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(Previous
Page) races, is there any harm in
helping them to do all they can do? Because a man shows no symptom of rivaling
Newton or surpassing Shakespeare, must he therefore be degraded, despised, and
outraged, and what capacity the Lord has given him be hopelessly extinguished?
Why, good Sir, who are so busily declaring that colored men were made to be
kicked and cuffed by white men, suppose that we all got our deserts how would
you and I fare? If what you call superior capacity is to relegate all inferior
capacities to contempt and permanent deprivation of common human rights, you and
I are in a bad way, for there are plenty of people who are in every point our
superiors.
The Lord has made negroes to be
slaves, declare the slaveholding doctors, and you must not try to make soldiers
of them: you can not do it if you would, and if you could they would be good for
nothing. That was a pretty enough argument until the facts mocked it to pieces.
For in no engagement in which the
colored soldiers have taken part have they
shown themselves in any way inferior to the best. Here, for instance, by the
recent arrival from
New Orleans, we learn that one hundred and eighty of the
Louisiana black Union soldiers routed a force of three hundred rebel cavalry and
a company of infantry. The black Louisianians, late slaves and others, took a
set of colors from the retreating white chivalry. You may read it in the
correspondence of a paper which editorially assures us that no colored soldiers
can be raised, and that when they are raised they will not fight! Let us know
the place where they have had a chance and have not fought.
But while those who do fight
fight well, there is no better proof of the common sense and common humanity of
the colored men than that they are in no great haste to flock in multitudes and
fight for those who studiously insult and despise them. We should think him a
pretty poor Yankee who was very anxious to take up the cudgels for a man who
incessantly told him that he was the scum and offscouring and lees and nasty
refuse of creation, and who took care that he should be believed by spitting in
the Yankee's face, and kicking him, and knocking him down, and insisting upon
his working forever without wages. If, despite all this, the Yankee should take
up arms and fight for his abuser, we should say either he is the best and most
heroic of men, or he is the meanest-spirited dastard that ever lived.
FROM A DIARY.
IT was a good meeting this
afternoon in Madison Square, although the air was chilly and the sky
threatening. Scott made a capital figure-head; but how utterly factitious the
enthusiasm for the old gentleman is! In consideration of his unquestioned
cervices we agree to treat him as if we thought him a great man, for somebody
must play that part. No king in the world looks so well as Scott did, dressed in
full black with a broad blue ribbon, and bowing his towering white head to the
crowd. I was standing in the crowd listening to John Van Buren, and observed
near me Jones, who was attending in the next crowd to the speaker at the next
stand. Jones I have long known as a man of moderate. sensible views, as becomes
one who has large interests at stake. Smith was near him, one of the Hartington
breed of loyal men.
"Hallo?" said Smith, "nobody's
making a speech here worth hearing but John Van Buren."
"I am very well content," replied
Jones.
"Who is that?" asked Smith.
"Jobson," answered Jones.
"Pshaw! a d—d Abolitionist,"
sneered Smith.
"Yes," said Jones, in an audible
voice, and turning his great square shoulders so as to confront the other, and
looking him straight in the eyes—"Yes, and every man here who is not a d—d
Abolitionist Is a d—d traitor."
Smith stared blankly, but said
nothing more.
Certainly no phrase ever did so
much service as the one by which Smith described Jobson. I was dining at S.'s
the other day, when F. turned round to J. at the table, and said, half bitterly:
"I will take a hundred shares if
you will only kill off these —Abolitionists and stop the war."
J. burst out into a loud laugh.
"Don't you think it a little late in the day to talk such rubbish as that?
You've used that phrase all your life, and you haven't the least idea what
you're talking about. There isn't a man at this table who can tell what an
Abolitionist is, except that he is a man who hates slavery, which is only
another way for saying that he is a man. And as for bringing on the war, why, I
remember, my dear F., when Yancey came to the Cooper Institute in the last
campaign, and gave fair warning that if he and his party didn't succeed they'd
raise Ned: and the next day you gave a hundred dollars to the side for which he
spoke. You gave a good many other hundred dollars during the canvass, and each
one was a premium upon rebellion. Yancey went straight home and said, 'They're
sit right at the North. F. has given a thousand dollars for our success.
Whatever we do he'll wink at it.' You're a pretty man to talk about stopping the
war by killing off other folks. If you and your kind had said to Yancey and his
kind, 'None of that talk! Were not going to roast our pig by burning the house
down,' he would have shrugged his shoulders, gone home, and said, 'We can't
count upon 'em,' and there would have been no war. No, my dear F., when Jeff
Davis and Toombs and the rest began to secede, it wasn't Garrison or Wendell
Phillips they relied upon; it was you gentlemen in New York and elsewhere who
had given them reason to suppose that they might rely upon you. And as for
ending the war by killing off, you had better apply the method to the smaller
number, not to the greater. It would take you a dreadfully long day to count the
d—d Abolitionists."
