Dayton daily empire. [volume] (Dayton [Ohio]) 1850-1865, 1863-10-22
ProsnerI1r or the NorlI,.


No less than three daily journals Of yeslcr.
day commented upon the indications OF pros
perty that prevail in the great Northern cit
les. IL would seem from the dangerous soph.
istries OF the war organs that they intend to
inculcate the desirability of a condition Of un.
ceasing strife, as a means OF expanding our
social, commercial and national welfare Be
cause diamonds blaze on the brows Of beauty;
because gay and costly equipsges parade our
thoroughiares and parks; because the passion
for excitement, gaud and extravagance is at
its height, and public amusements flourish,
and brown stone fronts are in demand; be-
cause in a word, period Of luxurious display
and sensual indulgence has been inaugurated,
the war press gloriiies the sword, and pro-
claims the advent Of our golden era.
These parasites Of power must be sadly
pressed for argument when they advance the
follies OF the luxurious to justify the crime of
the ambitious. They pretend to mistake the
flush of fever for the glow of health, as IT, by
pointing TO the unsubstantial glare that hovers
about corruption they could induce an ex-
hausted country and an impoverished people
to accept the hollow semblance for reality
The pomp that obtrudes itself into the mourn
ful epoch Of our national calamity, is an evi.
dence only that some have prospered where
millions have been stricken with misfortune.
At time when uncertainties and glooms en-
velop the very existence Of the Republic, when
walls and lamentations ascend from desolated
homes and when cries of anguish appeal from
battle fields to universal sympathy when oil
the christian world except our callous selves
shudders at the contemplation Of the horrors
we enact, it would be but decent tribute to
the misery Of the times for those who have the
Ionnnrtnnitiaa n fnr gplnuhOr 10 hold than, -
serve But those who have not scrupled to
"crook the pregnant hinges of the knee that
thrift may follow iawning," are not apt to pos
sess that delicacy and sensiblity that would
prompt them to respect the national misfor
tune The men who make an exhibition of
their gains and create the false impression of
general prosperity, are mostly those who have
tasted the fruit OF Administration favor, and
turned to their own advantages the enormous
expenditures OF the Government by which the
coming generation will be ruined. When an
arbitrary power can distribute paper at its will
and call it money, and when duped and op-
pressed people are compelled to accept that
paper according to the value printed on its
face, it is not strange that the millions so dis
tributed should enable board of contractors
to sport awhile like butterflies in the short
lived financial sunshine. But that is no more
real prosperity than is the vision of pauper
reality, when he dreams that he rolls in wealth
and awakes to starve. No wonder that these
financial chitfoners lavish their wealth of pa
per on gems, and palaces, and equipages 1t
is available for the luxury of to-day, and so
they squander it. To morrow, like the fend's
money in the legend, it will turn to nothing
ness within their grasp.
| In lieu of noting the wild extravagance Of
the hour as n theme for congratulatou, it
should be deprecated as the token of public
distrus; and anxiety Those that look to the
future with calm hoope and genuine salts
faction are not prone to unnatural indulgence
of their appetites It's the agony of suspense,
the consciousness that trouble is at hand, the
apprehensons of approaching calamity, that
impel men to search for oblivion in unnatural
excitement The spen thrift, on the verge of
ruin, flies to the gambling table or the bowl
Paris exhibited the strange spectacle of one
continued carnival while the Reign Of Terror
was bloodiest. The theatres we're thronged
nightly; the salons were brilliant with assem-
bed wit, gayety and beauty; the dance, the
feast, the notes Of revelry, seemed to betoken
hearts at ease; but the guest passed often from
the ballroom to the dungeon-thenee to the
guillotine. So when the plague ragged in Lon
don, the wild excesses of its population mock
ed the scourge; and Coccaccio tells how Italy
was caroused when the pestilence wos most
fatal. If the great cities of the North we're
shrouded in gloom, at least it would imply
that the people thought; and reflection is one
check to the progress of misfortune. AS it is,
the penury and privation that prevade the
South give better promise of endurance and
vitality than Northern pomp and luxury IN
/ Y. Ne,Ds.