Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1856-02-02
Published by requcs,.l
CITY GLIMPSES.

CITY
Strangely those massive piles of brick. and dust
and smoke of ~thronged cities, strike the eye of one
Graded amid the level forests of the western world.
Strange appear their forms habits castles and
grades. Mysterious and bewildering that living
moving mass of animated matter of rushing active
life, which crowd every avenue of those thronged
and busting streets. They ru,h indis criminately
blended, the wealthy and gay clad in the robes of
grandeur their soft white hands giving evidence
that they are not of those who toll, and strike the
sounding blow :" and the lowly and stricken ones
of earth, who dwell where luxury never shone per-
chance without one friendly face save Gods alone
all these mingled together thread those great broad
theatres of life and action. S~trangest of all is the
deep mysterious Interpretation society has forced
upon youths pure impulse and natures spontaneous
gush; and teaching us to suppress the hearts i'm
pulsiye promtings and become sordid and conven-
tional. Here beggar and banker meet priests
and lawyers, doctors and private gentlemen passed
by the aged beggar whose emaciated hand was out
stretched for a tythe of charity. Some passed her
by urhecding, others with bitter curse and ribald
jest bid her begone. Perhaps she was an unworthy
object upon which to lavish the charities of a peoples;
p~erchance she leads a life of infamy or crime but
still it was sadly strange to see her there exposed to
insult, threading the streets of that busy city; no
home had she where she might direct her steps Il
none to teach of the worth of life and reputation.
Those from whom she received her firstimpressions
must have failed to teach of her capabilities and
: responsibilities or she proved traitor to the lesson.
She once perchance was cherished as a favorite
plant, and would not her former friends blush to
recognise her clad in the tattered and u~nwashed
garments of the beggar woman. But enough Of
this moralising. Strange to us appeared their
jails, penitentiaries and asylums, each thronged
with their peculiar inmates; some looking the very
picture Of despair others the very embodiment of
crime. Prisoners were there some with heads
silvered by the frost Of three score and ten winters;
others in the full Sloom of manhood endowed by
physical perfection but their harsh and unrelent-
ing countenances giving evidence that they were
welded to the brotherhood of crime. Some by
careful and judicious treatment might be led gently
back to the path of rectitude; and if pointed to
lifes high truth and beauty ard its tangled
and mysterious paths, might yet live the life
of the righteous, and tn cir remaining days be
happy. But the dignity of 'the law" must be
preserved mono will condescend to lisp that little
word in kindness spoken, that motion or that tear
which has power, to heal a heart that is broken (;
stir up the deeper, di viner aspiration Of the better
nature; till it has triumphed over the hardness
of the bitter crime thoughts that reign within.
We left with new thoughts and great strange doc
trines stirring within us.
Then the Arsenal. That charnel house of virtue
and morality where men are taught the barbarian
art Of human b~utchery. Looked it strange with
its massive stone wall mounted by iron banisters
the inside surrounded by stone buildings, the in
mates of each having their own peculiar part of
the war-like game to play. On our right were
stationed II party of soldiers ON guard, decked out
in their militia cOlors. On the left far above US
streamed forth to the winds the nations ban
ners the bold eagle perched over the stripes
and stars emblems Of the nations liberties. The
deep hum Of the factories, busy manufacturing the
instruments of death, and the sweet strains OF
piano music blended inharmonlously toge ther
smOte strangely uron the auditory nerves.
Columns Of huge cannon lay about US cannon
balls and bOmb-shells were stacked with the most
orderly precision. Many that we looked upon had
scattered death and desola;ion over the Inflated
plains Of Mexico. Perchance it was beside one of
these that the Mexican Yimena knelt to administer
the cooling draught to the lips of the dying soldier;
when she saw tho northern eagle shining in his
? plstol peitJ u turheu iearluly away tr no WAS
her nations enemy. But she heard the youths
low moaning and his breath of struggling pain
And she raised the cooling water to his parching
lips again. lie thanked her but his words were
uttered in q strange and northern tongue. Yet
her woman's heart with meaning. all his stranger
words supplied, with his kiss upon her forehead
murmured "bless YOU and he died.
Had such love as hers, such principles, and such
deep true sympathies found a home in every heart
the battle had never rolled down the Mexican
mountains, like clouds before the wind, leaving
blood and death behind.
If those whose business it is to manufacture
these instruments of death, had known what ouI
thoughts were as we looked upon their "war-like
weapons" and in what utter adherence we held
the practice, which a prejudicial education has
taught them so to reverence, would doubtless have
exclaimed, thou heretie thou art beside myself
We saw a number of pieces which were taken from
THE British when fire and death were rained down
like hail at the memorable conflict at Saratoga
Springs. .These, said our conductor, Fare pre-
served astrophies as standing monuments of signal
power ofthe natiop during the Evolutionary strug
gles." It was strange, they thought not of the
simple and child-like preacher, who sojourned on
earth eighteen hundred years ago. who came clad