New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-02-08
THE DAILY CRESCENT.
WEDNESDAY MORNING, FEB'Y 8. 1854.
THE SL.apERY .aGI1a71oN

1t is fast becoming but too obvious that there
exists, in this country, neither patriotsm
enough, sense enough, nor honesty enough on
any side. 10 permit this pernicious question, in
capable as it is of any thing pnt mischief to
stan settled, even when it has been settled No
faith given between section and section, at aRy
such adjustment, holds, any longer than blasts
the Immediate alarm, the 1--WE fear) selfish
dread Of commotion, which only when a catas-
trophe is in no other manner to be avoided and
the least card Of political tricksters and dema-
gogues is played, rallies to the call of public
duty, never regarded until the last extremity.
That extremity once averted and the momenta-
ry panic past, the old game is instantly renew
ed. the shallow multitude resumes its security
and dances upon the volcano just quieted be-
meath its feet while the very engineers, that
laid the mine and lighted the combustibles,
shift their parts, pass themselves for the men
that prevented an explosion, and converting the
whole short-lived dismay into a new fund Of
lying influence for themselves, begin fresh the
game incendiary practices; carry them on with
success; build up their own personal fortunes
upon the agitation, and bidding high and fast
for public favor, against crowd OF eager com
petitors, soon bring back all the excitement,
the passions, the public phrenzy, which had but
the other day been so nearly fatal. We live, in
short, like those people lately blownup at Ra-
yepswood, in d powder house, where it is every
body's business to make cartridges; where
powder strews the floors and men shod with
iron walk upon it; where it is handled along
IL. - lam and ,yhera F111 ~, 4ha
midst, stands that ten plate stove, the Presi-
dency, all the while flaming, and at every four
years blown to a red heat, upon whose top any
one that likes may amuse himself with setting
off explosions at his will, to attract attention.
All this is, no doubt, excellent pyrotechny, and
most prudent MS we'll as pleasant Now and
then, when the danger becomes too apparent, or
some more riotous youth insists upon clapping
fire to every thing, for the general benefit Of a
enormously frightened, and some sober and good |
old fellow, with much ado and at no little haz
ard Of getting scorched himself, sweeps out the |
powder from the floor, eools down the stove, |
snatches his match from the pyrotechnic hero,
and ayerts for the time detonation But
what them No sooner do they find themselves
safe than they all go on again at the same haz-
ardous trade, the same wicked tricks: the lamp,
the stove blaze up again; the floors, the seats
resume their former discreet condition; the
youths that have fancy for fireworks return
to their sports when 10 in the midst of the
fun, a vapory flame darts from the plate or
the lamp to some pinch Of powder nigh-leaps
from that to the foor-seizes the cartridges
quick as lightning, catches the whole combus-
tible mass; and, with a burst like thunder, q
jar like that Of an earthquake, the factory and
its ingenious artifcers are blown into atoms and
shot to the sky