The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-02-07
SIMPLEST THING TO Do
IS GENERALLY SAFEST
People by Keeping Still Have Pre-
vented Panics and Consequent
Tragedies.
GOODNESS OF GREAT NEED
London Mail.

IF people would only take plenty OF lreSn
air / should have nothing to do" doctor
said the other day. 1t was his picturesque
way of saying the simplest thing to do
is always the safest. We know to-day
that five hundred people lie dead in Chi
cago who might have been alive had they
been able to do the simplest thing in the
world, and sit still.
1t is the safest of all rules of life. In
sickness the surest way to health is 10 lie
still and do as we are told, and half the
tragedies and catastrophes of the world,
perhaps might be saved if men could act
upon this simple rule. Yet how vain reason
and the weight of experience are In. n mo-
ment of panici Not many men have the
wonderful power of will which enabled Mr..
Gladstone to refuse to wear a bandage
over his eye, and to say to his physician:
IF you tell me not to open my eye for
eight hours l shall not open it," How
many of us could keep our eye closed for
eight minutes? That mysterious some
thing which confounds all our wisdom and
sets our reason at defiance in a single mo-
ment of fear governs our lives in smaller
things as well as great, and the human
being with all the intellectual equipment
resort creature of impulse. How many
of u.s. if we had been in the Iroquois The
alter at Chicago, would have sat still? Yet
every one of us knows that it was the
wisest and safest thing to do.
GREAT MEN IN GREAT MOMENTS.
Men who have passed through the fires
of life have learned the lesson and been
the better for it. Who does not know that
story of the Iron Duke as he stood look
| ing on at the battle when the Marquis of
Anglesey, at his SIDE had his leg shot
| through? "By jovei I've lost my leg" the
marquis burst out, as the bullet hit its
mark. Have you? BY jove!" the Iron
| Duke said as he looked on still at the
fight. "Stonewall Jackson, in one of the
| great battles OF the civil war, stood suck
! ing a lemon while his staff fell on all sides
around him, and only broke the silence tC
remark, pleasant excitement, isn't it?
Mr. ParneIl, just before the time fixed fol
| the second reading of the bill appointing
| the Parnell commission, asked a friend il
| there would be time to get away for al
| hour; ne wanted to examine a new furnace
| for assaying purposes, his faith in the ex
istence of gold IN wicklow being very
| of the gravest crises of his life was to be-
| gin He knew that the safest way to meet
| it was the simplest.
| The murderer has learned the lesson anC
| prospered by it. 1t does not always follow
| it is true. that the open way will lead tC
| safety; there was hanged the other day
| man who after numbering a girl took par
in the search for her body, and there could
| be no more striking example of the faitf
| of the criminal in openness rather thar
concealment than the annals of crime fol
| last wear Dougall lived for years at th'
| Moat farm, with his victims body buried
a few yards from the house. and was only
| convicted when he forged the name OF tn
| woman he had murdered. Edwards, tn
/ Camberwell murderer. brought about hi
| own doom by getting arrested for assault
| as Cream, the poisoner, brought himsel
| TO the Scaffold by accusing Dr. harper o
| his own crime.
THE CANDID CRIMINAL.
But the exception proves the rule an,
the candid criminal who is caught at las
may be supposed to have been living il
crime with immunity long before. TIL
only man who saw the Whiteohapel muir
derer was a porter at a newspaper office
who received from him a circumstance
account of a murder which had not the
been committed, but which was committe
on the following night exactly as described
One of the most notorious murderers of on
time hid himself in prison. which was NOR
courageous, perhaps, than the method O
another criminal who kept a carriage
rented a front pew at church. and won re
pute as a philanthropist in his own locality
Charles Peace, who for years eluded TN
vigilance of the police, knew his way abou
the world when he became ohurcwarde
| at Peckham, and nothing in his career
better worth remembering than his presen
of box OF cigars TO a chemist. The church
warden had given the chemist cigar h
had greatly liked. and the chemist aske
Mr. Johnson where he got them. ''Stol
them" the churchwarden replied, quit
| truthfully II wish you'd steal few.
said the chemist, roaring with laguhte
Some weeks afterwards" said Charlie
/ Peace. Il came across very fine lot {
Havanas in a house l visited rather late q
night" and. handing them 10 the chemis
he said: There, / have stolen you these.
Yet, though he may believe II now. I'll
chemist roared again. and believed Charlie
Peace's truth TO be a lie. Everybody
| Dublin heard a few months ago OF III
burglar who stole foui chairs from a scho'
and took them 10 the pawnshop on an ele'
trio tram, and so great an authority 8
Mr.. Gladstone declared that he though
Jack Sheppard would never have bee
: caught IL he had not gone 10 his mother
funeral
HOW A MEETING WAS SAVED.
! Daniel OConnell might have saved II
] theater audience at Chicago. He kne,
! and acted all through life upon the MAXI
that safety lay In reason. The floor W.
| giving way at a great meeting at Knight
town. and O'Connell, saying that the Ia
was too small. asked the audience TO lea'
and hold the meeting outside. A few TO,
TO go. but the hall was still packed, ar
the Liberator said. "Then / will tell ys