TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10266, 8 February 1899, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The sensation of the day in j Cowardice New .-York at the end of Dej ot cember was the charge of American cowardice which hud been Officers. freely made against some of the officers of the Seventy* First Regiment, a crack New York regiment, ; and the only one from that city which was in action in the war in Cuba. The regiment received a stirring welcome home, and New York held up its hands and shrieked with horror when the war correspondent of the "World," greatly daring, declared that the regiment had stood aside and let others press forward up the bullet-swept slope of San Juan Hill, before Santiago. The howl of indignation which went up at the publication of this aspersion on the honour of the regiment" seems to have acared the "World.' Instead of supporting its correspondent, and ' compelling an investigation, it "backed down," and has now the annoyance of seeing its original story supported by evidence which will be very hard to get over. The rumours of poltroonery which, despite the "World" having eaten its words, floated about New York after the regiment's return, were finally crystallised by two of the captains of the regiment, who published a statement in which they charged three of their superior officers—Colonel Downs, Lieut.Colonel Smith, and Major Whittle —with "deserting their men and skulking at the rear until the lighting was at an end." This sensational document aroused a tremendous • lot of publio-interest. Its first consequence was the setting-up of a court-martial, at which the two captains were to be tried for publicly criticising the conduct of their superior officers, an offence which is punishable, no matter whether the criticisms are or are not justified. But the charge was also made the reason for, the holding of a court of enquiry into the' conduct of the officers referred to. Iv their published statement the captains declared, among other things, that "Colonel Downs declined to obey General Kent's order to advance, declaring that the regiment con go no further'"; that Lieu-tenant-Colonel Smith "was left intrenched behind a stone wall when "lis command moved forward"; that Major Whittle "remained in safety when informed that the last company of his battalion was going to the front"; that ho "disobeyed Colonel Downs's order to lead his battalion into action, and was not seen on San Juan Hill till next morning; that shortly; after tha arrival pf tbe regiment on the lull, General Hawkins could find neither its colonel, it*c ; lieutenant-colonel, nor its senior major; thatColonel Downs and his staff-officers weve\ finally found three miles in the rear, at eight' o'clock that night." There is not wanting 1 ; the testimony of others to confirm these most y serious charges. The grandson of Nathaniel '< Hawthorne, who enlisted aa a private m the \ Seventy-First, in a letter to his mother oa '.\ July 6th, describing the battle of San Juan, sa id:—"l am sorry to say that most of our officers, from the colonel down, behaved ia the most cowardly manner. Most of them remained hidden in the woods, leaving their men under a heavy fire with no one to give them orders." He has since specifically stated that the officers previously mentioned by name were guilty of cowardice. The , only time he saw Colonel Downs on the day of the fight was when he was carrying a wounded comrade, and he saw. an officer crouching in the bush, whom he recognised as his colonel; at the same time he saw another officer of the regiment hiding in the bushes. Other privates, non-commissioned officers, and officers make statements bo the •same effect, and it is hard to see, in the face of so much crushing evidence, how the accused officers will escape being dismissed the service for that most deadly of the sins a soldier can commit, cowardice before the enemy.

The first fire in one of A Fire the enormously tall in a buildings, known in "Sky Scraper." «New York as "Sky Scrapers," took place in •■ December, with the result that, in spite of , the alleged fireproof character of the building, a huge part of it- was gutted. Fire- ' - men, architects, builders, and insurance experts are now discussing the lessons'of the fire, which may not be lvithout interest even in cities where space is less valuable than inNew York, and where architects do not perpetually act as ii guided by the motto, . "There's always room at the top." The fire , broke out in a very modest store, only seven , • stories high, and from that spread to the,.-. Home Life building, 280 ft high, and the „•' United-Life building, of rather smaller di- * mensions. Both these "sky scrapers" were of the modern steel frame kind, and the,, structures themselves proved fire proof. But ,• * the flames leapel through the windows,.and climbed up from floor to floor in the same way, until from the ninth or tenth storey,upwards "the building was a fiery beacon to ; the city—a volcano spouting flames and

