The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-03-17
A STUDY IN BUGS:
BIG AND LITTLE.

buz and bug and the noise must be .oud
or it is not noticed, it is safe to say that in
discussing bugs the insect must be big
and noisy or no attention whatever is
paid to it. No other species of animal or
insect life has this simplicity of ~classifi-
cation. Here it is big or nothing. While
there are Dugs innumerable, social, finan-
cial, literary, clerical, legal and medical,
with their almost endless subdivisions, still
this same memorable rule prevails-'big or
nothing" Let us look at q few specimen
bugs.
Financial bugs: A century ago the illus
trious G.. w., he of the Ratchet business,
was the richest man in the u. S. A. His
estate. however, only inventoried at $780,
600, hardly sufficient for a weeks pay for
a big twentieth century financial bug like
Morgan, OF the millionaire steel trust, or
Rockefeller. of the oil cans. In the ffties a
million was a great fortune. Now its
possessor is hardly entitled to admission
into good financial society. We little bugs
with our petty $25O,OOO apiece are simply
crossroads membranes who darken tbs
light of these great princes of
And so with clerical bugs: Your great
religious bug nowadays writes at least
W. COllSOildutS dllCT H. name. lI often
happens that the rear handle OF a great
preacher is larger than the name itself.
For example-Fox, or Cox, d. D., Ii. d.
Then he is the pastor of a big city church.
frequented and financed by all manner of
fellow-bigbugs, social, medical, political.
fashionable and whatnot. OF course a big
sized clerical bug must have an equally
large-sized salary and an JUNCTION which.
when he rises in public, awes down and
silences all of his smaller-sized fellow
bugs. Think of the fearful and wonderful
eXegesis with which this big bug honors
the Scriptures and of the compliments
with which he addresses the Almighty,
as each Sabbath morning he piously takes
from his c~oat-tail pocket his immaculate
white, scented sudariuml The spectacle
quite takes ones breath away. Your big
clerical bug is always high up among the
cherubim and seraphim of his church
hierarchy. And think of his gigantic size,
when he, a mere man, gets to the extreme
top. Take the vicar of Christ upon this
earth-he that carries in his vest pocket the
keys of heaven. Our Savior was so poor
that he had nowhere to lay his head, but
his representative in the Vatican has II, 200
rooms, go that if he should change each
night his august bedstead it would take
over thirty years to get back to No. 1. If
Jesus Cnrist should to-day go to Rome he
would fare worse considering his miracle
st Cana of Galilee) than If he should go
to Kansas. In Protestant England the
Archbishop of Canterbury, in the name
OF the Man of Sorrows, draws a salary of
5000 a year. And about the same state
of things exists in this, our own blessed
land of freedom. There is no power or
earth, except DR.. Buckley and his COM
mittee, that can call to time either of those
excellent gentlemen, the Methodist bishops,
who occasionally, like DR.. Walden, wax
so great that they won't even receive d
petition from their lower clergy.
1t is of no use being either lawyer or
doctor unless you can get up into the
upper stories of the profession tenanted
by the large-sized bugs. How calmly will
an eminent counsel make mincemeat Of
your case and then ask to be rewarded
by an equally eminent fee. And then con-
slider the Fillgraves of surgery and medi-
cine, whose blessed refuge from mis- or
maltreatment is-'dead men tell no tales"
In politics it is only big bugs which
count. n capacious political big bug will
calmly absorb the sweat and enthusiasm
of their admiring constituency Of little
bugs with a never so much as thank
you" Grim Dean Swift once said:
Small bugs have smaller ones to bite EN-,
And so on, ad infinitum."
In church and state the little bugs are
expected to titillate the bugs just a size
larger than they are, and so on ad infinitum
until we get to the greatest bug of them
all, his Excellency, the President of these
United States. We have every reason to
believe that even he, after all, Is of the
earth earthly, and to his servant, in his
awful privacy, quite similar, in a like
exigency. to the ordinary man whose collar
button drops out of his shirt and rolls away
under the bureau.
And your social big bug, she, mostly, OF
the gorgeous receptions, and the dreams
and poems in millinery and man-tailor-
ing with which she wraps her female form
divine and ~languishes into public admira-
~tion-what words can possibly do her JUS
tice? Forty years ago a certain William
Allen Butler quite burned off his poetic
wings trying to reduce to poetry the glories
OF a certain Flora McFlimsy, OF Madison
Square. But he never survived the effort
or wrote a second poem. 1t was the old
case of Semele and Jupiter.
Thus, dear friends. big, little, and mostly
sweet and young, all things in church
and state teach this one great lesson
B a big bug or nOne," for littleness in
bugdom is death. Arise and shine, then,
spread your wings, even if it costs you
or your husband, or father, or other guard.
ian, your or his, or her bottom dollar. o.
what use is money unless you use it
OF what use is talent unless you set Il
upon a very lofty and FURNISHED candle.
stick and illumine the blackness OF the
world which surrounds you? Make thing.
hum" Keep the editors types hot will
proclaiming your glories. Make the sage.
Of the law on bench or on the bar, Il
use the words of Lord Randolph Churchill
"set up"
And now a word as to humbugs. Their,
Is a great deal of good honest Christian
envy in the worlds use of this word hum
bug. a humbug is not necessarily a fraud
1t requires a deal of humming TO brin:
a humbug into notice. The voice which
makes the music may be one OF real powe,
and the noise itself disagreeable to us
simply because it's rhythm and range ar
quite beyond hat of our humble organ