The Savannah morning news., 1903-11-15

"Weu," said the Idiot, as he took his
chair at the breakfast table, Il am for
Arbitration at last. Somehow or other
the barbaric strain in my being in the
past has clamored for the settlement
of strife by strife. Fire used to think
should be fought by fire. If a man has
init me in the face with paving stone
I have believed in hitting him back
with a piece of pig iron, not with a
chocolate eclaire and while in common
with others, have hated war for all
the misery and woe 1t brings in its
train, 1 have thought that perhaps our
ancestors were right in regarding 1t as
the most thorough method of finally
settling a vexed question"
Great Scott What has induced all
this preachment this morning." asked
the Bbliomaniac. You haven't given
up idiocy for the pulpit have your
'No, sir" returned the Idiot There's
none Of your Dowie about me. haven't
the slightest ambition to start re-
ligion, but l have become convert
from war to Arbitration"
"All sensible men did that long ago,
said Mr.. Brief. War is At only for
saVages, for the beasts of the jungle,
for those who maintain that might
makes right. You are coming in late
a regular habit of yours / belieVe-at
the tail end of the procession of SAN
ity. What has wrought this sudden
transformation?
II went to a football match yester-
day, and that turned the trick" replied
the Idiot THE strenuous life is no
longer for me. l am content now to
leave the Kopje of strife for the seduc-
tive sweet reasonableness of the draw
ing room. / am willing that the great
international differences of the future
shall be settled not upon the battle
field, but over the 5 O'Clock tea table:
that our generals of the future shall
be clad in frock coats and lavender kids
instead of glorying in the gold mounted
habiliments of war, for L see now
what a terrible thing conflict becomes
when two bodies of men align them
selves in opposition, and then rush in
to do or die"
rs it really so awful?" asked Mr..
Whitechoker.
1T is inspiringly awful returned
the idiot. Il used years ago to read
with the keenest pleasure of the deeds
of daring by the heroes of old upon the
great battlefields of history. but
never imagined a scene so terrible as
that which confronted me yesterday,
when twenty-five young gladiators who
are now seeking the refinements of ed
ucation agreed to disagree as to which
was the better college at football,
Quinceton or Yalevard, and then re-
paired to the gridiron to fight it out to
a finish. Young giants they were, and
when they had at each other, 1t seemed
to me at the moment of their impact
that the whole universe trembled. The
sun blinked as if somebody had
-. Ill. l. .
earth shook as though some undreamed
of forces of nature lurking within had
suddenly gone on a spree, and 1
thanked my stars that the powers
when they fashioned me had decided
to withhold from me the 81 inch
bicep the steel constructed shin, the
shoulders of Atlas and the nerve of
old Mr.. Ajax else 1 too might have
been ambitious to get on an eleven
somewhere, to retire from the conflict
minus my ribs, with an ingrowing nose,
spine divided against itself, and my
kneecaps strewn from one end of the
gridiron to the other"
Mercy" cried Mrs. Pedagog. ''What
a dreadful picture"
Dreadful, but inadequate" said the
idiot 81 have seen pictures by mas
ter hands of avalanches descending
from the Alpine nights carrying and
overwhelming all before them; have
ccSh d painting QellCllIlE lne nOTI1u
scene that confronted the eyes of Noah
and his family upon the subsistence of
the flood; my history of the various
wars of Napoleon are filled with en-
cravings of the fields of Austerlitz,
jena, Waterloo-but all, all were in
adequate to the reality of this thing
yesterday. One of my ambitions has
always been to see from safe posi-
ton two railway trains collide, going
at full speed"
why you bloodthirsty creature!"
cried the Poet.
Not at ALL" said the Idiot. my
ambition did not include the sacrifice
of human life. What l wanted was to
start an empty train, say at Albany
and another one from New York on
the same track. the one going south
and the other north, and then stand
somewhere about Poughkeepsie myself
and see them come together-but now
my desire for that sort of thing is
over. | have seen twenty-five brawny
civilized American youths do practi-
cally the same thing with each other,
complished the apparently impossible
feat of one young man running direct
~ through another young man with
out removing the other young man s
vermiform appendix. have seen a
human being slide on his nose as If it
were keen edged skate from the As
yard line forward to the 5-yard line of
the enemy's field, and act as If he
enjoyed it into the bargain. l have
seen an 1S-year-old boy distinguished
for his beauty and his manners in the
drawing room, fly through the air like
human catapult, land on his stom-
ach on an oval shaped bit of leather,
and then utterly disappear beneath a
writing tidal wave of legs, canvas
I'll A.s 49,.
the neighborhood of 1000 pounds. What
is more, when, after a mangling strug-
gle of three minutes, he had emerged
from the scrimmage, 1t was with a
smile that would have been beautiful,
If 1t had not been over full of grass,
sand, and gravel. When that two tons
of humanity threw itself madly down
upon him, never expected to see the
youth again alive. and as for his re-
mains, my impulse would have been