St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-10
AS A PEACEMAKER.
Lieut.. w. e. French. Third U.
Infantry. Fort Smelling

Lieut.. w. E. French. Third L. S.
Infantry, Fort Smelling.
This article was asked for by the
GLOBE on very short notice. There
has been no time to look up the SUBJ
ject, and, indeed, the entire matter
is purely speculative and inferen-
tial.
From the times when the earliest
human ancestors lived in caves,
prayed to the eye-tooth of a NAM
moth, dined on raw bear or a weaker
member of the family au naturel,
had a proper and wholesome thirst
for the blood of any one that owned
anything desirable or had a diff
ferent religious opinion, and watched
with curious, longing eyes some
great bird soaring in the eternal
blue, or darling, with splendid down.
ward swoop and swerve, from cloud
capped. splintered crag, upon the liv-
ing quarry far below; from these
prehistoric times even unto the gor-
geous present, wherein we live in
love and charity to our neighbor,
ili1IhlllO llco u6SlEGui
to fly, and has made great many at
tempts to crafty the desire; but, SO
far, with Indifferent success, both
Icarus and Darius Green having
come down with peculiarly dull and
sickening ,thuds," although Greek
tradition informs us that. the, for,
.mer's papa, one Daedalus, flew
safely over the Egean ;sea-which
pleasing statement the reader may
take with or without a grain of Attic
salt
1t is somewhat remarkable fact
that woman, inventive in most other
things, has never attempted flight,
other than that of the imagination.
This may be due either to her men
tai superiority over our grosser
selves, or to the incontestable axiom
that she is already a species of angel
(wings being a mere matter of de-
taiD, and could fly perfectly if it
suited her interest or inclination to
do so. By-the-by, apropos of the
present pretty, graceful, eminently
sensible fashion in the bouffant
feminine sleeve, which makes ''be-
Wltching woman" look like a being
from some other world, and is a
source of much suppressed profanity
In rude man, when he tucks and
StuffS her into the remonstrant arm
holes of her top coat, is it not posi-
Die that these charming shoulder
excrescences are embryo wings or
the nuclei of balloons, upon which
she will shortly soar away through
the empyrean?
But let US bark back to the sun
posed influence that successful
aerial navigation may have upon
the purple testament of war"
Which Cowper sapiently says is
a game which, were their
subjects wise,
Kings would not play att
1t is predicted by some, and be-
lieved by an increasing number, that
the dirigible air machine is to be an
accomplished fact in the near future
and that a rate of speed will be de-
Veloped that will make the limited
express. seem a very snail. So let
us imagine the problem solved and
the 'Avitor," in various sizes. as
common as the bicycle, the railway
train and the steamship, and capable
OF transporting one man or 500 at
20O miles an hour-say, from London
to New York between sunrise and
sunset.
England declares war against the
United States, and the blow will fol-
low the word swiftly. But we are in
a magnificent state of preparation.
we are Americans, and the eagle will
twist the tail of the lion. A per-
fectly equipped and thoroughly
trained army of 5000, 900 of the flower
OF our manhood guard the great
cities and the frontier Hundreds of
superb war vessels patrol our coasts.
Our harbors are mined, and we have
the finest torpedo system in the
world. Thousands of huge rified
cannon and mortarS Turk in sulleni
silence behind and under massive
armored shields, their grim steel
mouths looking seward, skyward
iandWard, ready to roar defiance at
the foe and hurl tons of solid shot
ana pursuing shell for miles in every
| direction. The electric search light
| is scattered over the land from the
| Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the
| northern boundary to Mexico and
the gulf, and a million or two cleo
| tr1cians at a moments notice can
send the shining beams to steal the
| secrets of the night and play at
4
people with the man in the moon.
Our air ships by myriads dart
| through the startled atmosphere with
astonishing velocity, carrying men.
rapld-hring. cannon with range of
seven miles, powerful telescopes and
| great iron bombs charged with high
explosives, which, dropped from
these bird-like craft, would annihf-
late a regiment, sink the stoutest
man-of-war that ever foated, or