sparks." The ceiling of each floor seems '.' to have resisted the intense heat, but the j weak spot was" the windows, ' and this ia i why the firemen and insurance com- ( , panics are clamouring for the enforce* t j ment of the regulation which demands \ . that fire proof shutters shall be attached f to the windows of all such buildings. / The architects and builders are reported to-' be jubilant over the result of the fire. AlLabove the ninth floor of the Home Life build> ing would have to be taken down, "but evei above that height the steel skeleton and steel beams are sound and not buckled, and will st.md their strain as well as before." Bat the firemen are by no means satisfied. They refuse tt« believe in the existence of a fireproof building at all, because as soon as the strongest building is filled up with "desk* and office furniture, papers, books, carpets, &c," it is not fireproof. On the occasion of the fire in the Home Life building, the . brigades, after a tough fight, aided by torrents of rain, succeeded in mastering the flames, but once let- a really great fire get the upper hand of them in one of these tall buildings—and they invite the New York public to imagine a volcano distributing bur \ ashes and flaming embers over half the They urge that no building should c-- ho»'m height the limit, 125 ft, reached by t /[_*_< supply under natural pressure. A' /|1?-*** of fact there are at least fifteen ,*- / 1 ; / / Li

Jnge from 300 ft to 385 ft.

Messrs Chm'm.w axd Hall, A with a g« ! neri>«ity to be comDickens mended in publishers, have perArticlt*. uiit-U'd AnuiV.v Lang's introductory essay on Dickens, written . their Gadshill edition, to appear in the "fortnightly, aud when the talk is of •David Ci'ppcrtiold" and "Pickwick," of Mrs o*np and Kich.uu .*'•« ivoller. and that whole inimitable world of "honest- humour and congcious pathu-," it is hardly necessary to say this is an aiticlo that should be read. Like Thackerit;". "'bo "t:.ok a buoyant delight in praising. Mr Ling is never happier than in fcjj grateful appreciation for Dickfns. As he {rfuiklv s-iys, lie k/s played the part of the Devil*!* AdvtKialo when that critical part -eliieJ called l'-r '.wily from "an odd sense of duty which seamed bail u_dutiful. ' The post evident faults a.-v .attributed partly to „ j]y cirL-uuiit-ajiL-ea, partly Lj the idiosyn(jasr of tiie man. "id his extraordinary «ntrg V - craving for employment, a halt-sup-pressed guiiuh for the '.lage, need of money yjd need cf publicity, we trace tiiCoO defects of Dickens's work whi'jh are due to _urplusagc. He did toj much, and he read too little. Hence th_t "absence of the lite,arv quality, which makes his novels so itnpojjibk- to the unfortunately fastidious young persons who nowadays say they can't read Dickon*. Yet, "brought up i:i slums and shabby stiie.s. familiar with the workroom of the blacking factory, with the pawnbroker, the dun, the bailiff, a.ivl '.he debtors' prison, Dickens was 'm.tking himself all the while,' like Scott among the glens of I.iddcsdale.' One, pleasant thing is noted about the success with "Pickwick." We hear enough of humorous buok:- emerging, like Hood's last puns, fn<;u dolorous ciictim>.t.ince-<. "What funny songs I have written," cries Thackeray, "whan fit t> hang myself!" But the humour of these incomparable page* has no black background. Dickens began "Pickwick" as v young man who saw his way clear before him, and as a happy and accepted lover. "The shadows fell away, and Mr Pickwick (-upped beaming upon the stage lurroundod by his immortal company." Andrew Lang dc*s not much admire the conicious pathos—the deathbed scenes, and "the lufferiugs of the very young and very weak," which nevertheless helped Dickens with the public. Mr Squcers, Mr Pecksniff, the friendly Mr Swiveller, "whoso marchioness has the right pathos, which dees not harrow, being bathed in humour"—these delight the critic, as they once delighted their creator. "Dickens simply revelled in Mr Pecksniff, and in what is perhaps his greatest creation, Mis Gamp.'' -hero is a delightful estimate of the charms of the Dickens boy, from "that truly sympathetic young victim of Borrio-boola-Gha, who whacked his rescuers, to the 'innerly bairns,' as the Scots say, Copperfield and Pip." "David Copperfield" is judged tho greatest novel, "Pickwick" of course being excepted, as no novel, but an isolated phenomenon. "Little Dorrit" alone Mr Lang confesses ho could never read "for human pleasure"; and when he read for duty, he found it weary work. It will not do indeed, unless at tbe age of about fifteen, when one remembers accepting it all with the meet docilo admiration of the heroine and a proper thrill at the doings of the "always gay" convict. We must object, however, that "A Tale of Two Cities" seems too lightly passed over in a sentence. This surely deserved more words, standing as it does amongst Dickens's books, in its own way, as another isolated phenomenon.

