Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1862-12-26
Correspondence of the Daily Journal.
FROM WASHINGTON.
Horace Greeley, Thurlot0 Weed and Cir
cuses-Littls Mac, Sunset Goa, Wieklife
9' Go. on Dinners and Hoao not to DO it
-Several 0iAer Matters. ...
WASHINGTON, Dec. Is, 1862

-Several oiher Matters. ...-at-
| e.- WASHINGTON, Dec. Is, 1862.
1t is my candid opinion, after all, that cir
cuses are the best shows extant, and III bel
my bottom dollar on 'em all the time. (My
bottom dollar is a green-back, and besides
being in the bottom also represents the tor
and middle of the pie.) If they happen to
have the accompaniments Of live menagere
and stuffed giraffe, they can beat Barnum's
Museum and the theatres all the while. For
circuses are our true conservative institutions
always giving the same admirable perform
ances over and over again, even down to the
funny saying of Mr.. Merriman, and the won.
derful achievements of the learned horse; SO
you are satisfied, whilst admiring and calling
for your "ice-cold Lemonade" that if the
great Napoleon Bonaparte, or Gen. Washing
ton, or Andrew jackson ever went to circuses,
they had the pleasure of seeing the same
extraordinary exhibitions of agility now
going on in the ring. e7 ..,l
Thurlow Weed is, in politics, what the best
performance is in the circus. | allude, of
course, to that fine thing where miserable,
rowdy, drunken chap falls out of the pit into
the circle, and at last, with many drink and
many hiccup, persuades the clown to give
him ride. After riding around in drunken
glee for while, he at length commences to
take off his clothes! Coat after coat, coat
after coat, of all manner of seedy kinds, is
thrown toward the center-pole, till huge pile
is made of them. Then go the vests by the
dozen, and after that the pants, you know not
how many, when, 10 the rascal who first
appeared as drunken, noisy, interloping
vagabond, turns out to be the best rider of
the age, and, glistening in the glitter of his
riding paraphanalia, goes through the SOM
horseback miracles which always precede the
last grand climax of the pantomime. That
is just the way with Thurlow Weed, the
undisputed sovereign of Caucus, and the
Log-Roller of imperial sway, before whose
sceptre conventions and legislatures bow in
entranced and loyal homage. Your indie
pendent Westerners, it is true acknowledge
not the supremacy Of Caucus, nor the royalty
of Wires, and hence they routed Weeds
hosts at Chicago, horse, foot and dragons,
and conceived a sort of contempt for the man
who supposed he could bamboozle the North
west as easily as he could New York
Legislature. With the help of Greeley and
Pennsylvania, they beat the then acknowl-
edged leader Of the party and the admitted
best manipulation of conventions, and have
ever since sympathized with the Philosopher
and the Tribune, as against Seward and the
Albany Regency.
! Nevertheless, Weed is man Of great
influence in the affairs of this nation. His
wire-pulling propensities are sort of second
nature, and his political bearings are all in
oblique lines, but, when the canvass is once
begun, and the issue fairly joined, no man is
truer or ADLER than he 1t takes him a long
time to throw off the membranes with
which he entered the political ring, but when
he has once disencumbered himself of his
disguises, he is as swift, as certain and as
true in the execution of his designs as the
winged Mercury. He is by nature a good
man, and it is pity that education should so
often carry him into crooked paths.
Greeley is straight forward, upright, open,
He represents the progressive or reform ele-
ments Of his party as the Tribune does those
of the age. Hence he is popular with the
masses, and the masses, being better educated
than of old, control conventions and policy
more than conventions and policy control the
| masses.
The quarrel now raging between these two
men attracts great deal of attention here,
and have but reported above the substance
of many conversations / hayeheard upon the
subject among eminent men, with whom the
opinion that the Philosopher will succeed in
laying Mr.. Seward upon the shelf is by al
odds the more frequently expressed. They
do not hesitate to say indeed, in many cases
that conviction of Greeley's power is the
cause of the Premier's late emphatic declara.
ton that under no circumstances whatever
would he again be candidate for Office
And here endeth the first lesson going te
show that honesty is the best policy in poll
tics, as in every thing else. Mr.. Greeley's
service to the country in making so many o.
our public men admit thus much cannot bt
too highly estimated. Perhaps the day is MOI
far distant when the press will be more pow.
erful both in selecting and electing men te
office than it now is. f t H's io re
| Iexpect the telegraph has told you that or
Friday last Gen. Mcclellan dined at Wizards s
with Sunset Cox, Crittenlen, Wickliffe and
others of the stripe who, so far as putting
down the rebellion is concerned, are devoted
to the vigorous policy of how not to do it,
The Star says these lovely fellows had ar
amiable time all around. BirdsNof a feather
etc. One cause of the festival was, no doubt
that Cox and other assistant rebels wanted te
personally thank the great Ditch Digger fol
timely aid toward their reelection to Congress
dare be sworn the best thing about the whole
taffair was the champagne, and if that was
mot villainous compound of 1vinegars, salt
Ipetre and turnips, they have nightly i'm
proved in their wines since I dined at tn,
crack hotel, which, by the by, is not so goot
as the Metropolitan by considerable.
I Mrs. Senator Harlan has gone to Freder
icsburg to assist in the care of our wounded
soldiers. It win be a qualification to Iowan