The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-09

their aggregate surplus money Of hundreds
OF thousands of pounds. The sums to be
paid for a sight of the open-air service
would restore St. Paul's in all its pristine
beauty, perhaps endow a repairing fund to
last as long as the cathedral. Syndicates
are being formed to erect gigantic stands,
the safety of which we should be loath to
guarantee-for the march of a regiment
Will shake even a bfidge-and they propose
to recoup themselves by charging fees
Whlch Will leave a sore recollection for
months in the minds of those who pay
them. Throughout the country every char
1ty which wants anything is begging in the
Queens name. Every se~If-advertising man,
and his number is legion, is Offering some
new project, the connection of which with
the queens day will. even if it is success
full, be forgotten in two years. Who re-
members to-day why, ten years ago, that
hospital. got a new ward, or this education
al machlne hVe new burSar1eS? Past count
ing are the devices, innumerable are the
advertisements, beyond reckoning the lead
ing articles, and none of them are intended
70 honor the sovereign, but only to extract
from the honor which should be paid her
some extra handful of the national cash.
Inc authors or these efforts are as purely
selfsh and money seeking in their philan-
thropic way as the honest jeweler who
boldly announces that he hopes TO make a
fortune by selling coins in rims for
of the Queen. Even this, however, is bet
ter than the ostentation, the countless par
agraphs in which it is announced that this
or that millionaire has given thousands for
a house for one day TO see the procession
from its windows, or that this man will
give E300 or that woman $3.50 for the right
to stand with their friends upon a balcony
and watch the titled crowd. Let them give
II they like, as they give for peaches out
OF season or gigantic pears, but let them
give in silence.
For it is the worst symptom of all this
movement that this waste of resources,
this pouring out of gold, this boasting of
means which approach those of LuculluS or
Seneca, is considered admirable. is read at
k as evidence of the glory of the
a 90 iC nITnfn6 &c if - .nIlA1 70 tho XfaTn-
ran era some new and brilliant luSter.
Cannot those who sniff up this stencil of
money as II 1t were perfume see that they
are aklng out of the day all that lends it
charm, all the poetry, all the loyalty, all
the emotion which make of a somewhat
boaStful celebration a spectacle that future
historians may admire They are reducing
a Roman triumph to the level of an alder
mans dinner party, where the one thing
Iof which the host is proud is the profusion
and the money value of his inartistic plate.
The Queen is no doubt honored when a
Canadlan regiment volunteers to add six
hundred men to her escort, each man bear
ing his own expenses. as she would be
honored If behind her carriage tramped
nifty men, each one of whom had given a
gunboat or a regiment for her service; but
how is she honored because Thomas Smith.
who bought shares at a shilling and sold
them for a pound, has given 5000 for a
WINDOW from which his wife and two
daughters may lean out? Let him buy his
windows If he likes wasting his earnings
In that way; they are his to use or to
waste; but let us not be told that this is
admirable; that this d-ifferentiates an era;
That never was sovereign so honored since
Fouquet burnt the Kings bills to light his
master 70 his seat. If we were the Queen
we would reckon one roar of hearty well
come and, graduation from the people in a
southwark SUM more than all this evil
dence that she has subjects in whom wealth
mas Killed out taste and the sense of pro-
portion, and sense to understand that this
celebration, to be ideal, must come from
the nation, and not from the newly rich.
TWO thousand pounds for a house for one
Gay; ina is not an additional glory to the
IN the middle of a picture to indicate its
costlness and the wealth of the men who
can afford to spoil it in that barbaric way.