The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. II, No. 4, March 1896)

OF PROTEST (VOL. II, NO. 4, MARCH 1896) ***

The Philistine A Periodical of Protest.

_Some hae meat that canna eat, and some na meat that want it;_ _But we hae meat and we can eat, so let the Lord be thankit!_

[Illustration: Vol. II. No. 4.]

Printed Every Little While for The Society of The Philistines and Published by Them Monthly. Subscription, One Dollar Yearly Single Copies, 10 Cents. March, 1896.

THE SOCIETY OF THE PHILISTINES.

(International.)

An association of Book Lovers and Folks who Write. Organized to further Good-Fellowship among men and women who believe in allowing the widest liberty to Individuality in Art.

ARTICLE XII. SEC. 2. The annual dues shall be one dollar. This shall entitle the member to all the documents issued by the Society, together with one copy of the PHILISTINE magazine, monthly, for one year.

Truthful manuscript seeking the Discerning Reader should be addressed to the Scrivener (assistant to the Datary); funds, forwarded for the matter of subscriptions, to the Bursar.

Address The Philistine, East Aurora, N. Y.

THE PHILISTINE is published monthly at $1 a year, 10 cents a single copy. Subscriptions may be left with newsdealers or sent direct to the publishers. The trade supplied by the AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY and its branches. Foreign agencies, BRENTANO’S, 37 Avenue de l’Opera, Paris; G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, 24 Bedford street, Strand, London.

THE PHILISTINE.

CONTENTS FOR MARCH, 1896.

A Great Mistake, Stephen Crane

The Model of a Statesman, Charles M. Skinner

The Filling of the Joneses, William McIntosh

Paul Knew, Frederic Almy

A Complaint of Some Editors, Neith Boyce

Wind of the West, John Northern Hilliard

The Port of Ships, Joaquin Miller

A Buccaneer Toast, Eugene Richard White

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_COPYRIGHT, 1896, by B. C. Hubbard._

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THE PHILISTINE.

NO. 4. March, 1896. VOL. 2.

A BUCCANEER TOAST.

To the Fiend of the Seven Seas, To the Print of the Dead Man’s Thumb; To a Curse at Death with a dying breath, Here’s Death in a Draught of Rum!

_Here’s to Hell, toss it off in a quaff, lads,_ _Drink the health of the Devil and laugh, lads,_ _Pledge the tale of the Wheat and the Chaff, lads,_ _Here’s to Hell!_

To the Dead in the Dismal Sea, To the Bleaching Bones on the Beach, To a hate-born stroke of the Valiant Folk And the Tunes that the Sea can teach!

_Here’s the Sea, for her grey clutch has got ye,_ _May her salt kisses poison and rot ye,_ _By the Soul of the Beast who begot ye,_ _Here’s the sea!_

To a slash at the Heart of a Don, To the Port that never may be, Drink deep to the Ghosts of the Spanish Hosts, Who loom in the Mists of the Sea!

_Here’s to Hell, toss it off in a quaff, lads,_ _Drink the health of the Devil and laugh, lads,_ _Pledge the tale of the Wheat and the Chaff, lads,_ _Here’s to Hell!_

EUGENE R. WHITE.

A GREAT MISTAKE.

An Italian kept a fruit stand on a corner where he had good aim at the people who came down from the elevated station and at those who went along two thronged streets. He sat most of the day in a backless chair that was placed strategically.

There was a babe living hard by, up five flights of stairs, who regarded this Italian as a tremendous being. The babe had investigated this fruit stand. It had thrilled him as few things he had met with in his travels had thrilled him. The sweets of the world laid there in dazzling rows, tumbled in luxurious heaps. When he gazed at this Italian seated amid such splendid treasure, his lower lip hung low and his eyes raised to the vendor’s face were filled with deep respect, worship, as if he saw omnipotence.

The babe came often to this corner. He hovered about the stand and watched each detail of the business. He was fascinated by the tranquility of the vendor, the majesty of power and possession. At times, he was so engrossed in his contemplation that people, hurrying, had to use care to avoid bumping him down.

He had never ventured very near to the stand. It was his habit to hang warily about the curb. Even there he resembled a babe who looks unbidden at a feast of gods.

