New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1864-11-30
REBEL HAVAGRRY.

When the world hears Of the late attempt to
burn the City of New-York, it will not fail to
mark the peculiarly fiondish elements of the
conspiracy Under ordinary circumstances, an
mn, the refuge of the weary and unsuspectlng
traveller, has character which should protect
il from the torch of the incendiGry, as if 1t were
a hospital. But our great hotels are full OF fam
lilies, of women AMI of children gathered togeth-
or under single roof-of those very classes to
which, when they are in beleaguered city, fair
warning and opportunity Of escape is given by
bescging general before beginning his lombard
ment. This wide-reaching crime, from which
God has delivered us, would have been, if con-
Summated. an aggregate OF hideous assasSina'
tons closely resembling those committed by
the Indian Thugs in more particulars than one
The exigencies of war-and they must always
be numerous and painful-have driven us to
nothing approximating in all that is horrible to
tho scene which this city would, but for the
mcrcful interposition of Divine Providence,
have presented. The very thought of what
was. on that memorable night, but too probable,
must send thrill of horror through the hearts
Of the most stolid. The plot can never be for
gotten. II will occupy marked place in the
pages of history, and the recital of its meditated
atrocities, for years to come, will keep its pro-
jectorS in a pllory Of continuous execration.
And yet their wickedness, so startling on ac-
count of its novelty, is no greater, perhaps not
so great, as the absolutely barbarouS manner in
which the Conicdcrates have tteated their Fed
cral prisoners Of war. 1t is hard to write with
even decent aud dgnifed moderation of the
sufforings Of our captive soldiers II is impos-
sible, without crimsoning with righteous wrath
to read Of the filth the fever, the fostering
wounds, the sickness the starvation, the sharp
and sure mortality which makes Confederate
prison far more dreadful to our soldiers than the
most holly contested field. These shameS have
extored from the Rebel physicians themselves
continual protests, the repetition of which shows
shat circumstances have been at least made
auately needed. These evidences of cruelty aud
neglect are enough Of themselves to prove that
both are without excuse, since it lis not to be
supposed that these surgeons would ask Of their
government that which they knew it was i'm.
possible to grant. Neither can there DO any
pretense Of retaliation. Public opinion would
not permit US to maltreat our prisoners, even
if there existed any official inclination to do So
Now, with these facts before them-and how
easy it would DO to add to their number!--we
hope, when our foreign critics again take Oc.
casion to expatiate upon the unnatural cruelty
Of this war, that they will be good enough to
state upon which side, in their opinion, the want
of nature and Of humanity exists. 1t is time
for the truth TO shame these slanderers into
something like decency. 1t is time that the
distortion of facts and the deduction from them
Of malicious and obstinate libels, met with some
thing like check from the moral sense of man.
kind. All the world is interested in the sup
preston of tho shameful criticism to which We
have been subjected; for although it may DO
our turn to-day, tomorrow soAe other and per.
haps far-distant people may be made the OBJ.
jeot Of like calumnes. The comfy OF nations
ia not merely an idle phrase. Public reputa.
ton d quito a. important, quite as much in
need of honest judgment, quite as sacred
in the eyes Of all intelligent observers. Is
private characters and The Lg"<s" Times has