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UNIVERSITY COURIER.
three blocks away, if not entirely lost. We cannot blame our citizens if, as is usually the case, they become vexed and heap maledictions upon the heads of the destroyers of their property. It is very desirable that the University should have the good will and support of these men and women of Lawrence. This sympathy can be secured and held in no better way than by the students treating citizens respectfully and by leaving their property uninjured. This Hallowe'en marauding should be discontinued. It is productive of no good whatever, but of much harm. Sport is proper and necessary. That kind of sport that has no respect for the feelings of others, however, is not to be encouraged. Its influence is most pernicious on the minds of those indulging in it. Some students have heard so much about the good youths of Sunday Schools dying young, that they think it necessary to do something mean or questionable in order to prolong their lives. It is not unnatural to want to live, and, if any one can lengthen the years of his existence by carrying off gates, or shearing horses' tails, or in other such ways, let him do these things. Judging from the language of property owners, however, it is possible that the existence of other than Sunday School youths is apt to be rather short, if this practice is continued. Let the students give up this heathenish practice and find other ways of enjoying themselves. They will lose nothing by so doing and there will be a better feeling between themselves and the citizens.
It is no uncommon thing at the beginning of the college year, to read accounts of hazing as practiced in some schools. Lot long ago some of the students of Boudoin, thinking to have some sport, proceeded to treat one of the Freshmen to the customary hazing. That thorough work was done is evidenced by the fact that said Freshman received injuries of so serious a nature that he obtained a verdict of damages to the amount of $2,700. Just how roughly the victim was handled does not appear in the newspaper reports, but it is probable that that the result of the trial will have a salutary effect upon all who are in the habit of indulging in this kind of fun, leading them to be less rough or to abandon it entirely. The time has come when this barbarous practice should be stopped. And we think those who were guilty in the case mentioned were fined none too heavily. It is to be hoped that all honorable means will be used by faculties, students, and courts to banish this abominable practice from our institutions of learning. There is no reason why students should be allowed to maltreat any one, especially any one who is just entering upon his college course. To the credit of K. S. U. be it said that hazing is not a part of the course generally pursued. Very few, if any, of our students have ever indulged in this practice. They do not come here for any such purposes, but to gain knowledge and culture. We are quite sure that no clear case of hazing has ever occurred in the history of the institution.
TOPICS.
Have you seen the latest colors out—the pearl blue and the maroon.
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.
The Civil Service Reform of the National League proposes the restoration of political parties to their legitimate functions as organized agencies of the popular will; the overthrow of government by patronage; the emancipation of the suffrage and the press from a corrupt personal servility; the elevation of the standards of public character and service; and it proposes to accomplish these results by means which will place the transaction of the public business upon a business basis, open the public service to all the people, restore the self-respect of the public agents, and promote as nothing else can promote, the cause of popular education.
The practical method of preventing favoritism, a method which has been amply justified by experience, is selection of the non-political employes of the government by a wise system of competition and probation. Elections change political officers in order that the policy approved by the people may be enforced. But rotation in office, as a maxim applied to the great body of public employees, is as absurd in public as in private business. It is not the purpose of the Civil Service to provide a living for all citizens in turn at the public expense, but to secure the transaction of the public business by those who are best fitted for its duties. Nobody has a right to any place, except so far as he proves his fitness upon fair and equal trial, and the legitimate public interest in the civil service is only that its duties be well done.—Geo. W. Curtis.
OSTRACISM OF THE JEWS.
It ill becomes a citizen of the United States to ostracize his fellow man, when his fathers held, as he now holds, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In studying this subject we must lay aside all sectarian bias that we may reach the just decision.
For thirty centuries these Jews have existed amid the ruin of empires and the extinction of races. At first they were a pastoral people, tending their flocks on the plains of Mesopotamia. Driven by famine to Egypt, under persecution they became that meek race, which never since has resisted its oppressors. "The meek shall inherit the earth," and they are inheriting it together with the meek of all ages. But the meekest would not make bricks without straw, and the march to the Promised Land began.
At the fires of Sinai they formulated that moral decalogue, which, carried to all parts of the earth by Hebrew scholars, and preached by Confucius in China, by Buddha in India, by Plato in Greece, by Christ in Judea, by Mahomet in Arabia, has enlightened all civilization and founded all existing law. Through the sorrows of the desert they reached the joys of the Promised Land. Here, for a thousand years, they tilled the fertile soil and studied science and literature until "their wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the east country and of Egypt, and their fame was in all nations round about." Harassed by the Philistines, captured by the Babylonians, governed by the Persians, ruled by the Grecians, they were ever a cultured and peaceful people, giving to literature the Songs of David, the visions of Isaiah, the wisdom of the Proverbs, and the sublime grandeur of
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