F. smiled good-naturedly, and
replied, "Why, I really believe you are one of them," in such a cheerful tone
that it was perfectly clear he was. And I, who remember a score of years of
dining out in New York, can not be enough amazed at what I constantly hear and
see.
BROADWAY.
BROADWAY is clearly doomed to
have a railroad; but whether it shall be for Mr. George Law's profit or for that
of the city are questions in dispute. What special services Mr. Law has rendered
the city or the State that he should prevail against the strongly-expressed
wishes of the powerful proprietors upon Broadway and the general sentiment of
the city does not appear. In what way his supremacy over
Broadway is to lighten
the taxes is also not evident. In fact, who is to gain by the enterprise, except
some stage companies, the Legislators who have received money, if
any have received money, and Mr.
George Law, are questions that remain open for answering.
It is the universal Impression,
which may be a universal mistake, that neither the necessity of the street, nor
the desire of the property owners upon it, but the lobbying of Mr. Law, has
carried his bill through the Legislature. On the other hand, the grant to the
Harlem Company under their charter secures an income to the city. Every citizen,
of course, gives his sympathy and interest to the Harlem project. Doubtless,
whichever prevails, the traveling public will be equally accommodated and the
road equally well laid. But it is a good thing to lighten taxes at the same
time, and it is a bad thing to know that the convenience of the city of New York
is at the mercy of any man, however rich, however couch of a public benefactor,
however eminent and honorable, he may he.
IN RE THE EMPEROR OF CHINA'S
NAVY.
ONE of the most faithful and
influential friends of this country in Great Britain writes to the Lounger as
follows:
I am not surprised that you
should be irritated at the ship-building for the Confederates in British yards;
it is shameful and unworthy of British merchants, and our Government has, in my
opinion, shown culpable remissness in putting the law in force. I do not,
however, believe that there has been on the part of the Government any
intentional violation of neutrality. I am happy to say that the feeling in this
country on the subject among all who favor the North is exceedingly strong, and,
I presume, has already found expression in adequate terms at a meeting which was
to have taken place at Manchester on Monday, but of which I have not yet seen
the report. Indeed I have no doubt that the Government are now resolved to do
their duty dimly, and as an earnest of this I refer you to a dispatch of Lord
Russell's in the Daily News which I send you, on the Peterhoff question; this, I
think, should give satisfaction. I wish also to call your attention to a speech
by the Duke of Argyle, made a few days ago at Leith."
It was at the meeting mentioned
by our correspondent that Professor Goldwin Smith of Oxford made an admirable
speech to the effect that, whenever Great Britain declines to enforce a
municipal law of her own which is contravened to the injury of a friendly power,
it is the indication of an unfriendly spirit upon her part. Whether the
unfriendliness is positive hostility must be determined by the circumstances.
That Great Britain, however, does
not wish to have it so regarded is clear enough from her awakening activity to
detain the cruisers of his Majesty the Emperor of China.
ANTI-STROPHE.
THERE is always a prosaic as well
as a poetic view of any subject, even of royal weddings, as this good-humored
parody of Tennyson's nuptial ode shows. It is a contribution to the West
Philadelphia Hospital Register:
THE LAUREATE'S ODE.
AFTER TENNYSON.
Welcome thee! Welcome thee!
Welcome thee!
Alexandra!
Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen
are we: Dane of the feminine gender is she,
Alexandra!
Welcome her fog! Welcome her
sleet!
Welcome her little boys out in
the street! London's mire and mud, stick to her feet;
Muddy her, muddy her, muddy
her—Greet!*
Up umbrellas up! Break cloud that
lowers;
Anoint her fair head with
plentiful showers;
Welcome her, welcome her, welcome
her Dow'rs!** From the top of her head to her heel she is ours,
Alexandra.
Blow trumpet and bugle, and
cornet and fife;
Crowd, men, and crush women out
of their life,
And flutter and sputter and
mutter and blare;
And thunder and blunder and
wonder and stare!
Fat Britons, uncover—leave every
poll bare,
Wave out the bandanas in the
moisty March air!
Pull at the bell; pull, till all
your arms tire,
Shout, scream, and run as you
would to a fire,
Anglo Saxons; ne'er mind how much
you perspire, Welcome her; welcome her; fancily and sire!
