The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-11-21
What they Want.


tribute whatever is sent.
What they Want.
If, as the proverb asserts, misery really
does love company, we commend the sadly
cyphering Copperheads of New York tC
the latest iugubrious intelligence from their
dear Confederacy. Anything with lean
er or more hungry look than the Rich.
mond newspapers present it would be inn
| possible to conceive of; for the editors real
ly talk as if they would soon be driven to
that dire contingency mentioned in Vol
pone of ''fatting by eating once a month a
man." What will make this less tOlerabe
is that they will not be able to eat their
slaves, for apart from natural repugnance
to black meat, manmerchandize is ruling
at $4,000 per cap for prime Confederate
currency, of course), which would make
choice cuts more expensive than atolans or
Perigore pies. There will be nothing for
1t then but for emaciated Patriarchs to
draw lots, like ship-wrecked Jacks in the
long boat, and for the Inflated to deliver
themselves resignedly to the butcher, after
taking tender farewell of their families.
In Richmond, if it be not bull to say so,
the bone OF contention is meat. Beef, the
reporters no longer quote. They might as
well quote ambrOsia. The Dispatch of the
3lst OF October calls upon all loyal citizens
to turn vegetarianS, and leave what flesh
there is tor the army. SO the Confederacy
it is no great news-wants victuals.
Then again, to go lower down, the Rich
mond Dispatch laments widespread lack
of shoes. THAT there should,' exclams
that paper paper, "be single barefoot SOL
der in TIM army which defends Richmond,
much more half a brigade, is shame and
scandal" SO the Contederacy needs
shoes.
About the next want there is something
| 1rao nj 10 ,nho
by special decree, should withdraw all the
oxygen from the Southern atmosphere
"He who aspires to be a hero said Dr.
| johnson at the Club, 'must drink brandy"
| That must be the reason Bragg turns out
no better, for we find ''apple brandy" quo
ted in Richmond at S36 per gallon-a price
sufficient to stagger-Or to keep from stag
gering-the mostardeDt aspirant for militia
ny glory. So the Contederacy lacks spirits.
| But bread is a tolerable substitute for
beef. Most certainly, if a hungry man can
get it. This he will not be likely to do,
when the Price Current opens its quotation
| of flour, by stating that there is none in the
market. This reminds one of the traveller S
| chapter on ''Snakes in Iceland which
simply and briefly was-"There are no
snakes in Iceland 'Only IAN occasional
barrel'' in Richmond, at from SO for su-
pertine, to so per barrel for extra. Corn
meal at Sl3 per bushel. So the Contedera-
| cy lacks bread.
| This will do for a specimen of material
wants. Richmond, by the confession of Its
own newspapers, is starving. This is the
same city in which, not a thousand years
ago, the Nirginian Jeremiahs predicted
woe and desolation to the North-grass
| growing in Broadway-universal hunger
gnawing at the Northern vitals-general
bankruptcy shaking the Northern exchan-
| ges-bread mobs dominating in the North
~ ar
Governments. Yet we Still live and move
and have our being. We were to be starv-
ed into concession-but the starvation APP
pears to be in quite another quarter.
Now let us turn from the material to the
moral eXigencies of the Contederacy. The
we have quoted already, declares that the
people Will no longer volunteer, whether
in men, money, or provisions ''The day
| of compulSion,' it says, "has come" and
1t begs the Government to compel dis
creetly. When we remember all the Bob
adil buster about dying in the last ditch !;
when we recall all the assertions that every
Confederate citizen would cheerfully, nay,
jovially, submit to personal ruin and even
death, rather tnan TO Il detested Union, we
must confess that this compulsory process
which is proposed would seem to indicate
rather more than ordinary Slaveholding
talshood in previous declarations. When
these theoretical statesmen, who have led
the Southern people such deuce of a
dance, come to the compulsory style of
business, they may possibly find a resisting
influence quite active and potent upon
the other side. They say that the Rebel
lion is revolutionary movement" and
that lmpressing men, money and prOvi-
sions is quite regular in such cases. This
is very true. But the managers in Rich
mond may possibly have heard or read of
| such thingSaS cOunter-revolutionS. Forced
loans, cOnscriptions, the seizure Of private
| goods, the whole system of constraint, dis
traint and restraint, will be not unlikely to
exasperate people very little accustomed
to selt-control or to any control whatever.
In any public disaffection, under such del
| icate circumstances, the Richmond mag
mates would be compelled to bear the brunt
and they might possibly find to their sor-
row, that while the people became turbu-
| lent the army became mutinous. Such
| things haveh appned before and may hap.
pen again. The Contedercy lacks united
public sentiment.
Once more, the rebels find. as the weary
months go by, that across the ocean, there
comes to them no word of sympathy and
no sign of recognition. They have costly
brides to proffer, but the nations shrink
from accepting them. They could afford
to pay high price for recognition, but
they lind at no price whatever can it be Sc
cured. Their Commissioners dance attend
ance, more or less patiently, at the foreign
courts, and foreign Ministers ask them to
breakfast, but nothing comes of it but fine
phrases and carefully guarded notes. They
are finding out gradually that they are not
respectable enough for such good company
and the world distrusts them, and loathes
| their much-coddled institution. They lose