The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-01-06
Miss stones Bulgarian Captors I'm
periling Her Life by Warning with
Turks on the Border.
PRINCESS LOUISE INSANE
ECCENTRIC DAUGHTER OF KING
LEOPOLD HOPELEssLY MAD.
The ROckefeIIers Said to BE Anxious
to Supply the City of Paris with
Gas-La Liberte in Arms.

LONDON, Jan. 5.-Rudyard Kipling has
become the poet of conscription. He has
been tending that way for months past.
This morning London was electrified by
column and a half OF his pungent rhymes
set out in loaded type. The Times COM
mended them, in it's first editorial, as. a
ringing and passionate appeal to England
to face the necessities of her imperial po-
sition, but did not approve the conscrip-
ton idea. The verses. under the heading
1.-The Islanders" score Englshmen for
their lack of energy and patriotism in fac
ing the realities of war and blindness to
the necessity of universal service, have ex-
cited some resentment, especially those
lines in which he sneers at the national
sports and pastimes after having de-
nounced the crippled condition of the vol
unteer movement.
"Then were the judgments loosened. then
was your shame revealed,
And the sands of a little people, few but
apt in the field.
Yet we were saved by a remnant and your
lands long-suffering star
When your strong men cheered in their
millions while your striplings went to
war.
Sons of the sheltered city. unmade. un-
handled. unmeet.
Ye pushed them raw to the battle as ye
picked them raw from the street"
He also is particularly severe on the as
sistance limited to Christmas gifts.
And ye sent them comfits and pictures
to help them harry your foes;
And We vaunted your fathomess power
and ye Haunted your iron pride
Ere ye tawned on the younger nations for
the men who could shoot and ride"
This done, Kipling gibes at his fellow
countrymen for their presumed absorption
in sports, referring in a biting line 10 how
they contented their souls.
with the fianneled fools at the wicket and
the muddled OATS at the goals"
England, he says. can hope for nothing
''Ye can send men-not children or servants
tempered and taught TO the end
Otherwise he declares ruin must be Brit
aims portion. He closes with this stirring
appeal TO the people;
mo doubt but We are people, absolute,
strong and wise;
Whatever your heart has desired We have
not withheld from your eyes.
On your own head, on your own hands. the
sin and the saving lies
Strenuous verses they are, of course; but
they are futile. The Times. inocula ted
though 1T has been of late by Mr.. Kip
lings notions and pressed forward by po-
tent military influences, can not stand the
omission to note that England's first line
of defense is the navy is flaw in his con-
tention. but adds that the primary and sec
ondary schools may well pay greater atten-
tiOn to naval and rife shooting, and that
perhaps. II might be desirable to super
add short period of compulsory camp
training.
But Mr.. Kiplings apparent ideal of a
conscript army levied on the Continental
system, is quite useless for British needs
1t could not be sent abroad to fight in
South Africa. India or China, and would
have no likelihood of fighting at home
Thus the Times gives away it's poet at
the outset. If Mr.. Kipling had been con-
tent to inveigh against the spurious sport
now permeating England, against the fact
that education is kept inefficient at the
bidding of sectarianism, against the gen
eral slackness of the administrative ma
chine, he would have served the great ma
tional cause which Lord Rosebery has
taken up, but cOnscription is wild even
foolish, cry in the wilderness.