New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-03-17

bnUSt WIZ cQud1J hlHplpsssS ViAt AA,N~f fBr
refusing to show themselves. Our masters are
hard to please. If we are open, they abuse US
If We are secret, they denouncc us. we are
guilty il we know much; we are guilty again
if we I. know nothing. Z
who are the Y Know Nothings AS the
Mexican says in all those many cases wherehe
knows nothing, Quien Sabe X s Who can
tell K
Nobody. Nobody can, perhaps: certainly
nobody that can be believed, will for it is said
they exist only as q secret association, Of which
the members are sworn, by the most solemn
and multiplied oaths, not to disclose the plans,
principles or objects. As. therefore, its mys
teries can by no possibility be divalged, with
out a deliberate perjury, he who pretends to di-
vulge them is necessarily either an imposter to
man or d perjurer to God
Once more, then, who are the Know Nothings'
Qnien SADIE Will nobody tell US Nobody
No honest man can; and none but blockhead
as well as knave would because, by doing So
he would only cover himself with infamy. Can
we not learn this great secret then Or must
We burst in ignorance
4 All hail to 0Leary, the great knower OF
everything wicked He shall tell US! OLeary,
who is the grand link between our city govern
ment and the rogues that have not yet got into
it. O'Leary, the delight and the darling OF that
wise and righteous eorporation--the right arm
Of its unerring justice the left hand Of its sin
lister eouity-the double listed minister of its
ambidexterous integrity. All hail, again, to
the scrupulous OLeary! Bonaparte used to
say that Minister Of Police ought not to be too
honest. How the mighty O'Leary would have
suited him, If that was all he wanted! Passing
quite beyond the old idea, C set thief to catch
o thief the S collective wisdom of our city
fathers must have appointed him to put down
perjury, by hiring the perjurers and setting
them at work
Well what says this very nice head OF the
preventive police of our town Oh! he says
that he is in possession Of all the secrets Of the
Know Nothings, and thereupon he hands them
over to newspaper hard by; which paper is
silly enough to become his accomplish and to
print at large these daring fctions or at best
horrid perjuries. O'Leary says he did not com
NIT this crime, nor instigate another to commit
it: but that it wss voluntarily put into his
hands Pray Mr.. O'Leary! oblige US with a
sight Of this, your budget Of revelations. All.
here it isl But, Mr.. 0'Leary, there is no sig
nature to this deposition. lis that the sort OF
written testimony you take' Who are these
afhants' Out with their names, man! What
you stand mum Then, sir, you must stand in
the shoes of the witness you don't produce
You have taken on yourself all the RESPONSE
bilities and all the crime Of these perjuries, by
using and spreading them, for your own pur-
poses You did all this, knowing we'll that
these statements were necessarily either forger-
les or perjuries. Yet you made yourself the
author Of their circulation and the endorser OF
their truth and you did this with malice. Now,
neither law nor reason will allow such thing to
be done with impunity they will go back in
search Of the original author; for they mean to
punish every offender, in his proper degree: but
when they reach a man who stops their way, as
you do here; who, like you, has, knowingly and
for his own benefit, committed the crime; and who
like you, tries to shove it off upon others, with
out giving any proofs Of their existence, both
law and morals hold aid must hold that you
and you alone are the impostor and the per-
jurer They will doubly dc all this. where the
eulprit was, like you, one Of the guardians d
the laws 80 as to be bound to take care of public
morals, as we'll as his own So, you see, Mr.
Prefect, what an awful scrape you have got
yourself into, by abusing your powers and quit
ting your duties, to try and hurt citizens whom
you were bound to protect and who were doing
what they had perfect right to do For every
man has right to join secret society, if it,
ends ore not shown to be unlawful You have
shown no such thing of this, even admitting
your perjured evidence to be true. For every
man may enter into an agreement, open OF
secret, to vote or not to vote for others, upon
what grounds he likes. And you yourself be
long to more than one secret society.
To su4a up, then, oh profound 0'Leary tn
position in which you have placed yourself
your testimony branded on its front with delib
crate and malicious perjury, is utterly void a
to everybody else; but is perfectly conclusiv
against yourself. For the evidence of an ayowet
perjurer is only good against himself One NOR
thing, in the present case, may it be held to es
tablish that if the society which you denounc
exists for the purpose Of Kidding cur city govern
ment Gifts present holders, and you represent a
all their character and the agents they employ
that society has most laudable and necessar,
aims.
But adieu, 0'Learyi We part; but don
forget US. A long farewell For you ar
going and 6 the place which now knows yo
shall shortly know you no more, foreyer!'
We turn to the society itself Of that, W
have learnt what we could We are assured
by all of its members with whom we have bee
able to converse, that-except as to their pass
words and forms of admission--the CLEAR
version of their aims and principles is about
true as was to be expected of one who, havin
perjured himself in order TO betray then
would afterwards, of course, stick at no nyeI
ton by which to hlacken them. Their object
they aver, are such as any honest American ca
heartily support. As to their having any rel
gious aim, we do not believe it: for it would |
great wrong and great fault. In all tb,
we know of its objects, we very heartily syn
pathize; not as Wings, but as Americans. u,
we can only speak from report For we wi
JOIN no secret society, We hold it contrary
orr duty and our profession, as Editors. to entt
into any such engagements, If The associatic
have any general anu sweeping aim against a
adopted citizens, are viii concur in nothing
The sort, and will go no further than to resi-
their governing us, the home born