Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-03-12
uNr1N1sHEp ExcrrEMENTs.

We have wholly recovered from the public
excitement attending the closing scenes OF
Congress, and the domestic excitement of the
Sickles murder. The startling revelations of
public fraud, and those equally startling of do
nestle depravity, have passed over our heads
like Summer cloud. We do not perceive,
however, that the air is any clearer. Public
opinion was too much divided. Sickles, in
iail, with bloody hands, had as many friends as
he ever had out of it. And many oracles OF
public opinion FASTENED to fill the atmosphere
with their pompous Qualifications. To be sure,
nobody could pluck up audacity enough to say
a kind thing of the President when the inves-
tigating committees implicated him in grave
acts of corruption, or avowedly defend those
who profited by the swindling at which he con-
niyed. There was too much meanness in it.
But they quietly covered it up, as the sons of
Noah are said to have done, when their father
did foolish thing, though from quite differ
ent motive. And we, shut up in our own COM
Portable conceits of virtue, lie in wait for new
excitements, without bringing any one to ac-
count for the old ones, or harboring the slight
est expectation of such result
1t must be for some reason like this that the
world gets along no faster. Its machinery gets
out of order, but we do not stop to repair it till
we have smash-up. Its book-keepers get in
dolent and leave half their accounts unbal-
anced till we have panic Large men run
themselves in debt to society by vicious prac-
tees, by which we all lose and suffer, with
such impunity as to encourage small men into
similar extravagances, whom we invariably
punish Shrewd men cheat, steal, murder,
and, if they are caught, grease the fingers OF
justice with fallacy, and slip through them.
So, that system of compensations and balances,
on which rests the security of civil and social
communities, gets all askew, and, after great
while, we are brought up standing by the ne
cessity of atoning for our accumulated wicked
ness in lump. That is the way the darl
ages Surprised" the old Romans We lost {
great deal of time in that way, for which his
tory will hold the criminals to rigid account
If they had only punished their gladiators anC
sicarii-their big criminals who stole States a
well as their little ones who stole sheep-witf
hing of the jus tice they deserved, anC
Pii'U : n as they came along their COLDER
ages instead OF Generating into iron ant
lead, might have culminas4d in AMETHYST AMI
pearl before this time,.yhich would have BEEF
exceedingly pleasant for us. Their conduc
was very injudicious, not to say immoral Al
the other ages of men have had to pay tn
expense.
We sincerely trust that our country an
be somehow or other punished. We recogniz
it in our Christianity. We record it in on
written constitutions. When you attempt t
separate the cause from the effect, somethin
breaks. You may not feel the consequences a
once. But they are as sure to develope an
archy, disorder, and mis-rule, as virus in tn,
physical system is to produce DEATH WHY
should those who offend against the moral sen
tment and the law of the land, be suffered t,
escape SO easily-treasuring up wrath, not only
for themselves, but for those who are responsi
Die for good order, and, at least, the appearance
OF good morals I? Here in Massachusetts we re
cognize in the administration of law no ad
ventitious distinctions. But in the capital O
the country who ever heard of swindler, 8
highwayman, or an assassin, who had am
friends, being punished Not Winter pass
es without robbery of the Treasury, o
murder in the streets. Yet our Brookse
Herberts and Sickles, may, after the sever
days talk is over, walk the streets as proudly
as ever, and the law will not touch hair O
their heads. Let it continue so, we can hav,
periodical excitements as often as we please
There will be no end to them till we have al
eruption that will shake our fabric of govern
ment and social order to its foundations.