and founders. As she is going down Lieutenant G----- puts his
wife and baby into a lifeboat manned by sailors, and then--there
being no room for him in the lifeboat--he remains behind upon the
deck of the sinking vessel, while the lifeboat puts off for shore.
A giant wave overturns the burdened cockleshell and he sees its
passengers engulfed in the waters. Up to this point the chronicle
has been what a chronicle should be. Perhaps the phraseology has
been a trifle toploftical, and there are a few words in it long
enough to run as serials, yet at any rate we are getting an effect
in drama. But bear with me while I quote the next paragraph, just
as I copied it down:

The wretched husband saw but too distinctly the destruction of
all he held dear. But here alas and forever were shut off
from him all sublunary prospects. He fell upon the deck--
powerless, senseless, a corpse--the victim of a sublime
sensibility!

There's language for you! How different it is from that historic
passage when the crack of Little Sure Shot's rifle rang out and
another Redskin bit the dust. Nothing is said there about anybody
having his sublunary prospects shut off; nothing about the Redskin
becoming the victim of a sublime sensibility. In fifteen graphic
words and in one sentence Little Sure Shot croaked him, and then
with bated breath you moved on to the next paragraph, sure of
finding in it yet more attractive casualties snappily narrated.

No, sir! In the nickul librury the author did not waste his time
and yours telling you that an individual on becoming a corpse would
simultaneously become powerless and senseless. He credited your