St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1898-05-14

for life. Substitution!
About thirty-eight years ago there
went forth from our northern and
homes hundreds Of thousands
of men to do battle. All the poetry of
war soon vanished and left them moth
ing but the terrible prose. They
waded knee-keep in mud. They slept
in snowbanks. They marched till their
cut feet tracked the earth. They were
swindled out of their honest rations,
and lived on meat not fit for dog.
They had jaws fractured, and eyes ex-
and limbs sho. away.
Thousands of them cried for water as
they lay on the field the night after the
battle and got It'll not. They were home
sick, and received no message from
their loved ones. They died in barns,
in bushes, in bitches, the buzzards of
the summer heat the only attendants
on their obsequies. No one but the
infinite God who knows everything
knows the ten thousandth part Of the
length, and breadth, and depth, and
height of anguish of the northern and
southern battle6elds. Why did these
fathers leave their children and go to
the front, and why did these young
men, postponing the marriage day,
start out into the probabilities Of never
coming back? For principle they
died. Life for life. Blood for blood.
But we need not go SO far. What is
that monument in the cemetery? 1t is
to the doctors who fell in the southern
epidemics. Why go? We're there not
enough sick to be attended in these
latitudes? On, yes; but the
doctor puts few medical books in his
valise, and some vials of medicine, and
leaves his patients here in the hands of
other physicians, and takes the rail
train. Before he gets to the infected
region he passes crowded rail-trains,
regular and extra, taking the flying
and affrighted populations. He ar
rives in city over which a great hor-
ror is brooding. He goes from couch
to couch, feeling the pulse and study
ing systoms, and prescribing day after
day, night after night, until fellow
physician SAYS: Doctor, you had bet
ter 60 home and rest; you look misera-
ble." But he can not rest while so
many are suffering. On and on, un-
til some morning finds him in a
delirium, in which he talks of home,
and then rises and says he mast go
and look after those patients. He is
told to lie down; but he fights his at
tendants until he falls back, and is
weaker and weaker, and dies for peo-
pie with whom he had no kinshlp, and
far away from his own family, ana is
hastily put away in a strangers tomb,
and only the fifth part OF a newspaper
line tells us OF his sacrifice-his name
Just mentioned amolg five. Yet he
has touched the furthes. height of sub
Unity in that three weeks of humani-
tartan service. He goes straight as an
arrow to the bosom of Him who said:
Il was sick and We visited me- Life
ton!
In the legal profession | sec the same
principle Of eltsacritice- In 1916,
William Freeman, pau ocrized and idi-
otic negro, was at Auburn, N. Y. on
trial for murder. He had slain the en-
tire Van Nest family. The foaming
wrath of the community could be kept
off him only by armed constables.
Who would volunteer to be his counsel?
No attorney wanted to sacrifice his
popularity by such an ungrateful task.
All were silent save one, q young law
yer with feeble voice, that could hardly
be heard outside the bar, pale and thin
and awkward. It was William ii.
Seward, who saw that the prisoner
was idiotic and irresponsible, and
ought to be put in an asylum, rather
than put to death, the heroic counsel
uttering these beautiful words:
speak now in the hearing of peo-
pie who have prejudged prisoner and
condemned me for pleading in his be.
half. He is a convict. pauper, ne
gro, without intellect, sense or emo
ton. My child with an affectionate
smile disarms my careworn face of its
frown whenever l cross my threshold.
The beggar in the street obliges m, te
give because he says: God bless you!'
as I pass. My dog caresses me with
fondness if l will but smile on him
My horse recognizes me when l fill hi:
manger. What reward, what graft
tude, what sympathy and affec
ton can expect here? There
the prisoner sits. Look at him
Look at the assemblage arount
you. Listen to their ill-suppresset
censures and excited fears, aud tell m.
where among my neighbors or my fel
lowmen. where, even in his heart,
can expect to find a sentiment, ,
thought, not to say of reward or OF ac
acknowledgement or even of recognition
Gentlemen, you may think OF this evi
dence what you please, bring in wha
verdict you can, but asseverate befor
Heaven and you, that, to the best o
my knowledge and belief. the prisone
at the bar does not at this momen
know why it is that my shadow fall
on you instead Of his own.
The gallows got its victim, but tn
post mortem examination of the poo
creature showed to all the surgeon
and to all the world that the publi
were wrong, huu utAtdiA II. sSCWoks
/ was right, and that hard, stoney stel
OF obloquy in the Auburn court roou
was the first step of the stairs of fam
up which he went to the top, or t
within one step Of the top, that last de
MED him through the trcachery G
American politics. Nothing sublime
was ever seen in an American cour
room than William ii. Seward, wlthou
reward, standing between the furiou
populace and the loathsome imbecil'
Substitution.
In the realm of the fine arts ther
was as remarkable an instance.
brilliant but hypercriticised painte
Joseph William Turner, was met by
volley of abuse from all the art gale
les Of Europe. His paintings, whic
have since won the applause of all ci
ilized nations, ''The Fifth Plague ,
Egypt, /" Fishermen on Lee Shore
Squally Weather" '.Calais Pier" TT
Sun Rising Through Mist" and "Did
Building Carthage" where then targe
for critics to shoot at. In defense I
this outrageously abused man, yoar
author Of "a years, just one year out
college, came forth with his pen m
wrote the ablcst and most famous e
q