Thunder!
Alexandra.
Sea King's Daughter, a Wale'ess
must be,
A palpable truth as A, B, C, D.
John Bull's as happy as happy can
be: Happy, happier—happiest she!
Alexandra.
TWO VIEWS OF DIXIE.
THE London Atheneum, one of the
most amusingly anti-American periodicals in England, can not bolt all the stuff
that is served up to John Bull in the cause of the "Confederates." A certain
Hudson, "Juris utriusque Doctor," has published in London a book upon The Second
War Independence in America, translated by the author from the second revised
and enlarged German edition. The point of the performance is that slavery is
happiness, slaveholders patriarchs, and the South heaven. It is not a new tune,
but it jars upon the Atheneum, which thus disposes of a very silly book:
"No unprejudiced reader will
refrain from laughing at this flattering picture of life in Dixie's Land, where
there is actually no literature whatever superior to pro-slavery journalism, no
science higher than that 'social science' which left the New Orleans jail what
Mr. Russell found it, no politics apart from a fierce determination to keep black
serfs in firm bondage—where refined taste expresses itself in deen drinking,
'elevated social intercourse is tempered by dueling, and appreciation of what is
noble manifests itself in incessant calumny of England, and the English. When
the Southerners were being injured by the misrepresentations and fictions of
abolition enthusiasts, we did our beat to expose the falsehood of statements
which were misleading our countrymen; and now that pro-slavery cant is making
itself heard with corresponding influence, and aims at depreciating the labors
of the philanthropists whom Clarkson and Wilberforce led on to victory, we are
equally prompt in giving it its right name. We can assure Southern writers that
the tone which has of late become prevalent among them will fail to achieve its
object, as far as English opinion is concerned. It is true that just
*This true Tennysonism has a
beautiful and significant meaning, which the reader may possibly discover by
turning back 125 pages.
**Tennysonian for Dowagers.
now there is a fashion in England
with careless and frivolous people to profess admiration for 'the patriarchal
character' of American slavery, but it is the folly of 'a season.' It will soon
die out, and in the mean time it will not touch the strong hatred of 'the
peculiar institution' which lives in the heart of our race."
HUMORS OF THE DAY.
A HEART THAT CAN FEEL FOR
ANOTHER.—"I give and bequeath to Mary, my wife, the sum o' one hunder pounds a
year," said an old farmer. "Is that written down, measter?" "Yes," replied the
lawyer; "but she is not so old—she may marry again. Won't you make any change in
that case? Most people do." "Ay, do they?" said the farmer, "Well, write again,
and say that if my wife marries again, I will give and bequeath to her the sum
of two hunder pounds a year. That'll do, won't it, measter?" "Why, it's just
doubling the sum she would have if she remained unmarried," said the lawyer, "It
is generally the other way—the legacy is lessened if the widow marries again."
"Ay," said the farmer, "but him is gets her'll desarve it."
"Why don't you wear your ring, my
dear?" said a father in a ball-room to his daughter. "Because, papa, it hurts me
when any one squeezes my hand." "What business have you to have your hand
sqeezed?" "Certainly none; but still, you know, papa, one would like to keep it
in squeezable order."
A cockney tourist met a Scottish
lassie going barefoot toward Glasgow, "Lassie," said he, "I should like to know
if all the people in these parts go barefoot?" "Part on 'em do, and part on 'em
mind their own business," was the rather settling reply.
At the battle of Trafalgar a
generous British sailor, seeing a brother tar bleeding profusely from a severe
wound, ran to his assistance. He had no sooner raised him from the deck than the
wounded man said, "Thank you, Jack, and I'll be glad to do the same for you
before the fight is over."
Jones and Brown were talking
lately of a young clergyman whose preaching they had heard that day. The sermon
was like a certain man mentioned in a certain biography, "very poor and very
pious." "What do you think of him?" asked Brown. "I think," said Jones "he did
much better two years ago." "Why, he didn't preach then," said Brown. "True,"
replied Jones; "that is what I mean."
An actor named Priest was playing
at one of the principal theatres. Some one remarked at the Garrick Club that
there were a great many men in the pit. "Probably clerics who have taken
Priest's orders," said Mr. Poole, one of the best punsters, as well as one of
the cleverest comic satirists of the day.
One of the Kembles made his first
appearance on the stage as an opera-singer. His voice was, however, so bad, that
at a rehearsal the conductor of the orchestra called out, "Mr. Kemble! Mr.
Kemble! you are murdering the music!" "My dear Sir," was his quiet rejoinder;
"it is far better to murder it outright at once than to keep on beating it like
you do."
