The San Francisco call., 1898-06-07
EVIDENCES OF DAFTNESS.

HE is evidently affecting the nerves of our
 esteemed but eloquent contemporary, the Chron-
 ice. On any other theory 1t is impossible to comprehend many of its recent poetic attempts. On Sunday morning poised its wings for loity flight and began a column of drive thus: Watching from the overlooking heights the great ship that sailed through the Golden Gate-out into the eye of the sun with the waning day, with all its decks swarming with armed men, and all the shores alame with saut ing banners-to every observer must have come the thought that all this brave pomp of martial emprise Western shore of the New World this ship filed like the Trojan horse with strong g-armed men who to pass within the walls and open the gates of the Orient this thunder of guns this loud acclaim of voices all was very like dream or, if reality it the apocalypse of more momentous events, which time had ripened for coming and which it was not within the power of human hands to stay"
 The drift of this waxy-winged soar Is not even made clear by the caption. What does the Chronicle mean by calling it ''The Sailing of the Ship? If reference is made to the departure of the Peking City of Sydney and Australia with the Manila ex- pedonary forces it is wrong; there three ships Further on the Chronicle speaks of departing Argos. and ship having ribs of "Dodonian oak" upon whose deck stride "demigods" bound for "new Cochis.' This is all blind and unsatisfactory The ships which left for Manila were made of steel Thew dId not go on treasure-hunting expedition, and demigods bestrode their decks The armed men who filled those Trojan sea-saw "hosses" were bent on wah h-and 1t not their fault that they were com peled to sail into the eye of the sun" What would contemporary have them do? Sail into the ear of the sun?
 We cannot make out exactly whether this Sailing of the Ship" is intended a Government roast or not. The Chronicles nerves have evidently been SO affected by the oratorical possibilities of the war that it is unable to express itself clearly If its intention is to abuse the Government for sending troops to Manila trust that it will come out and say so in unmistakable terms Talleyrand declared that lan- guage was given to man so that he might conceal his thoughts. But language not conferred upon the Chronicle for any such purpose. We demand that it express itself This thing of giving aid and comfort to the enemy in column editorials which no human being can understand approaches very close to trea son. During the Civil War the Examiner was mobbed for seditious utterances. Our contemporary should recall the Examiners subsequent career and beware
 If the Chronicle intended its column of drivel to pass as. reflections upon the departure of the peditionary forces it should have said SO It is fre quenty dangerous to print editorials without accom- panying diagrams and it is always dangerous for the Chronicle to do Birds which attempt to fly before the development of their wings usually wind up in a mud puddle. It is with immature journalistic poets and orators In the absence of diagram we have construed "The Sailing of the Ship" to be a Government roast We venture to say that ninety nine of every hundred of our contemporarys sane readers will construe 1t Those of its subscribers who reside in asylums for the insane will rejoice to know that the editor is soon to rejoin them