The San Francisco call., 1898-05-15

gence is tried by the presence or zoo logical trash. Their tails are pulled and their feelings ignored. They have been cowed to a state of absolute wretchedness. To keep them there is cruelty for which there can be no excuse. Anybody can chuck dogs and cats into one cage with a pack of tor mentors, but I submit that there is nothing admirable in the act, and that the resulting exhibition of suffering is not worth the price of admission.
 Some German scientist has been fig uring with infinite pains the amount of food consumed by a man during a life of seventy years. He has calculated how big a loaf would be constituted had all the loaves eaten been combined in one, how great would have been the size of the aggregate potato; he has even branched from the main topic and studied out the dimensions of the cigar that might have been built of all the many cigars burned during the jour ney through this vale of tears. Such statistics are always interesting to me. They show how person with the abil- ity to think, to grasp a pencil, and ac- tually to make characters on a piece of paper can, after all, be a fool frit- tering his existence away and devoting all his time to boring his fellow men. Most of the weekly papers of the East are patriotic. Truth is doing va liant service for it's country. I regret to say that Life is not. l regret 1t be- cause it has always had an element of brightness about it. Its jokes for the most part have not been borrowed. While it devotes itself to the lighter side of existence it Is serviceable in whiling a moment away. In discuss ing the serious business of war it is a sneering traitor with too little courage to say that it favors Spain. All it dares do is to gibe at love for the flag, disparage by innuendo the efforts of the administration and of the brave volun- teers who are going out to battle. It deserves to be suppressed, not by spe- cific act, but by the method of being let alone.
 I observe that the Rev. Dille objects vigorously to the ladies of the Fabiola Society accepting money from the man. agers of the racetrack. It seems to
  people are to be considered as directly representing the powers of darkness, their money, once in the hands of the upright, is very like any other money. If not taken by the Fabiola it might go into channels tending to the promo ton of evil I think the ladies should take all the racetrack money they can get and regard the operation as forag-
 
 is weakened also by having acquired the active support of the Rev. step bins.
 There has been shameful negligence in the reception of the soldiers in San Francisco. It must be said that this is no fault of the citizens. Their hearts warm toward the volunteers. They respect them for their quick pa- triotism and for their courage and sac- rifice. They are doing all they can to add to the comfort of the boys now in acmD at the Presidio. Their greatest worry is that they can do so little. But when a battalion from sister State lands at the wharf and is not met by somebody officially qualified to lead it to it's quarters, when the man in charge is obliged to ask his way the indignity Is inexcusable. The Oregon lads, big, brave fellows, came as the sworn and mustered-in soldiers of ITncle Sam. Surely there must be an official amenable to rebuke for the neelect of them They enlisted to 6ebt not as martyrs. If Uncle Sam cannot care for his men in this city. where he is supposed to have stores. where there are thousands of mer- chants with goods to selb and where his credit is ample for anything he wants the promise is he will make a nre++v mess of it when he gets them six thousand miles from anywhere in .ho land of a hostile and well-arme0 foe.
 The world has never known a more iunortant catastrophe than that which wrecked the Maine. It caused the loss of b,1+ 266 men, for the most part or humble origin, the sinking of ves- col vaIued at a few millions. But, l had almost said, it changed the destiny of the world. Nothing changes the destiny of the world. Events may roll aside the curtain revealing the fate which from the beginning had been written. This explosion was such an event Now the minds eye can see that which had been hidden. It can see thrones ready to fall, dynast1es about to pass away. It can see a young giant among nations just realizing it's own strength. It perceives new fear in the face of royalty. That when the Maine went down it carried with 1t municipalities and peoples no prophet Is needed to tell. The tragedy was but a. link in a chain of circumstances, brief chapter in an Almighty plan. l would like to see a monument to the men of the Maine. Where they sleep now on an alien shore great shaft should arise to show that Americans do not forget their dead. But islands wrested from the treacherous Span iard will be a grander monument, and in the thunder of guns there is eulogy.
 
 With no desire to embarrass the ad- ministration I wish to go on record as opposing the appointment of Russell Harrison to be major Young Harri-