Au angry woman, in order to be
revenged on her husband, ripped the tick off the bed, and sent all the feathers
afloat in the air, and then rushing to the balusters of the stairs, and breaking
her arm upon them, she exclaimed, with insane energy, "Now, you scoundrel, you
must pay a surgeon."
"Well, Jane, this is a queer
world," said Joe to his wife. "A sect of women philosophers has just sprung up."
"Indeed," said Jane; "and what do they hold?" "The strongest thing in nature,'
said he—"their tongues!"
That was a pretty conceit of a
romantic husband and father whose name was Rose, who named his daughter "Wild,"
so that she grew up under the appellation of "Wild Rose." But the romance of the
name was sadly spoiled in a few years, for she married a man by the name of
"Bull."
DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE.
THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC IN
MOTION.
IT is announced that General
Hooker commenced a movement on Monday morning, 27th ult., at daybreak, and that
at sunrise heavy masses of artillery and other troops were crossing the river
GENERAL BANKS AT WORK.
A severe battle was fought on
Friday, the 17th ult., at the Vermilion Bayou, Louisiana, in which, after a hard
contest with the rebel batteries and a strong force of infantry, our troops
gained a complete success, driving the enemy from his position, capturing his
guns, and taking fifteen hundred prisoners. In addition to this the batteries at
Bute la Rose were silenced by our fleet, the valuable salt-works of Petite Anse,
which supplied the whole interior with this indispensable article, were
captured, and a number of the rebel boats were destroyed, during the expedition
of
General Banks into the
Bayou Teche region. Thus the finest portion of
Louisiana is at the command of the Union forces, and the rebellion in that
quarter is tottering.
MAP SHOWING THE THEATRE OF
GENERAL BANKS'S
CAMPAIGN.
RUNNING THE VICKSBURG BLOCKADE.
The particulars of the passage of
Admiral Porter's fleet under the batteries of Vicksburg show the fact that the
transport Henry Clay was so severely damaged by shot that she sunk, and that all
hands made for a flatboat as
the boat was going down. The
pilot floated down the river nine miles on a plank, and was picked on opposite
Warrenton. There are eleven gun-boats below
Vicksburg now, including three under
Farragut. The Navy Department has received an official account of this running
of
Admiral Farragut's fleet by the batteries at Warrenton, and his conflict with
the batteries at Grand Gulf.
ANOTHER FLEET PASSED.
On 24th six more transports were
successful in running the blockade—the Tigress, Empire City, Moderator,
Anglo-Saxon, Cheesman, and Harrison. The Free Stone and A. D. Hine took two
double-deck flatboats through the Duckport canal. These boats are capable of
carrying one thousand men each. Transports now run by Warrenton without
difficulty, the batteries being silenced.
CAPTURE OF TEXAN RANGERS.
The
Texan Rangers of General Van
Dorn's Legion were attacked on 27th at daybreak, eight miles out from Franklin,
Tennessee, by General Gordon Granger's cavalry, 700 strong, under Colonel
Watkins, of the Sixth Kentucky cavalry. The enemy were surrounded and defeated.
Nearly two hundred prisoners were taken. Among them was Colonel Brooks,
commandant of the rebel camp, and several officers. The camp and equipages of
the enemy were destroyed, and about three hundred horses and mules were
captured.
THE
EXPEDITION TO CELINA.
A dispatch was received from
General Wright, at
Louisville, on the 22d, to the effect that the expedition
Celina was entirely successful; that our troops destroyed the town, one hundred
thousand pounds of bacon, ten thousand bushels of wheat, ten thousand bushels of
corn, one hundred barrels of whisky, one hundred barrels of flour, a
considerable quantity of sugar, coffee, tea, malt, and other stores, and forty
boats, which had been used in transporting goods from Brentsville and other
points on the Cumberland. The rebels report a loss of ninety killed; but Colonel
Graham, commander of the expedition, is of the opinion that the number is
greater. We had one wounded and one missing. General Wright claims it as a
perfect success.
THE
LAST OF THE "QUEEN OF THE WEST."
The
Richmond papers of 22d, in
their dispatches from
Port Hudson, confirm the news of the attack upon the
Queen
of the West at Grand Lake by our gun-boats, and the capture of her officers and
crew. The Queen, it appears, got aground and was blown up by a shell from the
Calhoun. The Diana, which was assailed about the same time in the Atchafalaya
River by the Union gun-boat Clifton, was burned by the rebels.
THE
REBEL ATTACK ON CAPE GIRARDEAU.
