The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-04-10
BOOKS READ IN BOSTON
NEW SAFFRON-COLORED
MAINE THEORY

Ingenious Reasoning of Certain
Journalists of the Hub RegardinE
the Explosion In Havana Harbor
and It's Cause-Letters by One of
the Sanitary COmmissiOners-
New BloEraphies-AC Cheap Pub
Usher.
Correspondence The st. Paul Globe.
BOSTON, April 6.-Certain Boston
journalists, disguised at the eagerness
with which the most saffron New York
papers are bought by the ignorant and
unthinking, are solemnly discussing
the possibility that the Maine may
planned by the two foremost in the
promotion of war feeling. Cu bono
is a good clue they say, and who has
benefited by the catastrophe? 1t may
have brought the Cuban rebels some
what nearer to the goal of their de-
sire, and, without doubt, they had
been importing dynamite in large
quantities for some time before the
18th of February; but they must have
known that, if they were detected, they
would lose their sole friend among
all the nations of the earth, and the
risk was almost too great to take. The
saffron sheets had nothing to lose,
friends, reputation or popular respect,
and everything to gain, for money is
everything to them, and babe In
arms could have foretold immense
sales for weeks after the commission
of the crime. Their plans seem to have
been laid for a succession of sensa-
tions, and they had arranged to spend
sums which would have been eXtrava-
CANT had they not foreseen some
amazing event. But the wickedness
of tt!' suggests some innocent young
ster, and then arise roars of laughter,
and that innocent is asked what
scruples he expects to find in the brains
Of men capable of buying the voice
and the honor of an American senator
for the sake Of extending their circula-
ton. AS yet the theory stays in the
newspaper offices, but it Is as good as
some advanced by the saffron papers
and wonderfully consoling in counting
rooms piled with returned" num-
bers.
How great is the terror excited by
the SAFFRON sheets among the ignorant,
and especially among the recent in1nni-
grants, may be judged from the panic
in the little italian church in Prince
street, last Sunday. The fire engines,
with their accustomed attendant guard
or noisy boys, swept past the building
In answer to an alarm from a neigh
boring box, and in a minute the whole
congregation was madly pressing to
the door, assured that the day of wrath.
long threatened, had come at last, and
that Spanish ship was working her
wicked will on the North end. Possibly
ten persons present may have known
what the sound of a bombardment was
like, but the others were as ready to
decide off-hand upon the cause of the
disturbance as those gentle civilians in
Havana harbor, who thought that the
noise of the Maine explosion was caus-
ed by a mine, although they never
heard mine explode in all their quiet
lives, and would not know a marine
mine from steamer trunk If they
saw one in department shop.
One or two Boston telegraph editors
have distinguished themselves by writ
ing headlines indicating a belief that
a marine mine is an excavation: they
remind one of Gen. Collins remark
when fiery young opponent challeng-
Sd him to a discussion on the tariff
Tariff" said he; Lord, Joe, you
wouldn't know a tariff if it came up
and bit you.''
The book publishers are going on
quietly with their preparations for
summer, but one firm, Messrs. Roberts
Brothers, has seized the opportunity to
reprint Miss Wormeley's spirited "The
Other Side of the War;" series of let
tiers relating a few weeks hospital
work at the front in 1852 with the san
itary commission. The second article
alizing it, for the "other side" of all
wars is alike.
The steamer hospitals and kitchens
managed by the commission were infin-
ltely better conducted than those I'M
der government direction, not because
the army officers were not well-inten-
toned and energetic, but because the
commission was single in it's aim, and
was controlled by one person; but the
relation is stuffed full of horrors, al
though the writer calls the worst too
great to speak Of" lone of the least"
she says, was that I saw contra
band step on the amputated stump of
a wretched man." one Of the wounded
lying on the main deck Of a vessel, six
hundred others being in the cabins and
on the lower decks. while these awful
sights pass before me-" she says, II
have comparatively no feeling, except
the anxiety to alleviate as much as pos
s1ble. l do not suffer under the sights
but, oh! the sounds, the screams of
men!'
1t should be remembered that this
was hastily scrubbed amid these very
sights and sounds, and is not a care
fully evolved bit Of literature. Again
she says:
ut is a. piteous sight to see these
men; no one knows what war is until
they see this black side of it. We may
all sentimentalfZe over its possibilities
as We see the regiments go off, or when
we hear of a battle; but it is as fan
from the reality as to read of pain is
far from feeling it. We, who are here
however, dare not let our minds, much
less our ina ginations, rest on suffering
while you must rely on your imagina-
ton to project you into the state OF
things here"
The book Is very small; the dates
Of the letters cover a very brief space
but it seems like the chronicle Of years
as one reads it, and one understands
why, under the stimulus of the first
plunge into the work, the author wrote
home, This is life.'' Few women could
endure II lOIlSS 0uOrIIlOuS OOSeS OI
quinine were necessary to counterfeit
the miaSmatic vapors Of Southern
rivers, and the coffee necessary to re-
inforce the weary nerves soon injured
their recuperative power, and, "relax-
ing' not being invented in those prim-
tive days. the nurses passed their
few moments Of leisure in arduous at
tempts to amuse one another. They
kept up their spirits at the expense of
their health. but they kept them. Only
a day or two after the incident of the