THE LAND OF THE FREE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6741, 25 April 1893, Page 2

THE LAND OF THE FREE.

A cot_ _c of months ago a Napier resident wrote to a friend in San Francisco asking whether ho was still of opinion that 'Frisco was tho best place in the world for a fellow to push hia v.ay ? By tha mail which arrived yesterday the following reply was received:—"My answer is emphatically No. To my mind it is the worst lam certain that had I been in any portion of

tbe British possessions, with the determination and energy I havo exercised, and the very rigid rules I have observed as to strict temperance aud cleanness of life, I should long ago have succeeded in making a good living. America and its institutions are rotten. ' Boodle' is the sole aim and end of

everyone, and without unlimited 'cheek' a man 'is not in it.' Every time that I be-

lieved I was on the eve of getting on to something certain and lucrative, I hay. found tho way blocked because I was not 'in politic..' I would gladly find my way back to New Zealand if I could be sure of getting something to do, however humble." After referring to his ill-success, and the

sraallnesß of remuneration he is receivin

for long hours and arduous work, the writer says, " All the promises that were made me came to naught. The simplest advice or recommendation is expected to be paid for ; tribes everywhere." Our readers miy remember a cablegram we published not so very long ago, concerning tbe torture and burning alive of a negro in Texas. A'Frisco paper gives the sickening details, which . • shall not repeat, .ft is sufficient to say that a negro, guilty of a hideous crime, was caught, taken from the officers of the law by a mob, carried through the town in procession to the public square, and thence out to the prairie, where a scaffold had been built. After giving a graphic account of the horrible proceedings, the paper in question moralises thus :—"lt is evident from this

that our boasted civilisation has net accomplished much. The savage is close under the akin of the civilised man. The spirit that brought the torture, crucifixion, and burning of hundreds of thousands of men in the past is barely covered by the veneer of education and training of a few hundred years. The twenty thousand people of Texas who cheered and jeered and shouted for an hour at the screams of tho wretch who was seared alive before them are brothers to the crowd who applauded the torture and sacrifice of the victims of the Inquisition, and close kin to the Roman multitude that broke forth in Doisy jes _ when the Christians of Nero's day were smeared with tar and made into living fire statues to light the palace

grounds."