The attack upon Cape Girardeau,
Missouri, by the rebels, under Marmaduke, has not only proved a failure but a
severe defeat for the enemy. After a fight of three hours uvith General McNeil
they were gloriously repulsed. Reinforcements of men and gun-bolts reached
McNeil during the fight. At last accounts the enemy were retreating, and McNeil
was in pursuit.
MORE
REBEL RAIDS.
Reports have been current that
the rebels, in considerable force, have been committing depredations in Western
Virginia, on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and even threatening
again to invade Pennsylvania—either Wheeling or Pittsburg being the point aimed
at. These reports seem to have for a basis the fact that considerable force of
guerrillas, under Jenkins, appeared at Morgantown, Virginia, on the Monongahela
River, and near the State line of Pennsylvania. It is not probable that they
intend coming any further North. Other detachments of rebels appeared at the
same time in other parts of Western Virginia, near the railroad line; but prompt
measures, as we learn from the Wheeling Intelligencer, were taken to intercept
them, and it is not believed that they have been able to effect much.
FOREIGN NEWS.
ENGLAND.
THE
PIRATICAL BUSINESS.
AT latest dates the English
Government was still engaged in efforts ostensibly directed against the fitting
out of rebel war vessels in the ports of the kingdom. Although the Alexandra was
seized by the officers of customs at Liverpool, a number of men still continued
at work on her, making her ready for sea, until they were turned off the vessel
by the Government officials.
THE NEW ANGLO-REBEL PIRATE.
The Japan, or Virginia, was built
at Dumbarton—not at Greenock—Scotland, and ran out from the Clyde on the 3d of
April. The order for her arrest arrived from London on the 4th—the day after her
departure.
LOSS
OF THE "ANGLO-SAXON."
The Montreal Steamship Company's
steamer Anglo-Saxon, Captain Burgess, which left Liverpool on the 16th and
Londonderry on 17th April, for Quebec and Montreal, was wrecked four miles east
of Cape Race on Monday the 27th of April, during a dense fog. The Anglo-Saxon
carried the Canadian and United States mails, and had on board three hundred and
sixty passengers and eighty-four of a crew making a total of four hundred and
forty-four persons. Three of her passengers reached St. Johns, Newfoundland, at
four o'clock on Monday evening, and reported the disaster, adding that the
vessel had broken up after striking, when they lost sight of her, and that a
great number of her passengers had perished. The news yacht, stationed off Cape
Race, set out for the wreck immediately after the receipt of this intelligence.
The steamers Dauntless and Bloodhound also steered for Cape Race. Seventy-three
persons escaped from the vessel by means of ropes and spars, twenty-four were
taken off in life-boat No. 2 belonging to the ship, and the Dauntless succeeded
in picking up at sea nintey others who had got off in two boats. Among these
were the Hon. John Young, his wife and seven children; the first and fourth
officers and fourth and fifth engineers of the Anglo-Saxon; the pursuer, first
and second engineers, and surgeon of the ship were also saved, as was Lieutenant
Sampson, of the Royal Artillery, a passenger. The commander of the Anglo-Saxon,
Captain Burgess, was supposed to have been lost. Seven persons embarked on a
raft from the wreck, and this raft, with the ship's boats Nos. 4 and 6, were
missing when the dispatches left St. Johns. The deck of the Anglo-Saxon broke up
in an hour after she struck, and nothing but her mizzen-mast was standing.
Several persons clung to the fore-rigging until the main-mast fell, but no
assistance could reach them. Guns were duly fired at Cape Race, in order to
attract the attention of the missing boats. On the 28th the weather an the coast
was fine and clear, but they had not been heard of.
POLAND.
THE
INSURRECTION.
The Polish insurrection is still
in great vigor and activity. The Czar of Russia has so far yielded as to offer a
general amnesty to all the Poles who return to their allegiance by the 13th of
May. England, France, and Austria have addressed separate notes to Russia,
couveying a friendly "warning" to the Emperor on the subject of reforms for
Poland. Cronstadt his been placed in a state of defense, and the Russian army is
to be increased. It is said that Russia was to direct her attention toward
Sweden for some offense taken respecting the Polish question. Serious
eventualities were likely to ensue. Napoleon had, it was said, inquired if Italy
could take a military part under certain circumstances, and had had an assurance
to the effect that the could furnish sixty thousand men.
MEXICO.
NEWS FROM PUEBLA.
Our accounts from Mexico to the
31st March show that the Mexicans, so far from being defeated at Puebla, as
reported through French sources, have frequently repulsed the enemy and are
probably still in safe possession of that city.
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