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Show GIVE THE BEIL. Governor Dockery wants the citizens of Missouri to subscribe money to purchase a bell to be presented pre-sented to the battleship Missouri, now nearing completion, while the Republic wants the gift to be a superb service of silver that the officers may be able to entertain visitors in a proper manner. Why not give the service and the bell also? That-would not be much for the great state to do. But if only one gift can be counted on we incline to the Mirrors' belief that the bell is the more appropriate, because that would belong to and become the solicitude of every man on board the great ship. There is a vast deal of sentiment about a ship's bell. Seamen learn their voices. Wo suspect that there was no man aboard the Olympia or the Baltimore Balti-more or the Raleigh, or any other ship in the original Manila fleet, who would not recognize the tone of his own ship's bell could he hear it, no matter how dark might be the night, no matter how many other bells might be ringing. Does any one think that any sailor who was on the Oregon during that long voyage from Seattle and up to the chase and the fight off Santiago, who does not yet hear that bell ringing in his dreams? One of the most touching and thrilling passages in the description of the overwhelming of the fleets in Apia harbor, Samoa, by the hurricane a few years ago, was the sentence which said that to the watchers on shore the ringing of the bell of the Trenton, calling the hours, was regularly heard, despite the lashings of the storm. That meant that while ships were sinking and men dying the old discipline was in force, the old devotion devo-tion to duty was stronger than any anxiety for life. At that description landsmen thousands of miles away and unfamiliar with the sea could, in thought, hear tho pealing of that bell above the roar of hurricane and wave. Missouri should supply to her namesake of the sea a bell. It should be massive that its tones might be deep, it should havo much silver in its composition that its tones might be clear; it should be of bright metal that it might always be kept shining. It should be a distinctive bell, that when it sounded men would say "Missouri is ringing!" There are marriage bells, joy bells, fire bells, alarm bells, church bells and death bells; but there is none so impressive as the tolling of a r'iir'IM ship's bell under the beatings of a great storm or j Sffil&iffl under tho canopy of a battle. We hope if Missouri al IH can offer but one gift to her namesake it will bo ij'M f fm that suggested by Missouri's Governor. j I i',1 |