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Show For the Liberty Bell. It is natural that the Seattle people should desire to have the Liberty Bell as one of the exhibits of the forthcoming forthcom-ing Alaska-Yukon exposition. Other expositions have been so favored ever since this country went into the World's Fair business, and the old bell has invariably proved td be a drawing catd. It is equally natural that a certain portion of official Philadelphia Phila-delphia should be in favor of the proposition, prop-osition, for when the bell travels it must have an adequate body guard, amply supplied with eatables, drinkables drinka-bles and all the consequentiais of a real official Junket. It is easily to be understood, therefore, that Seattie has not only asked for the loan of the bell, but that her request has stirred up an argument in Philadelphia. For, be it noted, not only in Phila-delph Phila-delph a. but all over the country, tMre are thousand! who regard these peregrinations pere-grinations of the sacred old relic as little short of sacrilege. It is located In Independence hall, which saw tha beginning of independence in America, and was for a t!;"o the seat o." our national na-tional government. It beiongs there a vat and uar.l of thw visible re- minders of ihe heroic days in" wh'ch it pioclain.ed libeity throughout the laud. It is too - dignified, too holy a mrvival of a great epoch to be hauled over the country and viewed as a curio by those who luiy admission tickets. Besides, the risk involved in transportation trans-portation is incalculable. The Liberty Bell cannot be 'insured. All the insurance insur-ance companies in the world are powerless to replace it, if destroyed, or to pay for it. it means too much to the country, it is too invaluable to bt submitted to the vicissitudes of travel, no matter what precautions may be taken to make that travel safe. The mayor and councils of Philadelphia have custody of the bell, but they do not own X. Holding it as they do. for the people at large, it is to be hoped that they will act in the present juncture junc-ture as the better sentiment of the nation na-tion so evidently dictates. |