The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-04-22

has been less circumspect. As you may
| remember, few summers ago, this lady
| succeeded in throwing US all into hts
Subsequently we derived much pleasure
from an article by Lombroso. in which
| he catalogued her foremost among his
| toric beasts The naivete OF that seemed
to US refreshing.
The lady is not, perhaps, one whom We
should care to meet in the dark. but
| there are corridors in which We have
| encountered a number of people beside
| whom she is quite an engaging person
| Take, for instance, Caligua- There yor
have an artist in blood. connoisseul
| in crime. ruler to whom general fiend-
ishness was both governmental necessi-
| ty and personal delight. And take Cara
| Gala. A thinker has said that no mortal
| is wholly vile. Caracalla was. He had
| the treachery, the guile and the cruelty
OF a wilderness Of tiger cats. He had
| not a taste. not a vice that was not
| washed and rewashed in blood Beside a
| savage such as Caligua, the old woman
| in China looks rather cheap.
There are others, In particular there
| is Attila Where he passed. the earth
remained for ages bare. The whirlwind
that he loosed swept civilization like a
broom. In the echoes of his passage you
catch but the crash of falling cries. the
cries, the cries of the vanquished, the
| death rattle of nations, the surge and
roar of seas of blood. In their reyer-
berations Attila looms. dragging the de-
| sert after him, tossing it like pail on
| the face of the world. In the fury with
which he bounced on antiquity there is
| the impersonality of cyclone. By COM
parison to the havoc which he wrought
| the contortions of Caracalla become I'M
| important caprices. Beside this human
avalanche Caligula dwindles ridiculously.
But who are your" a startled prelate
found the strength to gasp. Said Attila.
II am the Scourge of God"
| Another fine fend was Tamerlane. In
the menagerie of history he is thoroughly
red-red with what Marlowe called war
rich livery. 1t was part Of him. When
he was born his hands were full of blood.
Subsequently. when he did not wade in
it it formed his usual bath. In his
career is the monotony of the internal
regions. II is made up of groans. Yet
! then he knew but one thing-how to kill
He came, saw, slaughtered and departed.
When he had gone he saw nothing.
When he had gone he left nothing-"at
most" an old writer says, "a dull sound
like a drum beaten under blanket
Beside that sound what are the tom
toms of Isl An?
For that matter. what are they beside
the timbrels of the Tsar Ivan, who,
though quite demoniac, fancied himself
divine. IT am your God.," he announced
to some wretches for whom he was pre-
pairing hurried execution. II am your
God, as God is mine" Whether the an
nouncement consoled them is immaterial.
The theory of 1t delighted him. At Nov
gorod. for no reason whatever other than
the exercise of his divinity. he began a
leisurely massacre that outlasted
month Every noon from five hundred
TO a thousand people were driven be-
fore him and poignantly despatched. De-
casionally he lent hand, running his
subjects through and through, killing
them like so many vermin. laughing
nightly at the stupidity of their agony.
and. when his wrist wearied, ordering
them off to tall gibbets. to seething watts,
or more expediously, drowning them
wholesale in the river Sometimes mob
of people were strung up by the heels.
Sometimes they were hacked to pieces.
Sometimes they were first strung up
hit then hacked a little and finally
tossed into the watts. Sometimes also
a pack of hounds was unleashed and as
Ivan eyed the fight OF men and dogs
the hyena within awoke. his own fangs
glistened, and with a roar he would bury
them in a subjects throat. Nor was he
without humor. An envoy of the kink
of Poland presumed to appear before
him with his hat on. BY way of rebuke
he had that hat nailed to the ENJOYS
head.
The rebuke was not prehaps what we
call epigrammatic But at least it was
to the point 1t made up in irony what
it lacked in paradox. Tamerlane would
have enjoyed it. So, too, would Cesare
Borgia.
There is another hyena- Ivan was hu-
man. He had his weaknesses. Among
them were seven wives Cesare Borgla
there was nothing human. The caverns
of history hold monsters more master
full than he, but none more cold blooded.
To every hyena there come moments OF
REPETITION and fatigue. When these mo-
ments come a desire for rest. When the
beast is fed he is at peace with the world
Cesare Borgia was never fed. He was
never weary. He was without nerves,
without heart. without weaknesses OF
any kind. He made Of treachery
science and crime an art. Alexander, his
father. exhaIed death. He had gloves.
rings, flowers. fruits, perfumes and even
eucharists that produced IT, And this
Pontir. from whose presence poison eman-
ated. trembled before his son. But ne
trembled insuficiently. Together they
MANNED the elimination of five cardinals
Then. through some jugglery. the wine
intended for the prelates. and which had
been seriously blended with cantarella.
the household drug. father and son drank
instead Alexander tumbled over. lie
was dead But Cesare, who knew what
he was about. had himself placed in the
carcass Of a bull. from which. either by
virtue of an old superstition or else be-
cause Of antitoxic properties which the
caracasses of bulls do not possess today
he emerged subtle as serpent that has
discarded his skin. Beside him other
hends. including the Empress Isl An.
lok rather vulgar.
The candle which that woman holds 10
Prilip II IS not much Of dip either
That demon. who presided over the bet
ter part OF the globe. over an entire
eclipse OF the intellect as well who made
il miscellaneous 70 think. and who. squat
ting in the Eseurial, dissolved into
mass Of mud. knew no pieasure-saFe
that OF motioning people out Of existence
and never smiled-save az the human
s----.-1.. ,r-ti-h fha ar,fn-6a- La fared