New-York tribune., 1900-04-06
MADNESS.

The wretched boy who tried to murder the
Prince and Princess of Wales may be accounted
mad. We do not know that any alienist would
technically SO describe him. His brain may be
sound and his reason lucid. Yet he is mad with
the madness which the ancients well identified
with anger and with hate. 1t is such madness
possessed the slayerS of Lincoln and CarnOt
and Empress Elizabeth. for which the approved
therapeutic is hempen halter. We may, more
over, describe il as also the madness of igno-
rance and of depraved suggestion. OF the for
mer because this creature deemed the Prince of
Wales responsible for the TranSvaal war, for
which, in fact. our London correspondent OBJ
serves, the Prince is about responsible as the
Shah Of Persia, or, let us say, as irresponsible
and as little to be called to task as the would be
murderer himself; of the latter too, because he
seems to have been a reader of that vile gutter
press which is nowhere more abundant and
more abOminabe than in Brussels-theu unspeak-
able blackguard prints, mean. such that
which recently the commenda ton of that
''Son of st. Louis who calls himself Duke of
Orleans and would like to be called King of
France. From such sheets Sipdo acquired his
facts and morals and the result was hatred and
murderous madness.
1t is not however, for even the United States
to vaunt itself that 1t is not as other nations.
The same madness, from the same source, is by
no means unknown here. By curious coinci-
dence the same issue Of the paper that told of
the crime at Brussels told also of comparable
madness in this country. 1t told Of man of
conspicuous standing, Representative in Con
gress, maker of this Nations laws, who pub
licly advocated. urged and demanded that the
United States should order the British troops
out OF the Transvaal and make every devil of
them get out That utterance no doubt pro
voked an enthusiastic storm Of anti British
cheers. But in what particular was it less mad
than the mouthings of the Brussels assassin? 1t
was proposition that this country because of
something that does not concern its integrity.
peace and welfare in the slightest, shall deliber-
ately go to with almost every important
nation under the sun. Interference in the Trans
vaal would mean with Great Britain and
Ireland. But then, to be consistent, we should
have 10 order Russia out Of Finland, for Fin
land was free and independent long before the
first Boer trekked across the Naal, and Russa's
aggression upon and oppression of ii are far
worse than the worst which any ADglophObe
has said of British designs upon the Transvaal
We should have 10 order France out of NADIA
gascar, of course, and Germany out of the
Danish provinces, and Italy ont Of Erythrea,
and Austria out Of Bosnia, and Belgium out of
the Congo. and Holland out OF the Indies A
fine time, indeed should have in regulating
The politics and remaking the maps of the world,
10 say nothing of ordering ourselves out Of a
large part of our doman! On the whole we are
not sure but that Sipido's arraignment OF the
Prince was actually less mad than Champ
Clark's proposal for Intervention in the Trans
Yaal.
Note, too, the quality of the madness simulta-
neousy exhibited by somewhat conspicuous
citizen of this metropolis in declaring that the
United States should annex the Transvaal and
the Orange State two new sovereign States
of this Union! Did Mr.. Van Siclen take
into consideration the fine old task we should
have in guaranteeing a republican form of gov
ernment to the Transvaal, seeing that this pres
ent war is primarily that States or its rulers,
protest against republicanism? What does he
think loom Paul. would say TO the enfranchise-
ment not only Of the Outlanders, but also OF the
Kaffirs? And then the idea of altering the pre-
amble of our Constitution. as to make 1t read