The Placer herald., 1855-10-06
What's in a Name,

The Hindoos, since their recent success in
this State, have assumed to themselves the
dgnities of triumph, They are becoming
ashamed of those significant appollationo III
which they rejoiced while their organization
was undergoing parturition, and now, in
querulous and woe-begone periods, beg the
public, and the democracy in particular, to
call them by name more dignified than
Thugs, IIindoos, lanternites, and others OF
equally expressive import This is natural
impulse, and cannot be wondered at, when
s"manv horrid associations, originating in a
land where the car of Juggernaut leaves
yearly in its track the dead bodies Of infat-
uated victims, and where the funeral pile is
the only refuge from domestic grief, are
called up by the mention of their current
names. These appelations, for the honor of
our common country, would be gladly drop
ped if there was any other genus or species OF
politico-reigious parties now existent in any
country, under which they could more pro-
pcrly be comprehended. But names must
be expressive. AS matter Of pathological
economy, every newly discovered thing or
phenomenon must be called by the most
general and comprehensive term that its
nature will admit OF, and until the thing
Itself changes or rs destroyed, the place as
signed in the common vocabulary must re-
main. The know-nothings are called Hin
docs, and likened unto them, because of the
secrecy under which they veil their projects
and the superstitious reverence they profess
to have for a god of prescription and intoler-
ance, faith wholly inconsistent with the
freedom of our government and the Consti-
tuition of American society; they are called
Thugs" because they are bound by the most
solemn oaths, sworn in the dead of night,
and under the most imposing circumstances,
to worship this false and brazen god above
all others, and if demanded, offer up their
freedom and the liberties of their country as
holocaust upon the sacraficial altar. They
are called "Lanternites," because they never
meet together except when the sun has gone
down, and under cover of a secret roof with
inside and outside watchmen, who demand
grips, signs and passwords as an evidence of
brotherhood and passport to their midnight
orgies.
If the economy or their organization is
such as it has been published and reputed to
be- then it will be admitted that there is
much resemblance between them and secret
polltco religious orders of Bramanism, Budd-
ism and other Hindooisms which have been
regarded as the first and most fragrant of
modern idoatres and the most superstitious
of heathenism. 1t will be admitted that
their practices have not heretofore been
known in any republican government-that
they are not an use but an abuse of personal
liberty and freedom of speech and prostitu-
tion of unlimited popular privileges to the
unholy purposes of popular disfranchisement
and religious persecution. The usual plea
of fanaticism-that the end justities the
means-will not excuse their ponderous Sc
crecy or whtewash their midnight operations
for the end which they seek to accomplish
is as despcabe and dangerous, and Jugger
nautc as the means which they have adopt
ed, and it would be difficult to decide whicl
of the two merits more the disgust of free
men.
Their-Peter the Hermit-orators who
suddenly emerged from the obscurty into
which by choice or by necessity they hac
fallen have raised crusade against civil anC
religious freedom upon the flimsy pretext
that the liberties of America might be sepul
chred in the wies of ctizen-foreigners, OF
buried under the supposed intrigues of Anne
rican Catholics and under the banner O
"Americans must rule America" are fighting
for the determination of these Quixotic enc
mics