Zion’s Herald, of Boston, Mass., puts individual responsibility in a nutshell in this item: “Who can tell the importance of one vote? It is said that when the war of 1812 was declared, the measure was carried in the United States Senate by one majority. One of those senators was elected, in the Rhode Island Legislature, by one majority, and one member of that legislature was detained at home unexpectedly, who, if he had been present, would have voted against that senator. He was about getting on the stage to go to the legislature in the morning of the day of the vote, when, casually looking around, he saw that his pigs had got out of the pen and were in mischief. He stopped at home to take care of them and could not reach the legislature that day. One vote changes many currents. Massachusetts once had a governor elected by one plurality. Every good man should be counted on the right side.”
Our English cousins have resolved to place a bust of Longfellow in the poets’ corner of Westminster Abbey. £500 have already been subscribed toward the erection of the memorial. Longfellow will be the first American thus honored at Westminster.
London Truth: “The aim of illustrated newspapers ought to be to give pictorial realization of passing events. Their merit is in proportion to their accuracy. Of late, however, they have taken to fancy sketches.”
Longfellow, on being introduced to the late Nicholas Longworth, of Cincinnati, a quick-witted old gentleman, who dearly loved a joke, reference was made to the similarity of the first syllables of their names. “Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow,” replied Mr. Longfellow, quoting Pope’s famous line.
The recent elections vindicate the memory of the lamented ex-President James A. Garfield. They demonstrate that there is no dominating moral principle in the creed of any of the great political parties, and that the voters who believe in principles rather than offices or men, hold the balance of power in our civilization. A little philosophy fully explains the present political condition of the American people.