Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1858-04-07
Reflections on Funeral in New York.

the centre OF the street looked with eagerly e.
pectant eyes for the appearance of some obje,
of unusual interest. Many waited long tim
before they were grati6ed !; bat finally their OF
ticipatons were satisfied by the appearance {
that for which they waited. 1t was q statel
hearse, covered with tall nodding plumes q
black and white, and drawn by horses richl
decorated with sable trappings. The hanging
were looped up that the coffin might be expose
to the public eye, and showed costly shell @
rich mahogany. The hearse was accompanie
By pail bearers with the now unusual decora
ton of scarfs and knots, and was followed by
procession first of men walking eight abreast
and then of carriages which stretched square af
ter square through Broadway into Grand street
A crowd waited for it, crowd accompanied 1t
a crowd followed it, Citizens bent upon thei
daily business along its route were seriously in
commoded if not entirely restrained from NOV
ing; and an unusual police force was present t,
preserve order.
Such concourse on such an occasion mean
something. Did this mean that the body thu
borne to its last resting place was that Of some
benefactor to his country or his race9 Was th'
man thus honored one who ruled senates, or en-
chanted the ears of listening throngs Of his fel
low citizens while he pressed upon them theil
political duties or defended their political rights
! Was he one that had attained distinction fol
himself and won honor for his country in the
walks of literature or science2 Had he led ar
mics to victory or even himself performed one
of those heroic acts which sometimes centre the
sympathies of q community upon an humble and
private individual2 Not one of these. The
man whose funeral attracted this attention had
on the evidence of his own brother, no trade OF
occupation; he was by habit and almost by pro.
fession rowdy though he could hardly be called
bully, because he lacked the physical strength
to win him even that brutal distinction, and be
had only made himself prominent among his de-
graded companions by his reeklessness and i'm
pudence; and he was killed by another of bis
own kidney in midnight brawl provoked by
himself in low ruin-hole. He had indeed an
other claim to distinction 1t was that he made
one of the party of ruffians at the hands of one
of whom that professional bully so well known
as Bill Poole received his death shot q year or
two since and as Poole was honored at his fu-
neral by concourse which had hardly been
eoualled in New York, it perhaps was to be ex-
pected that one of his murderers would not be
allowed to 20 off the stage of life by the same
exit without somewhat similar distinction.
through the streets of Paris, the honor done to
the dead poets memory was not in the military
pomp, or even so much in the presence Of q
tbrong of Academicians and other men of emf
nence in letters, science and the arts, as in the
mourning, the intelligent and heartfelt mourn
ing of all the population, the very popuace, of
Paris. In Paris in Vienna, in London, in any
of the great capitals of Europe, q rowdy shot in
a brawl would be buried by his humble friends,
even if they sincerely mourned him, in the quiz
etest and most unpretending way; paragraph
in the police reports would record his death in
brief and business-hke terms; and that would
be the last heard of him while the death of any
man who has reached real eminence, not only
political or military but in literature, science, or
art, is mourDed, more or less, not only by the
weather and more cultivated classes, but by
the whole people, who leave their occupations
to do him funeral honor. But in democratic
America where we vaunt our feedom and our
knowledge, where our very form of government
is based upon the presumed intelligence and po-
ltical capacity of every citizen, where every man
can be educated and every man is supposed to
read where tyrannical force has been in theory,
dethroned by right and reason, here, the hearsse
of political rowdies and tippling house bullies
are accompanied by throngs, while men who
have made themselves honorable names, and
added to the real glory of the country, unless
they are politicians or generals, are borne to
their graves unnoticed, except by those to whom
their death is o personal loss.
II is true that the persons who thronged the
streets through which Patrick McLaughlin's cof.
fin was borne were not of what are called the
influential, or the cultivated, the respectable
classes of society. They belonged chiefly te
what may be well called our dangerous class
but this only darkens the aspect OF the case.
For it is fearful to think not only how numerous
as well as how dangerous this class is, but how
openly it shows its character and its sympathie'
to think that dangerous as it is, humorous o.
it is, and brutal as are its instincts, it is yet
great element of our political and social struc
ture an element that has to be taken into con
sideration by all politicians, and by some Journ
alists; not as class to be cared tor and con
trolled, but to be pessed-to think, that i
seems to lack those softening and humanising in
stincts which temper the character OF CORES
ponding classes in other countries, and neithe
knows nor seeks other enioyments than those
the ring, the gambling hell, or the bottle. ant
that it is yisibly increasing! 1t will not DO 10
US to turn up our noses at such exhibitions a.
that of yesterday, which, however, was odt th'
feebler reflex of that which challenged our atten
tion when the victim of this Paudeen was buried
They are significant of great and growing pow
or among us; power which has sympathle
only with force and fraud; power which ou
boasted system of education seems imPoteDt Y Y
control or even to modify; a power which is
which must be felt in the State, and which mus
always be exercised for i'll. 1t is the sign OF
terrible unknown quantity in the problem whicl it;
we have undertaken to solve. Solve tive will
but at present we cannot deny that q dark AM n
gloomy cloud hangs over the solution.-N. I
Courier.