Because a passing steamer did not regard it necessary to give a tow to the Sylph the other day some of the frenzied Republican newspapers of the North seem to think there will be trouble with the skipper of the afore-mentioned steamer when T. Roosevelt gets back to civilization.
For the Sylph, they claim, is the President’s yacht, and certainly there must be punishment, prompt and dire, for any rover of the high seas who dares show lack of deep concern over her.
Lèse-majesté with a vengeance!
Of course, it does not occur to the frenzied Republican press that the Sylph is not the President’s yacht; that she is a vessel of the navy, kept in commission at public expense, and should be used only for public purposes; and that the President has no possible warrant in law for keeping her at Washington or taking her out to sea for the personal pleasure of himself or the members of his family.
If the Sylph is not needed in the active service of the country she ought to be taken out of commission; if she is needed by the navy she should be so used. In either event she is not the President’s yacht, nor should she be utilized as such at public expense.—Atlanta Constitution.
AUTOMOBILE MANSLAUGHTER
Within one week of the new season five persons have been killed by automobiles in this city, not counting the young man who fell from the “Seeing New York” omnibus. As many more have been very seriously hurt.
The heartlessness of some speed-maddened votaries has been again illustrated. There was the woman who in a Brooklyn street shrieked out: “Go on quickly, Harry; the man is killed!” There is that young man of the reckless rich class, whose autos are debited with two deaths and are a terror to thousands living, caught again running at eighteen miles an hour in the street. That “sports” might scorch to the Aqueduct races a little girl in Elmhurst yielded up her young life.
The man who drives his auto at dangerous speed is as responsible morally for the death he thereby causes as one would be who should fire a revolver at random down the same street and by “accident” kill a victim.