The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1865-02-13

| w - u0 nOt OeIOng TO tho American Con.
stellahon, and admits no one to it who
wears blue coat, steals horses, and
talks through his nose. Such : vista
tion, OF course, does not improve the
spirits of habitual croaker. Mr.. Snooks
is not exactly in the habit of singing
comic songs. A deep bass is his forte.
He could contract to supply a hundred
Dismal Swamps with any amount of
croaking. "Hark from the tombs a
solemn sound is his eternal ditty. He
seems to claim charter of immortality.
| with which this war has interfered. lie
dQes not realize that, war or no war, he
wohfd have ceased, in the course of time,
to cast shadow On the sun; that all
| that was mortal of Shocks must some
day sink beneath the sod, and flowers
bloom and children play about his grave.
Or, if you press him hard, he admits
that he must die, but prefers good COM
Portable bed, gasping away his last breath
in quiet and civilized manner. 1t is
idle to suggest that perhaps a Higher
Power knows better what is good for
Snooks tharSnooks himself; and that, if
he submit cheerfully and trustingly to
his condition, he may extract from it
some great good which it was intended
to impart. He only sees in it the oppor-
tunity to grumble and to growl, and to
60 fitting about, like a human bat or
owl, and to look with complacency upon
everything on the right side of nature
except the inevitable African, whom he
regards as the cause of all his tribula-
ton; and therefore, though as black as
his own spirit, feels an unspeakable an
tipathy to his presence. He wishes
there never had been niger Qorgetiul
of all the good dinners they have cooked
him), and that they were all back where
they came from, stealing and eating each
other: Even his congratulations after a
victory sound like the dissonant braying
Of an ass amid the brilliant and harmo-
nious gloria of drums and trumpets.-
Coffee and hot rolls at breakfast, and
roast beef and plum pudding at dinner,
arc worth all the unsubstantial honors
that ever excited the human brain. Can
you feed on honor quoth he. Can you
drink it? Can you wearit? g? Canyou re-
solve it into bacon and cabbage? Will it
pay your house rent or servants hire !?
Free Constitutions Are they anything to
the human constitution? Is the fairest
structure of government anything to the
structure Of the human frame? Die for
your country? And did your country
ever die for you? What claims has my
country on me because was born here
Had anything to do with being born
here or being born at all? On the con-
trary, does not the country owe me a
living instead of dying? If people are
to be killed because they are born here,
who would be willing to be born in the
Southern Confederacy? Die for my
country! What did my country ever do
for me, except tax me and govern me,
whilst l have had to scufile all
my life to live at all. WHAT'S she going
to give me for dying for her? A grave,
which she would have to give me any
how or her tears, which every man is
weeping for his own dead or her laurels,
which belong to generals and other CON-
missioned officers. What good would
it do me even if paragraph should ap-
pear in the villainous newspapers say
ing: Another martyr to Liberty -
The worthy citizep, Snooks, second-class
militia, has fallen in defence of his coun-
try. His disconsolate widow has re-
opened the grocery establishment for
merly carried on in this city by her
enterprising and lamentcd husband. -
The worthy citizen, Snooks, can no longer
hear all that, and even if he could, would
wish he had not. What is my country !?
A mere collection Of men, women and
children, who do not know Of my exist
ence, and, even if they did, would only
regard me as one more leaf fallen from
the forest. His idea of country is Ger
tainly not that which patriotic Scotch
man defines as ian ardent zeal for the
welfare Of human beings proud, ina
ginative attachment to the majestic land