One day, however, as the baby was thus staring, the vendor arose and going along the front of the stand, began to polish oranges with a red pocket-handkerchief. The breathless spectator moved across the sidewalk until his small face almost touched the vendor’s sleeve. His fingers were gripped in a fold of his dress.

At last, the Italian finished with the oranges and returned to his chair. He drew a newspaper printed in his language from behind a bunch of bananas. He settled himself in a comfortable position and began to glare savagely at the print. The babe was left face to face with the massed joys of the world.

For a time he was a simple worshipper at this golden shrine. Then tumultuous desires began to shake him. His dreams were of conquest. His lips moved. Presently into his head there came a little plan.

He sidled nearer, throwing swift and cunning glances at the Italian. He strove to maintain his conventional manner, but the whole plot was written upon his countenance.

At last he had come near enough to touch the fruit. From the tattered skirt came slowly his small dirty hand. His eyes were still fixed upon the vendor. His features were set, save for the under lip, which had a faint fluttering movement. The hand went forward.

Elevated trains thundered to the station and the stairway poured people upon the sidewalks. There was a deep sea roar from feet and wheels going ceaselessly. None seemed to perceive the babe engaged in the great venture.

The Italian turned his paper. Sudden panic smote the babe. His hand dropped and he gave vent to a cry of dismay. He remained for a moment staring at the vendor. There was evidently a great debate in his mind. His infant intellect had defined the Italian. The latter was undoubtedly a man who would eat babes that provoked him. And the alarm in him when the vendor had turned his newspaper brought vividly before him the consequences if he were detected.

But at this moment, the vendor gave a blissful grunt and tilting his chair against a wall, closed his eyes. His paper dropped unheeded.

The babe ceased his scrutiny and again raised his hand. It was moved with supreme caution toward the fruit. The fingers were bent, claw-like, in the manner of great heart-shaking greed.

Once he stopped and chattered convulsively because the vendor moved in his sleep. The babe with his eyes still upon the Italian again put forth his hand and the rapacious fingers closed over a round bulb.

And it was written that the Italian should at this moment open his eyes. He glared at the babe a fierce question. Thereupon the babe thrust the round bulb behind him and with a face expressive of the deepest guilt, began a wild but elaborate series of gestures declaring his innocence.

The Italian howled. He sprang to his feet, and with three steps overtook the babe. He whirled him fiercely and took from the little fingers a lemon.

STEPHEN CRANE.

WIND OF THE WEST.

The wind tonight is cool and free, The wind tonight is Westerly; Sweeping in from the plains afar, Sweet and faint—yet wild as are All scents and odors blent In the Occident.

My thoughts tonight are far and free, My thoughts tonight are Westerly; Sweeping out to the plains afar, Where roses grow and grasses are Carpets that spread so cool and sweet For my naked feet.

My heart tonight is wild and free, My heart tonight is Westerly; But I’m living again those old, glad days, Roaming at pleasure the grassy ways,— Only a herder riding the swales Of the prairie trails.

JOHN NORTHERN HILLIARD.

PAUL KNEW.

An article in a late number of THE PHILISTINE names Organized Charity as _The Kind that Paul Forgot_. Such an aspersion on a saint’s memory is itself uncharitable. If Paul knew his Bible he did not forget the injunction of the Old Testament: “I was a Father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out;” and Paul said himself to the Thessalonians: “If any man will not work neither shall he eat.” These precepts state two root principles of charity organization—information before reformation, and a flat denial of alms to the indolent. To deny their truth would imply a “Philistinism” of the obnoxious kind that Matthew Arnold had in mind when he said: “Philistine gives the notion of something particularly stiff-necked and perverse in its resistance to light.” Even Paul, by the way, was once such a Philistine, but we read that as he journeyed towards Damascus a great light shone around him and he became a new man.

