out. None can say how
It is transmitted. or who hands on the torch' or
amid what darkness the flame Is rekindled
hnU q
three. when he went to Ceylon for the most
dangerous Of all forms Of sport, elephant hunt
ing. But even then he was not mere
sportsman He was explorer settler, geogra-
pher asriculturist and much else; finally a
colonist on large scale. After ten years or
this varied activity, he turns up in the Crmea
as a railway engineer. Five years later he sets
out on his first African journey. and Africa
holds him for fifteen years. During that period
he explored the Abyssinian tributaries of the
Nile assembled the Nile itself to GOndokoro. re-
leved Spoke and Grant discovered the Albert
Nyanza, fought almost daily battles with
African savage chiefs and with the more savage
Arab slave-traders returned TO Europe and then
again to Africa as Governor Of the Soudan. with
a commission to crush the slave trade, to es-
tablsh commerce. to civilize Central Africa. He
had such success in these gigantic enterprises
as could be expected with Ismail in the back
ground and Ismails agents at Khartoum and
elsewhere plotting against him. He had an
army and feet. fought more and greater bat
Ties set up and pulled down governments. and
in that vast region. remote from the civilized
world. Bakers word was law even unto life
and death. lie was pioneer for Gordon. He
did his work as we'll as it could then be done,
but with no permanent result. and in 1874 he
quilted Africa returned once more to Europe
and settled down quietly in Devonshire with his
WIFE, who ever since 1861 had been his constant
companion and shared every peril. \ heroic
wife was Lady Baker, and seldom have any
pair been better mated.
OF all these explorations and discoveries and
wars Baker wrote histories and whether It be
of hunting in Ceylon Of the wilder work in
Africa. there books which surpass his in
their kind. It Is a reproach to England that
from 1874 down to the day Of his death. on the
last day but of last year. she found no
adequate use for this extraordinary man. I
know what may be urged against his fitness for
mere official life, whether In Africa in India. in
the Colonies. elsewhere. He masterfu!,
abrupt. perhaps arbitrary; wful and inclined TO
strong measures. He would have got on i'll with
q Colonial office presided over by the bland and
commonly somewhat effete or at least color
less. personages whom 1t is the fashion TO put in
authority there.-witness Lord Ripon at the pres
ent moment
These the days when the opinion Of the
majority. and seldom never Of the individual,
Is supposed to be supreme. If the individual will
not bow to the opinion Of the majority away
with him. There Is room for such a man in
the existing democrac!es. Perhaps not but it
may still be permissible TO reflect tina. but for the
individual the democracy would never have had
a chance. and that there may even now be- IL
we only knew how to use him. room enough for
the Bakers Of to-day. There seems TO be ROOM
to take a single example for a Cecil Rhodes and
there would DE difficulty in ccnceiving OF South
Africa without him. No Colonial Office is re-
sponsible for Rhodes He deals with the Colonial
authorities IN London as equal with equal. They
do not like It, They would not have liked Baker
They would have made life impossible to Cor
don. And yet Gordon and Baker will always be
greater names than those Of all the Colonial Min
listers Of their time.
All this IL not meant to imply that Baker
wanted. or would have accepted. any Of the
great posts which are spread abroad over the
Empire. I do not know whether he cared for
such places or not. A Colonial Governorship. a
Yiceroyalty. very dlgnlfed and sometimes
very splendid offices. They are. every one
knows, reserved rewards for good service or
sometimes, as rewards for the possession OF a
Nt,s. The Colonies are said to prefer titles: