The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1855-04-21
CRIME IN HIGH PLACES.

SUNDAY NeFNINs..*.....ssASN sb y ioeo
CRIME IN HIGH PLACES.
The paragraph copied from Northern
journal in yesterdays Dispatch, disclosing
scenes Of RIGHTEOUSNESS among some mem
bers Of what Is called the Upper Ten.
dom" Of New York is enough to crimson
with shame even those brazen-faced REFORM
ara who devote their whole time to dennn.
Citations of the moral enormities of Southern
slavery. Upon these Pharisees and Puri.
taus, who are so sorely exercised In spirit
on account Of the RIGHTEOUSNESS to which
slavery is alleged to expose the female slaves,
we might now retert with weapon of their
own furnishing. which ought to seal their foul
lips in eternal silence. We might quote
from their own journals. especially that free
soil journal, the N. Y. Times to prove that
ii RIGHTEOUSNESS exists among the lowest or
der of Southern blacks, mortal gangrene is
eating out the morality of the wealthiest
classes of New York whites We prefer,
however, TO do justice-justice even to our
enemies-justice to society, which cannot
but suffer in its moral tone, when it is be
lieved that The most intelligent and the most
influential portions of the community, those
who ought to set an example of morality and
virtue, are themselves the most corrupt and
deprsved. us%
There are those, we know, who revel in
the disclosures Of crime in high places, be,
cause it gr4ti6es the base passions of their
"a t1,e;r in
envy, and encourages them in their own
sensual indulgences. These vermin are new
or % happy as when they can nestle in de.
cayed reputation. The fall of an upright
man from virtue fills them with ecstacy.-
They subsist upon the wounds and bruises
and purifying sores of poor humanity
Hence, the moral cesspool just disclosed in
New York is perfect godsend to them
They plunge in, over head and ears, forth.
with, and dive and splash about and drink in
the foul sediment With as exquisite relish as
the lark feels when he scars upwards in the
when he takes his highest flight in the hea-
veus. ~.
But the horrid crimes recently brought to
light in New York afford no ground for ex-
ultation to those who indulge the consoling
belief that Intelligent and refined people are
as secretly corrupt as the openly immoral
and vicious. In our American society, as a
general rule, there Is as much purity and
honor in one class as another. The excep
tions may be found in such cities as New
York, where the two extremes of the social
scale cannot compare in sterling qualities of
the heart with what are called the middle
classes" But what are the materials of the
New York upper Ten," concerning some of
whose members the late terrible disclosure
has been made? Why, it is mainly com.
posed, as every one knows, of what is Gesig-
mated by the coarse but expressive phrase.
the "codfsh aristocracy,"-o men "whose
blood has flowed through scoundrels ever
since the food; of men without education,
intelligence, refinement, good breeding, or
good hearts, who have suddenly emerged
from the very dregs of society, aad have no
earthly claim to high social position but
the wealth they have so rapidly, and in many
instances, unjustly acquired. Yesterday the
caterpillar, to-day the butterfly OF course,
change Of position and fortune cannot
change the innate and ingrained vileness of
corrupt soul, nor remedy the defects of
wrong moral training, nor convert the natu-
rally vulgar into ladies and gentlemen. The
New York developments therefore tell against
none but hegnorant and vicious, the grovel
ling creatures, who have crept from the lowest
places of the earth to high station, and have
left at every step of their progress the slime
which marks the nature of the reptile.
However, we commed these cases to those
philanthropists of New York whose time has
been so much occupied with the enormities
of Southern slaveholding. Let each of the
red-nosed shepherds of that city exercise his
fiery proboscis in snufing up and detecting
the unsavory odors in his own neighborhood,
and let the Mrs. Jellabys, who are forever
looking for notes in the direction of Africa.
take thebeams out of their own eyes.