The Placer herald., 1864-07-02
The Revel of Ruin.

peared 10 the New York Bound Table. an
abolition publication. We give the follow,
ing extract:
1t has been said, not once, but hundred
times, that a stranger landing in New York
would never dream that great war was
desolating the land He would see the
streets alive with brilliant equpages, the
shops filled with the costlest and most luxu
rous goods, the theatres nightly crowded
with gay and well dressed audiences; he
would see cafes rivalling the most splendid
establishments of Paris, ablaze with light;
from hundred houses the "sweet camor'
of music poured upon the air, thrilling in
tune to the movement of dancers dancing
in tune" "A this he would see, and if he
were a stranger, content to Judge things by
their superficial aspect only, he might 90
away amazed to find the fearful events which
for three years have been laundering upon
our devoted country, so ''overcome us like
summers cloud, without our special wonder"
But if the enquiring stranger will only
look little more deeply into the state of
things about him, and if be be but ever SO
slightly familiar with the story of the past,
he will see abundant occasion to recognize
the working of ancient and irresistible laws
upon the social order in which we live. He
will see the bands of social justice, equity,
decency, everywhere relaxed; he will see men
less respectful Of their social rights; he will
see the appetite of wealth and enjoyment
maddenng in the eyes, and making eager
the faces that he meets; he will see as it
were, overcasting the whole gay and gor-
geous panorama about him, the far-hung
shadow Of those awful wings of death which
are winnowing the land from east to west,
over so many thousand square miles of what
but brief three years ago was the rich and
prosperous home of a happy and high spir-
tied people-a shadow which those who do
not see, feel; shadow which breeds that
burning reckessness of the olden time, 'let
US eat aud drink for tomorrow we die"
Felt in Cur highways and byways, this
awful shadow reveals itself in the increase
Of violent and horrible crimes The sanctity
of life and property dies out of the popular
heart as the pressure of want grows daily
heavier, as the reward of labor becomes daily
more uncertain, as its value becomes daily
more capricious.
Felt in the higher circles of life, where
property exists but the wings of property
are seen daily expanding, where the call of
the dragon of battle for human lives is heard
afar off, and only disturbs the repose without
threatening the safety of men; this shadow
gives a keener zest to the immediate satis-
faction of the moment and tiges not to
crimes of violence, but to crimes which may
be called crimes of desire, to the "ust of
,l,o 10 z Fn A II
things are taking tlight-why not principles,
hopes, purposes, old religious traditional de-
cencies, the transmitted morals Of another
age!
In the most fearful crises of the past, these
same phenomena which to the seeing eye
make our life Of to-day, swept over the great
cities of men. Florence saw them when the
singers of the Decameron strung their lutes
and laughed the summer hours away upon
the sunny vine clad hei- hts of Fiesole, while
far below the pestilence ragged, turning men
into demons of despair and seIfishness. Ger
many saw them when out of the bloody and
tramp ed fields of the Thirty Years War
sprang up horrible harvest of murder and
madness, of sensual fury and sensual license.
France saw them when pestence and ruin
stalked hand in hand over the fair kingdom,
John Law and the plague dividing the bodies
and estates of million of men in a general
bankruptcy Of health and wealth.
Never was the Paris of the Regency so
gay as upon the eve of the explosion OF the
Mississippi scheme, and the morrow of the
triumph of the plague. Men and women
hurried from festival to festival from ball to
ball. Masked balls above all abounded; hu
man hearts broken or maddened, longed for
mystery as well as madness, flung themselves
desperately upon the lottery of life and death,
the worthless remnant of their fortunes and
their years, against a few moments more OF
illusion and folly. We have not yet quite
reached the point Of Paris in 1920, but we
are drifting braveIy on to it.
"Then," the historian tells, -four masks
came to ball, bringing fifth, who seemed
mimic of death. The thing was beauti-
fully done every one laughed. Suddenly
the four Disappeared; the fifth remained.
The fifth, in TRUTH was simply dead"
This you may say, was the sublime OF
moral disease. But like causes engender
like results all the world over and in all
times. Out Of the sweeping annihilatlon OF
gigantic vision of wealth this hideous ex'
travagance of misery rose. Apparently, the
schemes of Law had enriched the whole ac-
tive population of France. The shares of his
company and his treasury notes were in all
hands. When the settling day came, all
their wealth had melted away in the hands
of million of families. All France had
thought its hands full, opened them, and
found-nothng.
In the recoi of this fearful shock, reason,
sense, public morals, private confidence alike
went down. 1t was no longer race after
pleasure, it was race for distraction, for
oblivion, for suicide. Men seemed mad to
sweep away at one blow everything that was
left to them, determined to disappear them
selves in the whirlpool which had swallowed
up their fortunes, their hopes, their peace,
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