Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1862-08-20
The pred scott peelsIon.



our wise ancestors throughout the deleota-
BILE kingdoms Of England and Scotland,
were in the habit Of seizing wrinkled
helpless old women and subjecting them
TO indescribable tortures. At length, after
an interval longer or shorter, the miser-
able old creatures, If they had survived
the unutterAble agonies Of their primary
accommodation, were tied 10 stakes and
burned to ashes. Now why was all this
Why, because the aforesaid unhappy
old crones were called witches, and ac-
cused Of ten thousand diabolical and i'm
possible pranks and the enlightened in
dividual who limited the impropriety Of the
proceeding, was called a Witch-friend and
was in great danger Of similar usage. just
as man who now endeavors to persuade
his fellow citizens to abstain from atrocities
equally pernicious and equally unreasona-
bic, is called a nigger-Worshiper and re-
viled as fanatic, and if he happens to be
found South, is muilaied or assassinated.
Our ancestors, like ourselves, were stimu-
lated by their demagogues. Old King James
the First wrote q volume to inhame the zeal
and increase the ardor of the Witch-burn-
ers. The incapacity of the helpless old
creatures to ride through the air on
broomstick, 10 transform themselves into
cats, to throw children into fits, and to
smite their parents with nondeseript dis
eases, was manifest the proofs were lying
all round loose. Yet our wise daddies
went on from generation to generation re-
peating the most shocking crimes under
the influence of fear. For rogues and fools
have always employed the agency of fear to
drive men TO worship thedevil ofhate. Feb
ris is the sure ally Of Moloch- If ever men
were called on to pause, reflect, and indulge
doubt, il is when they are instigated to
deeds Of cruelty; when one class Of labor
ers are stimulated to lynch and murder an
other. Pause reflect, and indulge doubt.
Gross ignorance and selfish cunning will
employ all their arts to prevent and forbid
us. And yetif we will not perform those
interesting intellectual operations, we will
infailibly make the same figure in the eyes
Of our posterity, which our wise forefath-
ers, the witch-burners, make in ours. In
1920 the population of Ohio was less than
six hundred thousand in 1S60it was more
! than two millions and quarter. The ex-
act number was 2,340,000.1 Yet with all
this mighty increase of population, the price
\ Of labor was rising, so as not only TO be
I greater but very much greater in 1860 than
in 1920. That is, the laborer had in 1860
a much greater surplus above his necessa-
ry expenditures, than in 1920. Thousands
and tens Of thousands of the capitalists Of
Ohio were formerly labOrers. The same
man who now very cheerfully pays a dol
lar a day for common rough work, and a
dollar and half or two dollars a day for
harvest work or skilled labor, was, in his
youth, content to work for fifty cents day
/" in trade, as the phrase then was and
this he would very gladly have exchanged
for twenty-five or thirty cents in solid
cash. At the period of the Restoration,
the population Of England was about five
millions; tits now certainly not less than
eighteen Millions mean England proper
without Wales. Yet Notwithstanding this
enormous increase Of population, the wa
ges of labor have increased in a still great
er proportion. True, the average price Of
labor in England is not so great as in Ohio,
and not so great as good man would wish
it to be, and as it would be if the spirit of
aristOcracy we're less potent, and the mem
tai culture and moral education of the peO-
pie improved. But still the fact sticks out,
that with an enormous increase of popula-
ton, the increase in the rate Of wages has
been still greater; so that with eighteen
millions of people the actual reward Of la
Dor is not only larger but very much larger
than when the same surface contained but
five millions. Nor have we the slightest
reason to believe that either population or
wages in England have come to a stand
still. Both may apparently 90 on increas-
ing for ages. England has sixty thousand
square miles of surface; Ohio has forty
thousand. England has both bogs and
mountains; Ohio has neither. The arabic
land in Ohio is probably as extensive as in
England; it can be but one-ffth less. And
surely no man will pretend that the sur
face of Ohio is less capable of sustaining q
dense population than a surface of equal
extent in England. Then we could re-
ceive an accession of ten or twelve mil
lions to our population without the
slightest danger Of Overcrowding or
depression Of wages. Yet under pre-
tence Of this danger Of excessive numbers,
men are stimulating the most baneful, the
most atrocious feelings against weak and
helpless portion Of our people, whose every
weakness calls for compassion. have
spoken Of countries where wealth and pop
ulation are increasing. Spain furnishes
an example of the opposite state Of things.
A writer in the last January number Of
the London Quarterly Review computes,
that in the century and a half which elaps-
ed from 1850 to the Death of Charles the
Second, the last Spanish monarch of the
House of Hapsburgh, in 100, the popula-
ton has dWindled down from ten millions
to six millions.-LSee London Quarterly
Review, for January, 1862, p. 80.l Both
citizens and soldiers might be seen at the
gates Of converts, struggling and fighting
with the common beggars, for the misera-
Bile soup doied out by those establishments
People were smothered in the crowds in the
streets of Madrid, seufling for bread. The
English ambassador, Lord StanhOpe, in
1859, tells us of five women who thus per-
ished in that capital, in one day. And af-
ter all that charity could do, thousands
died of famine, for rapid as was the deci-
nation Of the number Of the people, there
muneration of labor diminished in q still
greater proportion. Yet in no country did
the hatred Of race and of caste, burn more
fercely than in Spain during this period
A suspicion Of African or Israelitish blood
in a mans veins, would frequently render
hislife as insecure as that of mad dog. The
Maor and the Jew were not only imprison-
ed, racked and burned by the constituted
authorities, but we're MANNED and murder
ed BY the rufian violence Of the mob. In
the eyes Of the populace, those unfortunates
had no rights which the true Spaniard was
abound to respect" Spain became his
sing and a byeword amongst the nations.
Her wretched history during those dark
ages ought to be a warning to all nations.
But it is lamentable that though men can
clearly perceive and freely acknowledge the
crimes and follies of past ages, yet
with slight variation the same crimes
and follies are continually repeated
Crime and afrncifv have alWnvs something