The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1865-02-16

sent to England without consulting their
wishes; perhaps, in many cases, against
their own inclinations. Under the cir
cumstances, their parents ought not to
punish them with too much severity, nor
send them back to England by the next
packet. Youth is the season of rash,
generous and disinterested impulses. A
boy always has his head full of fighting
and fair play, and it is more than you can
expect of juvenile human nature to keep
its eyes on book and be amusing itself
with dead languages when it sees its own
house set on fire and the red blood of
its own brothers and sisters staining the
threshold. Sidney Smith once declared
that boys ought to be put under barrel
and kept there from fourteen to twenty
one, as the only mode of keeping them
out of mischief We certainly cannot
expect boys to act like men. Besides,
the army is, after all, very good school
for Confederate boys. They can learn
there what will be more useful to them
hereafter, and to mankind, than all they
can acquire at the best classical schools.
There is no teacher of grammar in Eng
land who can convey to them, for cx-
ample, the meaning of verb-to be, to
do, to sufter,-as they will learn it in the
Confederate army. If they want Greek,
they will find living Greece in the
Thermopyl@ of the Confederacy; or
Latin, there is Robert E. Lee, the best
Roman Of the day, at the head of the
Southside University, with a good many
thousand promising boys under his
charge, who do the Latin exercises in a
style that the world has never seen since
the days of Caesar.
At any rate, the parents Of these re~
turning youths should not expect from
them the discretion and self command
of the grown-up Confederate men, who,
having remained in their country, and
given her the benefit Of their counsel
and advice till her affairs became unfor-
tunste, felt constrained, by sense Of
duty to themselves and their posterity,
to make their home on foreign soil.
Snow all is done that men could do,
And all is done in vain,
NV love, my native land, adieu,
For maun cross the main, my dear,
For l maun cross the maln."
The boys having gone to England
against their will, and the men Of their
own free choice, it is obvious that no
such obligation could exist to remain
abroad in. the first case as in the last
Besides, all that the boys could pick up
in England would be intellectual cultiva-
ton, whereas their seniors have the
solid advantage Of saving their bacon
and solacing their inner man with better
cheer than is to be found at Eton and
Harrow. The spectacle Of these cxiled
patriots discussing huge surloins of beef
and quaffing vast goblcts of ale, while
their countrymen are hungering and
bleeding at home, must satisfy the world
that the South is not altogether that race
of impulsive and hot.headed abstraction
lists which it is often represented. We
dare say that these well-fed exiles have
their trials too-just the trials which
maddened the more sensitive youngster:
and drove them back to their country
No doubt the sturdy Britons, as far a.
politeness will permit, give them occa
sional hints that a Confederate abroat
in these times is more out of place thar
Yankee, but it is about as easy to rcacl
the sensibilities of such persons by tn
pricks and stings of sarcasm as to pune
ture the hide of hippopotamus with
knitting-ncedle. They would rathe
hear a roar of derisive laughter than tn
roar of artillery, and the keenest iron.
can inflict no such wounds as Mini
bullet. We are happy to assure thei
friends that there is no danger Of tn
Confederate men in Europe initiating tn
Confederate boys, and running away t.
their country.
| 1t is to be hoped that the claims
| :.cA;oo md humanity in hehalf of tn