PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2637, 2 September 1881, Page 2

PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

“ The news that President Garfield had been shot, and that ho lay dying, communicated a greater shock to the public mind in England than any we remember for many years. It was not so much like auger, or pity”, as paralysis; and a perfectly explicable feeling it was. For a long time the whole world has been oppressed with a dread that we have passed into a time of reckless violence. Murder for the sake of good government, for the reform ef institutions or to redress political wrongs, has not only been preached but practised in almost -every nation in Europe—even in our own dominions. Here and there whole communities have been taught that the shortest, surest way to freedom and prosperity is by stabbing and shooting, and have shown themselves obedient to the lesson; while again and again some fervent benefactor of his kind has stept from the ranks of discontent to aim at the life of individual potentates and governors. So often Ims this happened of late that we have got into a habit of expecting more outrage and more assassination ; an expectation all the more uneasy in English minds, because we are by no means sure that our own great men are clear of danger in these advanced times, when the organised force and the resolute determination and the practised violence of political and social agitation is openly preached as a reason for conceding whatever agitation may demand. Moreover, that President Garfield, of all rulers in the world—a man of the people, sagacious, right-minded, and blameless —should also be marked down for murder, added much to the consternation in which all England was plunged when (his awful news came. But now that more is known about the matter we may allow ourselves to think a little less of it. Even to to the President himself, since he is a good citizen as well as a brave, considerate man, it must make some difference if he owes his wounds not to the calculations of political malice, but rather to the craze of a vain, iialfdernented creature—bis brains muddled with politics, as others are muddled with beer or more philosophy than they can carry. And so far as we may judge by the reports of to day, that is what Charles Guitean is. In the United States there is a belief to the contrary ; but we are in nope that it will presently disappear when more is known of the assassin. Indeed, we are told to-day Lhat ‘ two months ago he applied for a pension, on the ground that he had been a soldier during the civil war, that papers are on the file in the Bureau, and that they bear the endorsement of the examining surgeons stating that the applicant was insane.’ If so, that is more to go upon than his cairn and collected demeanour, or any appearance of method in his madness. Madness is often methodical when it

resorts to crime or deceit ; an 1 it will be a relief to lia 1 that Guile,au, though no maniac, is one of those wretched bladder-brained creatures who have no moral sense to resist the direction of a diseased vanity. And this, we believe, -,ve shall find him. As for the President, now that we hear how cheerily and bravely lie beais up against his sufferings, ilie syiupaih}’ of all who know of them will stream in ycl stronger flood to bis bedside. But the news of his condition is not good, and though sympathy may soothe it cannot save.”— “ Bt. James’s Gazette,”