The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1864-04-27
THE REIGN OF sHODDY.
TIE Dance Of DcatA-Americara Society u,:-
der the W0r-A Graphic Picture.
From the New York Round Tablet
THE REVEL or RUI

From the New York Round Table,
THE REvEL OF RUIN.
1t has been said, not once, but a hundred
times, that stranger landing in New York
would never dream that a great war was desc
lating the land. He would see the streets
alive with brilliant equipages, the shops filled
with the costliest and most luxurious goods
the theaters nightly crowded with gay and
we'll dressed audiences he would see cafes
ravaling the most splendid establishments oi
Paris, ablaze with light from a hundred
houses the ''sweet clamor" of music poured
upon the air, thrilling in tune to the move.
ment Of dancers dancing in tune" All this
he would see, and if he were stranger, con-
tent to judge things by their superficial as
pect only, he might go away amazed to find
fearful events which for three years past have
been laundering upon our devoted country
so ''overcome US, like Summers cloud, with
out our special wonder"
But if the inquiring stranger will only
look little more deeply into the state of
| things about him, and if he 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, de-
! cency, everywhere relaxed he will see men
less respectful of their social rights; he will
see the appetite of wealth and enjoyment
| maddenirg in the eyes, and making eager the
faces that he meets !; he will see, as it were,
overcastiug the whole gay and gorgeous pano-
rama about him, the far flung shadow of those
awful wings of death which are winnowing
the land from east to west, over so many hun
| dred thousand miles of what but a brief three
| years ago was the rich and prosperous home
of happy and high spirited reople-a shad-
ow which these who do not see it feel shad-
| ow which breeds that burning recklessness of
the olden time, "let eat and drink, for to-
| morrow we die"
Felt in our highways and byways, this aw-
full shadow reveals itself in the increase of vi
oIent and horrible crimes. The sancity of
life and property dies out of the popular heart
as the pressure of want grows daily heavier,
as the regard of labor becomes daily more un-
certain, as its value becomes daily more capri
cious.
Felt in the higher circles of life, where
property exists but the wings of property are
seen daily and visibly expanding, where the
call of the dragoon of battle for human lives
is heard only afar off, and only disturbs the
repose without threatening the safety of men,
this shadow gives keener zest to the imme-
diate satisfaction of the moment, and urges
bnt to crimes of desire, to the s'lust of the
eye and the pride of life" All things are ta-
king fiight-why not principles, hopes, pur-
poses, old religious, traditional decencies, the
transmitted morals of another age?
In the most fearful crisis of the past, these
same phenomena which to the seeing eye
mark 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 up
on the sunny vineclad nights of Fiesole, while
far below the pestilence ragged, turning men
into demons of despair and selfshness. Ger
many saw them when out of the bloody and
trampled fields of the Thirty Years War
sprang up horrible harvest of murder and
madness, of sensual fury and sensual license.
France saw them when pestilence 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 tho Mis- |
sissippi scheme, and the morrow of the tri-
umph of the plague Men and women hur-
ried from festival to festival, from ball to ball |
{" Masked balls above all abounded," human |
hearts broken or maddened longer for mystery
as well as madness; flung themselves desper- |
ately upon the lottery of life and death, staked
the worthless remnant of their fortune and
their years against few moments more of il
lusion and frenzy. We have not quite yet
reached the point of Paris in 1920, but we are
drifting bravely on to it.
"Then," the historian tells us, efour masks
came to ball, bringing a fifth, who seemed |
a mimic Of death. The thing was beautiful
ly 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 NOR
al disease. But like causes engender like re- |
suits all the world over and in all times. Out
of the sweeping annihilation of a gigantic |
vision of wealth this hideous extravaganza of
delivery rose, The schemes of Law had en-
population of France. She shares of his
hands. When the settling day came, all their
hands of million of families, al France had |
thought its hands full, opened them, and |
i. In the recoil of this fearful shock, reason,
sense, public moral, private confidence alike
went down. "The less any man had, the
more he spent. 1t was no longer race after
pleasure it was race for destruction, for
for suicide. Men seemed mad to
sweep away at one blow everything that was
eft to them, determined to disappear them
selves in the whirlpool which had swallowed
up their fortunes, their hopes. their peace and
heir plans.'
We laugh and are merry to-day, but under
he sun there is nothing new. The thing
hat has been shall be, and that for evermore"
THE DIsUNIoNIsTs OF I360.-Early in
$50, John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, pre-
.ontod two potifionc to tho TTnifad Cfatac San |