The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1900-04-09
CHAT AND CHAFF.

| system OF coast defence Wnich mas Deen
gradually developing since the Spanish
war. st
These small works. some of them
moiinting only a gun or two. bear the
same relation tn the big forts that the
torpedo boats do 10 the battleships In
the navy.
The government has named them
mostly after distinguished military
men just as the navy department chris
tens the torpedo boats after gallant ma
val officers.
T. The older established forts are named
after distinguished Americans of one
kind and another as well as military
men and one Frenchman is honorcd. l
suppose Fort Adams at Newport Is
pnamed for President John Adams. Then
There are Hamilton and Lafayette at
i the entrance to New York harbor. Forts
Monroe. Moultrie. Pickens and Sumter
on the southern coast, Warren in Bos-
ton harbor, Preble down in Maine, and
so on.
The new batteries and works add
/ many score OF such memorials TO the
/ Mst.
OF the batteries and fortifications OF
one sort and another 10 every ono of
which. little as well as big, a name has
now been given. the defences con-
! stiucted on the site OF famous old Fort
Dumplings at jamestown are christen-
| ed Fort Wetherll' i'm memory of a
captain OF that name who fell at San
| tiago
Battery Greene" at Fort Adams is
| of course named for Gen. Nathaniel
Greene.
The Eleventh Ward Literary Asso-
ciation at its meeting tomorrow night
/ believe 1T is tomorrow-is going TO dis
cuss the following: Resolved. that II is
easier to be good than to be great"
Il should think this subject might be
made highly interesting i'm the hands
of the philosophic thinkers and eloquent
speakers of the Eleventh Ward club.
am invited out there to hear the de-
bate and If ii seems TO me worth re-
porting will try TO tell you about 1t.
Dewey
Who remarked, as his hat he spoke
through, he
Thought the White House he'd At;
But his friends shouted ''nit!''
And the subsequent rag proved
most chevy.
For the time being attention is
drawn from the labor agitation In Chi
cago. where fifty thousand workers in
the building trades are holding out des-
perately against the contractors and
setting up cooperative eating places to
exc out their depleted treasury. TO the
desperate state of affairs In the Apa-
wants Golf club. down at Rye, where
the seventy caddies have gone on strike
for forty cents for rounds of eighteen
holes instead of thirty cents and ten
cents for cleaning clubs instead of Ave.
At last accounts the strike had reach
cd a stage that approached a public
scandal and is a menace to the peace OF
mind of the members of the Apawamis
Golf Club If not to the peace Of the
community.
Report comes that the caddies stand
around and guy the members of the
club for carrying their own bags and
running after the balls.
such conduct on the part Of the
striking caddies is surely most dis
tresslng not TO say actually sacrileg-
ious.
II see that the veteran Capt. John
Goldman. apostle of free ships. Is dead.
The doughty old sailor lived to see
the country, or at least the government,
getting farther and farther away from
the ideas for which he contended for
half a lifetime and the prospect of a
subsidy bill in addition to the restric-
tions already in force for the protec-
rion of American shipping must have
made his later years quite unhappy un-
less he came to give less thought to
public affairs after he crossed the eigh-
tieth meridian of life than he had been
accustomed TO do for a quarter of a
century before.
1t seems to me have heard OF Capt.
Goldman and his free ships ever since
know what politics was like-and II was
a long while ago that was graduated
from the kindergarten.
Did you ever see Frederic r.
Church's painting OF Niagara ?"Proba-
bly,, or some copy of 1t. The original Is
In the Corcoran gallery at Washington.
The copies of one kind or another are
almost everywhere.
II lis huge painting but the Corcoran
trustees got 1t for only S12000.It attracts
popular interest especially because OF
the rainbow painted across the face of
the Falls. 1t is a wonderfully real rain
bow. you remember. / am reminded of
the famous picture because Church has
just died.
=
There used To be tradition with
the folks along the Friendship street
aud Prairie avenue lines that when the
Pawtucketites got their new vestibule
cars the Friendship streeters and