“When letters of appeal to the newspapers are sent to a board of review,” our critic says, “impulse will be put in cold storage.” Possibly, but it would no longer be easier for people to work the newspapers than to work themselves. “Catalogue poverty,” he says, “quiz it, register it, dub it Case One; let hunger wait for an investigation, and if a bar sinister appears anywhere, deny food and shelter.” The last sentence could never have been written if its author had made some preliminary inquiries such as modern charity requires. The invariable rule of true charity is to relieve urgent distress instantly, and to forgive errors seventy times seven even, with a sympathy which never grows callous, if there is still a chance of helping. Paradoxical as it may seem, money is not a panacea for poverty. If drink has made a man poor, money will feed not him but his drunkenness. If improvidence is his fault, free lodging, free food, free clothes, or even work found ready-made, will only foster his improvidence. There are so-called charitable institutions which spend huge sums in gathering about them colonies of thriftless, indolent loafers, whose only hope of regeneration lies in the very spur of hunger which devoted men and women are laboring night and day to remove. It is “moral murder” to teach the poor that drunkenness, indolence and improvidence will be toled along and that a “poor face” will draw doles. To interfere lightly with the severe laws of Nature is to assume a grave responsibility. “Suppose the Father of us all did administer His beneficence on such a plan?” says our critic. Are we sure he does not?

Pauperism is a disease, and requires more skilled treatment and less amateur dosing. Only the most unregenerate complain of the hospitals because they catalogue sickness, register it, quiz it, dub it Case One, or even let suffering wait for an investigation, and refuse to administer soothing drugs which, _like alms_, give a temporary relief without curing, and are apt to create an appetite which is more harmful than the pain which they relieve.

The Moses has not yet appeared who shall lead the suffering masses out of the bondage of poverty, and we know not even which road he will go, but perhaps the smoothest way and the nearest way is not the one which will prevent backsliding. “And it came to pass that God led them out, not through the way of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure they return to Egypt, but God led the people about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.”

FREDERIC ALMY.

THE PORT OF SHIPS.

In a recent critical article on American letters in the London _Atheneum_ is this sentence: “In point of power, workmanship and feeling among all poems written by Americans we are inclined to give first place to the _Port of Ships_ of Joaquin Miller.”

[This is high praise, and whether deserved or not I leave to my readers to determine.—EDITOR.]

Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the Gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores, Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said: “Now must we pray, For lo! the very stars are gone. Brave Adm’ral speak—what shall I say?” “Why, say, ‘Sail on! Sail on! and on!’”

“My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly, wan and weak.” The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. “What shall I say, brave Adm’ral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?” “Why you shall say, at break of day, ‘Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!’”

They sailed, and sailed, as winds might blow, Until at last the blanched mate said: “Why, now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dread seas is gone. Now speak, brave Adm’ral; speak, and say—” He said: “Sail on! Sail on! and on!”

They sailed! They sailed! Then spake the mate: “This mad sea shows its teeth to-night; He curls his lip, he lies in wait With lifted teeth, as if to bite! Brave Adm’ral, say but one good word— What shall we do when hope is gone?” The words leaped as a leaping sword: “Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!”

JOAQUIN MILLER.

THE FILLING OF THE JONESES.

Sunset hour at the meridian of Paradise Flats: but no sunset was visible. It was the worse end of a bad December day. Out doors, all was one color, and the rain froze as it fell.

Before the big tenement stood a Russian sleigh, with an impatient pair of clipped chestnuts. A Roman sentinel in furs sat on the box, and his liveried mate groped in the dark hall for the habitat of John Jones, who had been “recommended.” John Jones lived there, but there was no evidence of it on the first floor. This tenement was not provided with a hall directory and a battery of bells. Poverty makes residence uncertain from month to month. Many a good man has been returned “not found” or “a fake,” because he had to try elsewhere when the rent came due.

On the fifth floor, a room that looked back over a net of railroads held John Jones’s treasures. Three little girls were keeping the stove warm. There was some coal in it, but the way it acted was proof that warmth is not always provoked by poking. The fire had a hungry look like the children, and like them, moreover, evinced an anxious desire to go out, cheerless as it was beyond the ineffective screen of the walls. The footman’s knock created a flutter in the little group. Who would knock at that door?

“It’s a p’liceman,” suggested little four-year-old Kit. The coal in the stove and a grape basketful more had been picked up on the tracks.

Hand-in-hand they lined up at the door and eight-year-old Annie opened it. Kit and the two-year-old pulled hard on the line when the towering footman entered.

“Does John Jones live here?”

“Yes,” said the eldest girl.

“John Jones, who registered at the Work and Aid Bureau?”

“I think so,” said the girl, cautiously.

“Sure!” put in the four-year-old.

“Where is he?”

“He’s out looking for some work, sir.”