Adams County news. [volume] (Ritzville, Wash.) 1898-1906, 1898-08-17
EYES AND WORKMANSHIP.
Superiority of Northern Races Over
the Latins in This Particular.

The Saxon and the Celt, the Teuton
and the Norseman-which merely is to
say the blue-eyed people-possess ca
pacity for craftsmanship none of the
Latin races ever may hope to attain. 1t
isn't a Spaniard's fault that he cannot
fire bullet straight. He can't help it.
He was born than way. He has a racial
defect in far vision. The trouble is seated
in his eyes, and against a blue-eyed an
tagonist he must always be the loser
when it comes to scoring at target
at fairly long range Neither can the
Indian or the negro shoot 50 as to make
it good betting that he is going to hit
anything. They mean well, but they
won't do.
What it is about The blue-eyed man
which renders his far-sight superior to
that of his dark-eyed cousin oculists are
not agreed upon. They have not salts
factorily determined whether his advan-
tage is derived from a pigment which
clarifies the vision or whether the shape
of his lenses is somewhat different, fur
nishing him a greater range of sight and
a more magnified picture of distant OBJ
ects, but Regarding the fact itself they
have long since ceased contention.
All the historic marksmen of record
from Natty Bumpo to Captain Bogardus
have blue or hazel eyes. Look over
the long list of western "killers" who
fourished in the frontier days, now passed
away, and you will recall that the in
vincible ones, those who were quickest
on the trigger and who never missed their
man, were blueeyed. Billy the Kid,
Wild Bill, Bat Masterson and Jesse
James-good men and bad, sheriffs up
holding the law and desperadoes defying
Iit-had eyes as blue as the unlocked sky
of June. The Tennessee mountainous
who from behind Jackson's cotton bales
poured SO witherin fire into Packen-
hams scarlet-coated veterans that even
that intrepid soldiery could not endure it,
and fled from its fiery breath as from
before the mouth of a furnace were blue
eyed rifiemen.
Every regimental officer of experience
and every gun club man knows that the
records of target practice will show the
blue-eyed man well in the lead over their
dark-eyed fellows, and the longer the dis
lance the more marked become the dis
parity.
When General Shafter has fully dis
embarked his forces upon Cuban soil;
when the ping of the Mauser gives answer
to the hiss of the long bullet of the Kag
Jorgensen the world will no doubt be af
forded another object lesson of the ina
bility of the Latin to shoot straight. The
Spaniards have the arms, but not the
main-their "Aeneid' would perforce be-
gin differently from Virgil's.
The Spaniard-a the Cuban as well,
for the same reasons a cutter and a
slasher. He favors cold steel in battle,
and with cutlass or machete becomes at
close range a formidable foe. 1t is to
Spain that the world owes the invention
of fencing, an art not yet 300 years old,
which transformed the medieval sword
into shield and buckler as well as spear
and dagger. The Italian, who also can
not shoot, perfected the system, and is
today the master fencer of the world. 1t
would seem that the dark eye has indeed
its own superiority of vision, as close
range. Take note that the master bill
lard players-those whose excelling del
icacy of touch is at once a Joy and
marvel to look upon-are dark-eyed men,
as are the fencers.
But the battles on Cuban or Puerto
Rican soil are not to be fought with
steel. There the blue-eyed troops who
sprang from the northern races will make
war against their swarthy foes at rifle
range, and they should have the better
| Of it by inalienable birthright,