The Arena. Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891

2

When, during the Seize Mai crisis, MacMahon’s message adjourning the sittings for a month was read to the Chamber, the republicans protested with repeated cries of “Vive la République!” to which the Right responded with “Vive la France!” A month later, when the decree dissolving the Chamber was laid before the Chamber, the republicans shouted: “Vive la République! Vive la Paix!” and the Right answered with “Vive la France! Vive le Maréchal!” When it was announced in full Congress that M. Grévy had been elected President, and again when M. Carnot’s name was proclaimed in the same way, the republicans once more hurrahed for a form of government, while their opponents posed as the defenders of the country and the nation.

3

Although this interview is here printed for the first time, I mentioned it to some of Madame Blavatsky’s friends so that she might have an opportunity of giving her version. I am told that she said she gave me an answer as directed by her Guru. I must conclude therefore that unless the Gurus are all glamour, they must be raised by their superhuman merits above the obligations of truth.

4

Commissioner Grant was awakened by a telegram and requested to look for a cigarette in a certain part of the Prince of Wales’ statue, in Bombay; he went and found nothing. Mrs. Coulomb now says she was Madame B–‘s confederate, and that she was afraid of being taken up as a lunatic if she climbed to the unicorn’s horn where the cigarette was to be placed. So she said the rain must have washed it away. Madame Blavatsky showed mental weakness in not considering the difficulties, and her fondness for cigarettes made her set them too high in dignity as well as position

5

Copyright by Charles H. Pattee.

6

Among the few papers which have denounced this judicial crime are the New York Commercial Advertiser and the St. Louis Republic. The former journal observes: “It seems that the glorious clause of the Constitution can give no protection to men who conscientiously believe they should literally observe the Fourth Commandment…. It seems that when a State seeks to enforce religious duty all consciences must bow before it. That is to say, if, for example, the Catholics of Louisiana were to pass a law that no man should taste meat on Friday, the act would be no infringement of religious liberty.

There can be but one opinion upon this decision among all liberal-minded men. It is odious sophistry, unworthy of the age in which we live. And under it an American citizen has been condemned to spend the rest of his days in a dungeon unless he shall stoop to deny the dictates of his own conscience and dishonor his own manhood.

The Republic in an editorial of August second says: “Not being able to leave his crops unworked for two days in the week, Mr. King ploughed them on Sunday, after having kept the Sabbath the day before. He was arrested under the Sunday law, and in order to make it effective against him it was alleged that his work on his own farm on Sunday created a public nuisance. On this entirely untenable ground he has been harassed from court to court. He was a poor man, but he has been supported by the friends of religious liberty. Mr. King has been greatly wronged, but his only remedy at law is under the law and Constitution of Tennessee. It appears that for the present his remedy is denied him, and this being the case he has no better recourse than to submit to the oppression and go to prison—to the convict camp, if it suits the convenience of his persecutors to send him there.”