The Opelousas patriot. [volume] (Opelousas, Parish of St. Landry, La.) 1855-1863, 1858-09-11

NEwYoRk AUGUST &c. 1858.

ful laying Of the Atlantic cable has pretty
well died out. You may meet and chat with
fifty men during the day, not one of whom will
~refer'to tie subject. There are no nine days,
wonders ID New ork, We usually do up all
our Arrangement at anything novel or atrocions
in twenty-iour hours. A very brutal muir cr
will some times excitem us for eight or ten days
ut q stretch, II there is any mystery connected
with it, and if "onr interchangeable reporter !"
tells US every morning that . new and astpund-
$ag developments may be expected shortly,
lhich will ilmplicate ID this bloody tragedy
srs0As of high social standing etc. etc. but,
10 general thing, atrocities don't frighten Us.
3e are familiar with them, and look for a
81 batch every morning, as naturally as we
4 OK for our daily paper and our coffee and
~. The Atlantic telegraph excitement. |
repeat, is dead in this city, the daily newspa.
pers to the contrary notwithstanding. When
the general celebration comes off we will rush
into it madly, once more, for twelve hours, aud
that will be the last of it.
Won have heard, Of course, that our city
hall was partially destroyed by fire on the
night after We received the Queens message,
when there was an improyised jubilee in the
park. The Fire Marshal and Committee oi
the Common Council are endeavoring to as
certain the cause Of the FIRE but there is 10
need OF an investigation, except it BET ID give
the Investigators an opportunity to put q few
dollars into their pockets for snppressing facts
that might be unpalatable to certain pa1 4.
Every one knows that tho FIRE was caused BY
the carelestiess Of the pyrotechHist who man.
aged the display of fireworks. An inferior
artist was employed by the Committee Of the
Common Council who had the matter In
charge, to furnish the fire works for the ocea-
sion. This man was paid a good round sum,
out Of which he could afford TO do the hand
some thing for each member of the Committee.
1t was n scandalous affair, although not much
more so, after oil, than Others which come of
every day. Mr.. g. A. Lilliendahl, the princi-
pal manufacturer Of fireworks in the city, and
a man Of wealth and high social position, had
offered to present the city with $1,000 worth
OF fireworks, and to snperintend the display
himself with an able corps Of assistants but
as the Committee could not make anything
out OF such an arrangement, they refused the
offer, aud paid u mail dealer a high price for
an inferior display. The burning Of the city
hall, however, has cansed the affair to leak
ont, and at the grand celebration Mr.. Lillien.
dahl will doubtless superintend the pyrotechnic
display.
The friends of the Sabbath in this city
have. | think, committed an error which many
of them will live to regret, in attempting to
stop the sale of newspapers on Sunday, and to
Close the grocery stores, in the latter case often
debarring those Of the laboring classes who do
not receive their weekly wages until late on
Saturday night from purchasing for Sundays
use such provisions and fuel as they may have
forgotten, Or not had the time 10 Law in the
night before. l have nothing to say in this
connection on the wright or wrong of this at
tempt to coerce men and women into COM
pliance with ordinances based ON religious
tenets. | refer merely to the patent impracti-
cabllity and therefore impolicy of the move.
ment IN this city, the vast majority of whose
legal voters would, if the question were forced
upon them, decide that no such day MS the
Christian Sabbath should be recognized by
law.
Every mar in New Cork, whose tastes or
pursuits have inclined or compelled him, du-
g the last fifteen years, to associate more or
less with all classes OF persons, knows very
well that Roman Catholic and Jewish citizens,
frotestants from the continent of Europe
where Sunday afternoons are devoted to rccre.
atoms by Catholics and Protestants alike
Amertean-born spiritualists, socialists. free
lovers, intideIs, keepers, attaches aud frequent
ers OF low grog-sbups, professional shoulder
hitters, gamblers, politicians who always work
Tor and 60 with the largest crowd, cd ii genus
omhe, constitute a large majority of the legal
voters OF Manhattan Island, and that these
men are strongly opposed 10 Sunday laws, and
have Tor years been kept from making their
entire aballllon u party question only by the
fact that they have been prag acalIy considered
u dad letter in the stat e books, or have
been rarely enforced, and Il en- only nomiually
or mildly r.. -
believe, of course, my Sabbatarian friends
to be influenced by the best motives but they
have allowed their religious fervor to blind
them to the necessity of employing Judgment,
talent and tact IN advancing what they believe
70 be a righteous cause, or they would never
nave been SO insane as to an ageres,
sive warfare on u body of men so numerically
strong, and with such overw helminy influence
~ the city Government. | refer to this SUBJ
lect so particularly now, because | know that
1T is destined to become an apple Of discord
among US, and a question upon which politi-
cians will soon have 10 take sides.
The late decision Of the Supreme Court of
California, whose constitution is Identical with
that OF NewY ork, that all laws compelling
the observance of any particular day are IN
Engagements on constitutional liberty, and the
still later decision by Judge Ingraham, of this
city, in favor Of n German Vaudeville compa-
ny, whose Sunday performances the religion
lists endeavored 10 suppress, ought to convince
us that Sunday schools, competent ~clergymen.
and good practical works i'll every day life by
protesting Christians, are more etiicacipus
remedies Tor The great moral and social evils
which aiiict the body polite of this great city
than aggressive legal warfare. | had nearly
forgotten To state that all laws for the enforce.
ment OF the observance of Sunday have been
blotted from the statute books Of Indiana.
Now, all this is the result of the overstep-
ping of the mark by overzealous religiouists,
aud it, at the next convention which assemblies
for the purpose Of revising the constitution Of
New ork, and an effort is now being made to
get one up, the Sundny-qnestion should be
brought prominently before it. and such clauses
should be enacted as will weaken or abolish
the slight and indirect support which evan.
gellcal Christianity at present receives from
laws, this radical onslaught upon
acknowledgements may be fairly attributed
10 the iDjndicious though well meant course
pursued by over-zealous Christians in
this city. 1t may not be out of place to state
that the foregoing VII ws are substantially those
- IL