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Show So Blind Our Government A3ITY has an inefficient fire department. Cautious Cau-tious men want it Improved. The newspa- pers point out its defects. A thousand peo- i pie say: "What is the use? We have been here a long time and suffered no disastrous fire.' Why spend money getting a great fire department?" After a while a fire comes, a real fire, and when it is over the city is out more than it would be to keep an efficient Are department for one hundred hun-dred years. A city has an inefficient police department. The men are overworked, then cannot see to everything; they cannot be everywhere. By the free masonry which prevails among toughs, the rough element In every town within a thousand miles is informed that such a city has no real protection. It is a rendezvous for them in a month, and people lose more by burglaries and incendiarism in a year than it would cost to keep a thorough police department twenty years. It is the way of the world, evidently. The head of the army, made a request for 750 more officers two months ago, and he was assailed, as-sailed, or rather, the position was assailed, by more than half the great papers of the east. They pointed out that we are at perfect peace, that there is no cloud of war in the sky in any direction, direc-tion, and yet in the little nucleus of an army which we have, where every company ought to have a captain and two lieutenants, the most of them are run by one officer, the others being detailed de-tailed on special duty in this place or that. In the war of 1812 we had no efficient militia. Our standing army was a joke among the nations. na-tions. When the battle of Chippewa was set in array one afternoon, the armies had to be placed close together because they had no guns but the old-fashioned muskets of short range, and the Americans in that array heard the order of the -British commander to fix bayemets and charge, adding, "They are nothing but Buffalo militia." Prior to the time the Mexican war came on it was a theme of bitter editorials and editorial paragraphs in the papers all over the country i that we .were, at public expense educating some wmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmammmmmmmmmmmmmmri for ties, takes on a wonderful finish, while its bark is most useful for tanning leather. It grows in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentine. If it thrives in Argentina it certainly would in California, and we suggest to our friends of the Golden State that they add to their tree "repertoire" the quel-racho. quel-racho. A ranch planted in prunes, apricots, peaches, grapes eucalyptus and quelrachos ought to be a good thing to have. |
