A Freak Society

     The Buffalo Historical Society is alleged to have put in a request for the personal belongings of the assassin, Czolgosz. It wants these trifles for its collections. If it does, then the museum of the society must be the most splendidly uninteresting lot of trash ever gathered by a company of supposedly sane people. The relics include an old grip-sack, two towels, some old trousers, writing paper, blacking brush, pair of shoes and a pair of socks. Conceive the state of alleged mind that would put these things solemnly on show, in rooms frequented by clean and intelligent citizens! Czolgosz’s socks! Priceless treasure. Distinguished from the socks of other tramps by the label.
     There is a good deal of this sort of “collecting” in our country, but one seldom finds a sanction of it on the part of dignified societies devoted to the study of history and the perpetuation of worthy public memorials. Unless an article has intrinsic interest or value it is seldom worth keeping. Yet, how many homes have been disfigured by vandals who cut pieces from the carpet and curtains, shave wood from doors and window casings in order to put these scraps into “collections!” On our ships a guard has to be kept against polite thieves who will otherwise carry off arms, bolts, compasses or other movables [sic], that they may vaunt them to their friends. They will take bricks from a chimney, keys from a lock, flowers from a garden, pebbles from a walk; they scramble for the rope that hanged a man, and a bullet dug out in a post mortem is a prize to brag about forever. A pest o’ such “collecting.” It may amuse babes. Grown men should be ashamed of it.