New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-01-17
THE DAILY CRESCENT.
TUESDAY MORNING. JANUARY il, 1854.
Z Under which King, Bcsonian speak Or die !


So asks, in the play, that rather high sound
inn fellow, Ancient (Which degenerate moderns
have corrupted into Ensign Pistol, And. in
deed, than in so asking, We do not remember
that the memorable Ancient ever asked more
pertinent question.
We're he living, he might yet ask it and ask
it with emphasis, of many a man, of many
people
He might ask the nations generally; and
what would he learn from the answer That
over the earth at large, it is in Government as
it is Religion and in country: all men prefer
theirs to any other. AS Goldsmith so well
says, in that fine poem, g the Traveller of
which the many political truths seem to pass
unfet:
The shuddering tenant of the Frigid Zone
Boldly proclains the happest CLINE his own;
Extos the treasures Of his fnny seas,
And his long nights Of reyeiry aud
The naked Negro painting at the Line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine
Such is the patriots thought, where we roam;
Ills first, best country ever is at home,a
In a word, nations wear their Governments
much as they do their clothes: they are used to
them; they think them the only convenient, the
only becoming attire, even while to oil other
eyes, those same garments appear nothing less
than preposterous Who shall set up an univer-
sal fashion Who shall prescribe one common
cut for the Pole and for the Equinox to him
who must go in furs to his fngers-ends, and him
who is scarcely conscious of clothes
Who Why, We, in this country, seem bent
on bringing about worldwide change OF what
is, after all, but the outside Of men and nations.
All must put on onr clothes, and dress to please
us, not to suit themselves
Have we any right to force our costume upon
all mankind No more than tailor to cudgel
us out of one style of coat into another. Forced
upon a nation unused to our sort of vesture, it
would be rather q livery than dress. Indeed,
will it answer for any body but ourselves Thus
far, it has not And yet the trial made has
been wide and bloody one. France first
made it: but soon drenched the coat with blood
and DOTTED the breaches. The Spanish Amer
lean States have donned it, far and wide; but
now only fiutter in its rags. Of all that great
family of Republics, what is left but set of
tatterdemallions Mexico, the chief of them,
is reverting to the cast-otf clothes of royalty
Spain herself has barely tried on fancy dress
of freedom and left it. Italy, Holland, Greece,
Poland, Hungary might say Prussia, Ger
many, Ireland and Cuba-have all bespoken,
but cannot or will not wear the mantle: but
except ours and Switzerlands and little San
! Marines, there seem no shoulders that can
bear it.
Well you cannot make silk purses out Of
soWs' ears # nations possess the stuff for a
good government, let them shape and make it at
home. We should like to see them nice and
comfortable and oomely in their outer man but
what they wear depends on themselves. And
if they like going bare, why should we strip off
our laws to cover them If they prefer rags,
why must We run about the earth, to mend their
voluntary tatters with pieces torn fren our own
seemly robe Of good institutions?