With wings a-quiver, eyes irate,
He watched me coming near,
Each plume upon his panting breast
Astir with kindling fear.
My hand, though always kindly stretched,
He _would_ not think it good;
And as I placed some sugar in,
He pecked, and drew my blood.
So have I seen the souls caged here,
To learn celestial speech
From angels chanting love so near
They seemed within arm reach;
When closer to them drew God's power,
In wrath or terror stand;
And while he dropped the sweet, dart up
And rend His dear, warm hand.
* * * * *
The London _Times_ is becoming malignantly consistent, and has declared
that there should be at present nothing more said of intervention in
American affairs, because it would have the effect to immediately
strengthen the Federal army.
'If we wish to give the Civil War a new impetus, to recruit for the
North with a vigor with which they never can again recruit for
themselves, we have only to take some step, we do not say what
step, but any step which can be represented as being an
interference on our part in the quarrel. The spirit of conquest is
worn out, but we know the Americans too well to doubt that the
spirit of national independence is as strong as ever. If we
interfere at all, we assist Mr. Lincoln to raise his three hundred
thousand men, we give a new impetus to the war, and postpone
indefinitely the chances of peace, which will never come till the
North has been convinced that it is useless to prosecute the war
any further. To do nothing is often the wisest, but generally the
most difficult policy. We hope that, unless some complete change in
the conditions of the problem take place, our government will on no
account allow itself to be tempted out of its present policy of
expressive silence and masterly inaction.'
The _Times_ speaks too late. One year ago it did not express the
sentiments of all England--now unfortunately we find that it has not
only poisoned all Great Britain, but is rapidly stirring up Europe
against us. The steady stream of falsehood; the reports of Federal
defeats which never occurred, and of confederate victories more
unfounded, are gradually weakening the faith even of Americans abroad in
the great cause of freedom. Let our people arm and out, in all their
strength. England and France are only waiting for reverses to our
Government to attack us right and left.
* * * * *
We clip the following in reference to a popular eccentric phrase from a
note by a friend:
'By the way, do you know that the phrase, 'Or any other man,' can
be found in Byron's _Letter to my Grandmother's Review_? He writes:
"Charley Incledon's usual exordium when people came into the tavern
to hear him sing, without paying their share of the reckoning: 'If
a maun, or _ony_ maun, or _ony other_ maun,' etc., etc.''
That settles it. After all, there is nothing original in this world, or,
as we presume, 'any other world.'
* * * * *
If the steamers for Europe take every week gold from this country, there
is at least some comfort in the reflection that we received and continue
to receive something for it. If American securities are returning to us
from abroad, we are at least getting them back cheap and shall some day
sell them again dear. There is some comfort and common-sense in the
following from one of 'Hallett and Co.'s' circulars:
'We certainly ought not to complain. We had their money at the
right time. It has done for the nation all that money could do--by
giving the highest possible value to all our resources and
products. Having reaped the full advantage of the investment,
which has increased our means more than five-fold, we were never in
a better position to commence its return. The securities are still
very low; on an average from ten to fifty per cent below what they
were originally sold for. To this discount is to be added something
over twenty per cent in the present price of exchange. We are
getting back our securities at about one half what we parted with
them for. As money is plenty, the foreigner paying the premium on
gold, we are certainly driving a very good bargain. We can, without
the least inconvenience, part with one hundred million dollars in
specie, which is lying idle in the vaults of our banks and the
hands of our people, and get back nearly twice the amount of
interest-paying securities, which is equivalent to the payment of a
debt too, and stopping the interest on an equal amount, assuming
securities of this country to a similar amount were held abroad,
which is an excessive estimate, the aggregate not probably
exceeding one hundred million dollars.'
* * * * *
We have heard of a German, who having been strung up in jest and cut
down, declared it was 'a fery pad choke.' The best 'choke' of the season
was issued by our friend the _Boston Traveller_, who in commenting on
the remark of the London _Times_, to the effect that Mr. Lincoln is
eating his artichoke, the South, leaf by leaf, but thinks it will not
agree with him, said: 'It will not trouble him a thousandth part so much
as Jeff Davis will be troubled when he shall, by and by, take _his_
'heartychoke with caper sauce.''
* * * * *
HON ROBERT J. WALKER knows the South well, and he has of late written
well on it and on the present state and future prospects of our country.
Those who have read Mr. Atkinson's instructive pamphlet upon 'Cheap
Cotton,' will be interested in the strong confirmation of his arguments
given by Hon. Robert J. Walker, late of Mississippi, in the following
statement contained in one of his recent letters:
'From long residence in the South, and from having traversed every
Southern State, I know it to be true that cotton is raised there
most extensively and profitably by non-slaveholders, and upon farms
using exclusively white labor. In Texas, especially, this is a
great truth, nor is there a doubt that skilled, educated,
persevering, and energetic free labor, engaged voluntarily for
wages for its own use, would in time, especially when aided by
improved culture and machinery, produce much larger crops and
better cotton than is now raised by the forced and ignorant labor
of slaves, and at a much cheaper rate and a far greater profit than
any crop now produced in the North.'
With this great truth before us, will Government hesitate to seize on
and settle Texas, as soon as circumstances admit? We have urged Texas
from the beginning as the great stone of resistance which must
eventually, by means of free labor be employed to stem the progress of
cotton-ocracy in the other Southern States. On this subject Hon. Robert
J. Walker's letter of June 28th is one of the most instructive and
remarkable documents issued since the beginning of the free-labor
agitation, and it is to be desired that it should be read by every
freeman in the Union. Colonization, voluntary but effective, is, as he
holds, the only remedy for the terrible evil of slavery, and the only
basis of the peaceful restoration of the Union.
It was urged, months ago, against THE CONTINENTAL by a radical Abolition
organ, that while favoring Emancipation, we were quite willing 'to
colonize the negro out of the way.' And if it could promote the real
welfare of both black and white, why should he not be colonized, even
'out of the way'? 'But it is impossible,' say the Conservatives; to
which we reply that this is an age of great conceptions and great deeds,
and it would be strange indeed if we, with steamboats, could not effect
as much as was done of old by the most primitive races of both
hemispheres. The Incas of Peru had no difficulty in moving hundreds of
thousands of a conquered race to fresh fields and pastures new--why
should we find it impossible? Let the same enthusiasm which has been
displayed on the bare subject of freeing the black, be devoted to
freeing and placing him at the same time in a climate congenial to his
nature, and we should soon witness a solution of our great national
difficulty.
* * * * *