The San Francisco call., 1898-04-17

be had, and cleanliness being next tC
 godliness, ought to be encouraged. This
 municipality is hardly doing all il
 should in consenting to be adjunct to
 the undertaking business.
 No man of intelligence underrates the
 horrors of war. It is true that many
 of us have not had the dread expert
 ence of viewing them. We cannot
 understand them as the old soldier who
 has seen his comrades fall and has stood picket where the dead lay un-
 buried and the dying moaned lifes last agony away. The suffering, the sus- pense, the heart break-these We have learned from family tradition, the an- nals of battle, the tales of Bierce, the lips of the reminiscent veteran The glory of being shot to shreds or trampled under the hoofs of cavalry is largely theoretical. No man of normal mind takes up arms for the joy of undergoing it. But there are such things as national pride and honor. They merge into each other until no dividing line may be drawn. This na- tional pride and honor have been as- sailed, and war, whatever its horrors, must come. It is almost here. Either Spain must leave Cuba, not for the sake of that troubled island, but in token of submission to the United | states, or she must be driven out Any compromise, if miracle rendered it pos- slpIe, would be rejected by the Ameri- can spirit, which still abides despite the Huntingtons, the Hannas and the Elkins stripe, who would favor run ming up a white flag and saying, Please don't" if a Spanish fleet were to batter the sky line of New York into the semblance of ruined brick kiln We talk about this as the land of the free and the home of the brave. I hope 1t Is. But if the poltroons who are try ing to tie the hands of Mckinley. the Iardaceous lords of empty sound roar ing themselves knaves, succeed in bringing about triumph for Spain as they design, the free have not much to say about it and the brave are in the minority. The banner of Spain is the black banner of piracy. Some of us, failing to kow-tow to it, are called 1in- goes.
 If l had my way Deputy Constable Adams of Fresno would spend a long term in prison. Adams shot a man whose offense had been the stealing of a ride and an evident desire to escape arrest by running away. Had the man resisted threateningly the case would have been far different. but he simply sought to leave the vicinity of the Constable and got a possibly fatal bullet in the back for his pains IT the act was not murder. or an at tempt at 1t, a Constable in Fresno has privileges. To steal a ride is not serious crime. It is about the only thing a person can steal without caus- ing loss to some one else. The ride is no more missed than is the air one breathes in passing across a farmers pasture It appears that the victim in thlS instance was a hard-working man In quest of employment. To be unem- ployed is not necessarily a felony. To endeavor to find employment is rather commendable than otherwise There are VICIOUS tramps, and tramps of as good moral character as more fortu- nate people whom circumstances have not forced to take to the road. An un- armed tramp of decent anteeedents is Tar less menace to the public welfare than the armed Constable, who, pining for fee, pursues and kills him. As the wounded man lay supposedly dying the conductor of the train sWore ont a i warrant charging him with vagrancv. l nave not noticed that any lover of i justice has sworn out warrant charg- | ing Adams with assault to murder.
 
 The hope that I would receive m more poetry has been shattered. I have a new dose of it. The pulsating bard | let might as we'll understand that a conspiracy exists of which We are joint victims. IT he sends in poetry to this | shop 1t is turned over to me. If the poetry is not utterly bad I turn it over to somebody who knows something about it. It is worthy of note, however | that most of 1t stops right here. I must say for G. T. Nc. that his effort is q daisy, and had he remembered it a lit- tie better would have passed out of my Jurisdiction. Whoever wrote the verses | in the first place did good job. Me. has bungled 1t som> hat But even at this, there are no flies to be observed on his second verse. Here it Is:
 T was then you promised to be mine.
 Our last fond kiss ile neer forget
 With love l pressed my lipps to thine
 l loved thee then, I love thee vet
 Good boy! Keep it up. If tbase Lines to Lena" do not melt her then she's not to be thawed by poetic fire Undoubtedly, when you pressed vour lipps to hern you did love her, and yoIr was in not getting on record then and there. If you know Lena,s present address send her a copy of the entire poem. She will either come off the perch or she is married to some body else. If you have not preserved a copy and this excerpt fall under the eye of Lena she can have the whole thing by sending to this office the small sum of cents in postage
 There are several things about the evening papers which are almost nuz- zling. For instance, nobody seems to know why they issue a first edition and mark it fourth" It is true that tbis operation consistently followed causes the third and last edition to have tho appearance of being tho c;x+b b,. '. 1