the students especially It has, within recent years, beoome
the day when lads get on their llrst spree.
“The sights enacted In our olty on Thursday night by
the college men, the taking possession of saloons, breaking
up theatres, blowing horns In people’s faoes, kissing unpro.
teoted women on the public streets, carrying them on
their shoulders, drinking themselves drunk, shouting
themselves hoarse, singing with Bowery tough bravado,
"Here's to good old whiskey, drink her down," were a dis
grace to our olvllizatlon, and the colleges and universities
which tolerates suoh depravities should be consistent and
drop the name of Christian.
BEVJSBB WORDS.
"A thousand wild Indians or monkeys turned loose could
not have acted worse than did the respectable sons of pray
ing mothers, fromtcolleges and universities founded by
Christian patriots. I know this Is an unpopular talk, but
.with popularity an honest preacher has simply nothing to
do. That these excessive college sports unfit the students
who take part in them for the aetlve work of life is evident
from the faettliat the majority of our best scholars and
most successful men come from the smaller colleges, and if
the rloh men believe In developing the brains of the coun
try let them endow the hundreds of small, struggling col
leges throughout the land."
THE people of the United States are by nature
“hustlers” to whom ease of communication
and celerity of movement is a necessity.
And yet the country roads of .the United States
are poorer than those of any other country in the
world, civilized or semi-civilized. The agitation
of the road question is therefore a useful and a
timely agitation of a subject that is of the highest
possible importance to all. The merchant and
the farmer, the laborer, and in the language of Bur •
dette, “men, women and children, editors, donkeys
ministers, and Members of Congress”—all need
good roads, and need them so much that they can
afford to build and pay for them at once. In fact
the want of good roads in this country is of such a
nature that we cannot profitably put off throwing
the fullest measure of our influence and our dollars
for the getting of good roads, a single day. It is
not too much to say that the interests concerned
in the country roads run the entire gamut of hu
man activities, extending as they do from the most
sordid mercantilism to the sociological and aes
thetic. Everything which makes country parts
more beautiful and aceessible makes country life
THE FREE LANCE.
* *
more profitable in every way, and adds effective
ness to the sustaining forces in our national char
acter which flow from the conntry home— their
great well-spring.
The proposition for the establishment of a Road
Department, an Institute of Road Engineering, a
permanent Road Exhibit in the city of Washing
ton, and a comprehensive exhibit of road construc
tion and maintenance at the World’s Columbian
Exposition is a good one, due to Col. Albert A.
Pope. Petitions in its favor should be promptly
signed by all. They will have their weight in fa
vor of our greatest need—good roads.
VARIOUS editors, congressmen, would-be—
congressmen, and others have had their in
nings in an attempt to define the true caus
es of “agricultural depression.” Among them
President David Starr Jordon, of Stanford Univer
sity, was roundly criticised for the explanation
which suggested itself as he traveled by rail
through southern Indiana. He thought from the
great number of persons he saw lounging about all
the stations that it was simple, downright laziness
which held the farmer down.
However this may be, it might be possible to
treat the subject in a lyric poem set to the music
of.the frying pan. It would commence thus:—
Lo! the poor farmer I helplessly
Tempest tossed on the porcino wave.
In other words, agricultural depression is large
ly a matter of diet, and principally stomachic.
COMPLETELY and exhaustively “reading up”
on the Silver Conference, now being held
at Brussels, will furnish a kind of training
every one needs, as well as a most useful fund of
the kind of knowledge that is as good as gold.
FRIENDS of the Free Lance are asked to co
operate with the Business Manager in his
effort to free it from debt, and conduct it