New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1858-02-17


New Orleans as Edward William johnson, once ed
tor Of the Crescent addresses through the St. Louis
Leader a series OF confidential epistles to Horace
Greeley in which the absurdtes aud inconsistencies
which have characterized the public career of that
most remarkable Of all philosophers and reformers
are shown up in a style altogether unapproachable
by anybody but n SegTeta,Io. We make the follow
ing extract from one of those letters, which are the
most remarkable specimens ofhumorous and satirical
composition we have met with for long time
None who know you, my Greeley but are aware
Of the admirable reasons for which you have been
bred up on food unlike that of the vulgar of men, II
necessary to set you apart for greatness by your
nourishment itself He who stood to the heather
Greeks in just the relation you bear to the subverng
shriekers OF all Sorts and was their thunderer Jove
was, soon as born, weaned of woman's milk (lesi
he should grow pitful fellow a milksop0 and put
out to dry-nurse. That man of might Samson, whose
weapon was the jaw of dead ass was, like you
sparingly deted, and lquored not at ALL Elijah the
Tishbite and John the Baptist chief prophets were
leanly lodged and boarded in deserts Upon the lips
Of infant Plato a swarm of bees settling, he had
honey, not pap, for his porridge. Thus thunderers
champions, prophets, philosophers must ALL like
queenbees and lighting cocks be bred to their pro-
LESSONS by an appropriate bill of fare much more,
therefore, you who to be all those at In
word, when the gods-(mindl mean those panthe-
istcal and mechanical ones that you believe in)-
! >
such as you It's quite as little as they can do after
wards to look well to his fetching up.
Those same gods of yours are not very provident
ones but in your case they showed a very special
providence. Everybody who has observed you closely
must see that You naturally vcious in the ex-
treme and that nothing short of starving out your
inordnate appetites OF every kind could have saved
you from an extraordinary depth of depravity. Had
you not been barred from liquor you would have
been an awful inebrate frightful debauchee, had
you been allowed TO see the other sex beastly gor-
mandzer, had you not been confined to roots mon
strous rowdy, had you ever touched tobacco (;
bloody duest, had you ever let any blood come into
your veins an unreasonable flop, If you had ever
donned decent hat, coat, breeches or boots. You
have lived like Christian, but that your charity was
small or none; like hermit, had your prayers borne
due proportion to your tasts like saint, except
for large lack of humility 10 spite of plentiful occa
sion for it like martyr, that you exercised no
patience, gave others great need OF it, and had no
suierngs to BEAR that you not getting rich and
mighty upon. Without, then, all this direlul discp
line, this rigid sefdenia how could you have failed
to figure in those annals which record the exploits of
Remarkable Criminals, or to decorate, as an invet
crate burglar, public apartments at "sweet Auburn
loveliest village Of the plain, expiate upon the
gibbet long career of murderous atrocities? The
seyerest Vegetarianism only and potations the most
desperately Emphatic have, it is clear averted for
you, thus far the one the other Or (as y both those
catastrophes
For ifupon cabbage and turnps, which make Dutch.
krout that renders Others podding renders you pOe
calf upon parsnips you are pugnacions upon car
rots quarrelsome- with nothing betterin your belly
than Stops and spoon-meat, you be so bellicose-if
While GTaham'bscuit and bran-bread are the only
staff of lfep You handle you be so keen for cudge
PLAYS it not awful to think what a rui1ian what
monster OF cruelty, what a scourge to humanity you
must have been, had you ever got acquainted with
muttonchops- in calf 's.head or cow's-heel
or trpe or pigs feet-falen into the snfuluess of
pf n "A
fused into that seat of sanctity, your stomach the
fatal force OF beef or the acknowledging strength
Of bacon Methinks very lion of Numidia, living
like you on that alone which New England foudly
styles sass and washing it down with undiuted water
only, must have been tanned TO lamblike meekness-
while you, in spite of cheese cake and Candles and
though innocent Of any tpple exhierating as gin
ger-p0p or as courageous as switched, yet remain,
through the mere force of Unborn and mmitigable
erceness OF SOUL as valiant Hercules and as furious
as Mars
Terrible, then, as you are maui gre all that should
molllfy you, how can one contemplate without con-
sternation what you now propose TO yourself? For,
all your native instincts of the tiger aroused iii
would seem) by the cries of bleeding Kansas you are
evidently about to fling off all conjunction and to
rush remorseessy into dreadful revolution of your
own larder Radical though you be, you renounce
roots you repudate Nebuchadnezzar, that grass
eating king who invented salads you abjure the
Pythagoreans, who refused to eat pigs because they
deemed 1t unbrothery you fling YOURSELF " body
and brooches" into the faith of esh-pots and all at
once come (ike the converted giant in PnlcD TO be-
lieye, with all your heart, in boiled stewed, fried
fricasied, and especially roast
But you are philosopher, as all the world knows,
and especially the most ignorant part of it, you are
enormously philosopher. Now, the great phoso-
pher is, in these times, rather gwen when he has
with much ado, seized upon any old truth or new
notion, to pushing il to an extreme which of course
greatly argues his judgment In such proofs of solid
NY and wise moderation, you my Greeley, cannot be
exceeded For, whenever you have taken up an
idea, You will stop with it nowhere You drive il
every length n short Ito use popular expression
you are sure and in hurry to run it completely
into the ground And, accordingly what is it Won
do in this instance Why, no sooner have you be-
gun TO believe in Southdown mutton and Durham
beef than yon conclude that if these are good horse
meat must be still better you ask why the roadster
and the racer are not TO be served up TO cur tables
And you answer as follows
"ln the horse we have animal which is much
cleaner in Its habits than the hog herhverous like the
OK or sheep, whose flesh is rich in nitrogen and as
pleasant to the taste either of the above named
animals What prevents horse-fesh from being found
upon our tables Nothing bat popular prejudice
winch recent investigations In Paris show, is without
any foundation whatever
Now, beloved philosopher! thou art Just redeemed
rom thy pagan error OF parsnips and potatoes. But
an hour since, thou vert heather Egyptian and
hadst an onion for thy god. moment ago, all flesh
was, to thy sacred gullet, PROCLAMATION and To- of
sudden, thou insisest on turning thy palate into
and thy throat into highway for ali
manner OF feshly denominations They who cannot
quit one extreme but to fly to the other had Just as
well save trouble and stay where they were There
Is such thing as being converted more than enough
For he as heretca who believes much as he that
believes not all. Keep within bounds From beef
eating il by no means follows that we must crunch
horse-meat. Because like mutton and veal, must |
feed on dog. cat and rat Does my having
butchers bill necessarily imply that shall eat carbon
like beast OF preyg Or, il | 20 to the poulterer's
for chickens and turkey does that commit me to feast
ing on kite and crow and buzzardg Because | eat
flesh, must turn cannbal?