Plack for another, giant, Thackeray though not in his most and Gargantuan mood! Volume i,;;"P_hcrr." VT. of the Biograpkcai "eds- '( A, i tion of Thackeray, presents a j conJplete set of the contributions to "Punch," prefaced by a specially interesting article by Mrs Ritchie. The years covered are from 18f5 to 1854. In the May of 1842, Edward JFitzgerald had written to a friend, "Tell Tkackeray not to go to 'Punch' ftt." "Punch" being than but a year old, "a bantling in arms," of those status possibly Fitzgerald felt illwsured. But Leech, Douglas Jerrold, and . Kenny Meadows were already on the staff, and in spite of the Fitzgerald warning, by Jttne of the same year 'Thackeray's earliest contributions vegan to appear, and by Christmas time, 1645, ho had taken his seat at the "Punch" dinner as an enlisted successor to Albert Smim. "Year after year, week ..after week, tho little square invitations came ttjj.ujarly, with their quaint-printed notice of 'Five o'clock sharp,"" and the contributors gathered with more br less .of triumph on their brows. "It i on record," says Mr Spielmann. "that Douglas Jerrold would go radiant to the dinner when Mrs Caudle was sending up "Punch's' circulation. Thackeray, too, first tasted the delights of wide popularity on the success of his Snob Papers, and showed the pleasure felt in.his demeanour at the board." Two of his felloWcontributors there met, Leech and Doyle, became, the closest friends he ever had. And "it was 'Punch' who had made a home for him," as Mrs Ritchie says, when in 1847 ho was able to take the brown, bow-windowed house in Young street, and call home the little daughters to dwell there with him, taking happy excursions from their schoolroom above to a share in the gi at living drama of "Punch" or '♦'Vanity Fair*' going on in the study below. "We were to be trusted to stand upon chairs to hold draperies and cast a shadow, to take tho part of supers on our father's stage. There were also woodblocks ready to fascinate us; and it was often our business to rub out the failures and •ash the chalk off the blocks. I still remember _ dreadful day when I washed away a -Wished drawing for which the messenger / Was at that moment'waiting in tho hall." t Ihe "Prize Novelists" set of parodies they -olemnly read for real stories, longing for them to be finished instead of always breaking off '*- the most interesting point. It was in these <i»ys that Fitzgerald wrote of Thackeray, '.:r-He is in full vigour, play, and pay in London, writing in a dozen reviews, and a score ,W newspapers, and while health lasts he . fuls before the wind." Political differences ' jjrted Thackeray and his best-loved paper, -here is a letter which gives the reason of; «a resignation, though it leaves him hankerrat still "to write a ballad or two without, a\\ name in 'Punch,' or do something to: -har my oid friends that I'm not quite sepa- ' •**« from them." "Thackeray's world is P-*W. The 'Book of Snobs' calls aloud for » cdamentary," a literary critic wrote, ten rear! ago. Curiously enough, Idrs Ritchie •oIUVs that a commentary has actually been prirrtkl in Cliristiauia for the use of students in Etklish, giving, as might be imagined, *•* -ons of edd and unexpected elucidations, j ■Hut-Thackeray's own elucidation of himself; •tandriout most distinctly, through all this Volumdof old-time fun —"That under the , mask ktirical there walks about a sentiI •ttentallentleman. who means not unkindly . to auy hortal person."