The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-05-12

body Is trying to overreach the treas
ury; to get something out OF 1t to which
he Is not entitled. So regarding that
office they naturally apply the same
rules in selecting it's occupant that they
would in choosing a watchdog for
! their homes or shops. The uglier, the
| more savage, sullen, morose, the more
certain that he Is u good dog for that
purpose. Spaniels and pugs, shepherds
| and collies are the things for orna-
ment or sport, but the bull dog or
the mastiff is the thing for guarding.
There is in this conception OF the
comptroller singular obtuseness
Those who regard him as the watch
dog know, or a little inquiry would
inform them that not a dollar can be
taken from the treasury that Is not
appropriated by the council. Every ex-
penditure must be authorized by 1t,
and 1t must find In the law it's author
ity for making the appropriation. 1t is
the council that is closest to the pocket
nerve of the public, not the comptrol-
Ter. If that body acts within the law
the comptroller becomes merely a head
bookkeeper. 1t Is the assemblymen
and aldermen to whom the standard Of
fitness applied to the comptroller should
be applied. But who ever heard of one
of them being praised or recommended
for his stubbornness, his obstructive
ness, his arrogant display of author
ity? Candidates for those places must
be good fellows, liberal with the funds,
flush with promises of expenditures;
but the comptroller, we'll, the meaner
a or NJ
retention. Queer contradiction, isn't It
Just why the senate should have
amended the postoffice appropriation
bill by restricting mail deliveries in
cities to four a day, and looping off
a million dollars for carrier salaries, is
incomprehensible from any view Of the
characteristics of that body. It's forte
heretofore has been to augment the
appropriation bills of the house and
to take a s'tand-and-deliver attitude
until the house surrendered. Economy
is not its role, and when it assumes it,
it makes the poor stagger it makes in
this case. After passing sundry civil
bills loaded to the gunwales with eX
travagance, it is a sorry economy that
"a
country at a time, too, when reviving
trade calls for extensions instead of
retrenchment. The facilities Of the
postal service have moved steadily in
the direction of increase, and their
opportunities are not yet all exhausted.
Representatives Of country districts,
looking to the time when rural mail
delivery will be possible, should resist
any backward movement, for it will
only defer the day when their constit-
uents will have the advantage now
possible only in centers Of population.
The rapidity with which the CEN
ters of attraction shift is strikingiy
called to mind by the receipt of the
bulletin of the bureau of labor for May,
which is almost entirely given up to
an article ON '"The Alaskan Gold
Fields" 1t seems a long time ago
when the daily press began to chronicle
the Klondike movement, and it is but
a couple of months since 1T reached
it's climax. The war cloud rose on cur
Southern sky, and, with the suddenness
of the changes of scene CT the stere-
opticon, public attention deserted the
Klondike and fastened itself on Cuba.
Then came Dewey's famous victory,
and, presto, all eyes conferred on the
Philippines. Klondike is away in the
past, Cuba is for the moment in ECLIPSE.
and already eyes are beginning to turn
from Dewey to Sampson in eager ex-
pectancy. When great events tread
with such swiftness ON each others
heels the memory must have good car
lying capacity that can keep hold on
them ALL
In the simple narrative of one of
the seamen Of the Maine at the time
of her explosion there is more of de-
scription than the columns of fine writ
ing gave, with all the lurid effects the
war correspondent on the spot knows
SO we'll how to use. He had been
wounded in the explosion and was sent
over to Key West on the Bache. He