East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1864-06-29
From the Round Table,

From the Round Table.
1t has beon said, not once, but a
hundred times, that stranger land
ing in New York would never think
that a great war was desolating the
land. He would see the streets was
alive with the brilliant equipages, the
shops filled with the costliest and most
luxurious goods, the theatres nightly
crowded with gay and well-dressed
audiences he would SEQ cafes, rival
ing the most splendid establishments
OF Paris, ablase with light; from q
hundred houses tho sweet clamor OF
music poured upon the air, thrilling
the tune 10 tho movement of dancers
dancing in tune" All This he would
sec, and if he were q stranger con-
sent to judge things by their superb
oial aspect only, he might go away
amazed TO find the fearful events
which for three years past have been
laundering upon our devoted country,
to 'overrun lis, like summers cloud,
without our special wonder"
But if the inquiring stranger vii
only look little more deeply into the
state Of thipgs 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 tho social order in which
We 1.-Two.
In the most fearful crisis Of the
past, these same phenomena, which &c
the seeing eye mark our life of to-day
svept over the great city Of mem
Florence saw them when the singers
Of the Decrmeron strung their flutes
and laughed the summer hours away
upon the sunny vine-clad heights Of
fiesole, while far below tho pestilencC
ragged, turning men into demons Of
selishness. Germany saw them when
out Of the bloody and trampled fields
OF the Thirty Years War, sprang VI
"a horrible harvest of murder and
madness, Of sensual fury and sensual
license. France saw them when pes
thence and ruin stalked hand in hand
ovor the fair kingdom, John Law and
the plague dividing the bodies and
tho estate Of million of men in q
general bankruptcy Of health and
wealth.
Never was the Paris Of the Regen-
cy SO gay as upon the eve of the ex-
plosion OF the Mississippi scheme and
the morrow of the triumph of the
plague. Men and women hurried
from festival to festival MASKED
balls above oil abounded," human
hearts broken or maddened longed
Tor mystery as well as madness, flung
themselves desperately upon the lotto
ry Of life and death, staked the worth
less remnant OF their fortune and their
years against few moments more Of
illusion and frenzy. We have not
quite yet reached the point of Paris
in l720, but we are drifting bravely
on TO it.
Chen" the historian tells US, "four
masks came to ball, bringing a fifth
who seemed a mimic Of death. The
thing was beautifully done; everyone
laughed. Suddenly the four disap-
peared, the fifth remained. The fifth,
in truth, was simply dead"
This you will say, was the sublime
Of moral disease. But like causes on
gender ike results al the world
over and at all times. Out of the
sweeping annihi alton of a gigantic
vision OF wealth this hideous extrava-
gance of deviltry arose. The schemes
of Law had enriched with apparent
wealth the whole active population OF
France. The shares Of his company
and his treasury notes were in all
hands. When the settling came, all
their earthly having melted away in
the hands Of million families. All
France had thought its hands full,
opened them, and found-nothing
In the recoil-of this fearful shock,
reason, public morals, private conf
dence, alike went down. ''The less
any man had the more he spent. II
was no longer race after pleasure
it was q race for distraction, for obliv-
ion, for suicide. Men seemed mad
to sweep away at one blow everything
that was left to them, determined to
disappear themselves in the whirlpool
which had swallowed up their for
tunes, their hopes, their peace and
their plans"
We laugh and are merry to-day
But under the sun there is nothing
new. The thing that has been shall
be and that for avarmnra