New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-08-20
How Mr.. Dayiss Imprisonment Is Regarded
In EngIand.


The London Cosmopolitan in its review Of DR..
Craven's Prison Life of Jefferson Davis"
says
10 us this book is a very sad one; we scarcely
found heart to read it, and we haze still less to
write an elaborate review. 1t is not so much sym
pathy with the illustrious prisoner, whom, in the
day Of his senatorial and ministerial fame, we
were proud to call our friend, and we shall feel
still prouder if he continues to call us his friend
in the day of his adversty--it is not so much the
pang one naturally feels on looking at the Gagged
eagle or the chained lion that makes this " Prison
Life the saddest of books il is the shame and
sorrow we feel for great nation who make a
4 victim Of their captive and torture their heroic
| prisoner IN very wantonness and .vindictiye
cruelty.
Jefferson Davis was manacled with heavy irons,
as well as mmured within loathsome prison walls
| And the degradation inflicted upon the ten mil
| lions OF people whose cause he represented-a
| cause for which he risked all bat hopSr-a cause
which he vindicated for four fearful years with a
zeal, courage, a herosm, that commanded even
| the admiration of all that was manly in the hearts
/ of his enemies. Whether he was right or wrong
4 in the great secession movement is question we
| do not propose to discuss. Let it sleep in the
graves of its martyrs. 1t is enough to say that
| the entire South, educated in the school of State
sovereignty most religi0usly believed in the right
| of secession from federation; and they held the
doctrine that the citizen first allegiance was due
to the State-as the chiIds first obedience is due
| TO its mother-not to the federal government.
Before the war Mr.. Davis was man whom the
\ people delighted to honor .Asi
He was universally regarded as one of the ablest
| statesmenin America. And yet this man. de-
feated in a cause which he thought as just as the
4 old reyolution-a revolution in which success
II changed the nameIof Washington from rebel 7
to hero, almost to demi god-despoiled of wealth
4 of health of honors; banished from the sweet
/ consolation of domestic sympathy, from inter.
course with friends; debarred the privilege Of
reading, except by species of pious mockery
the Bible, with the ever fixed bayonets and evel
fixed eyes of sentinels in his cell not even al
lowed the blessed relief of darkness, by whicl
God soothes the viest of his creatures to sleep
under all the privations, hardships and humilia
tons, the ministers of the model republic intiic
upon the limbs of this wOrld-weaFy old man the
tortures of irons of irons that gnaw the hest
from his ankles But we turn from the heart
sckening picture. Let the veil Of Iphegenia fal
upon the victim.
We will close this article with little " anee
dote." In calling on certain financial specula
tor the other day who, though born in Ireland
Irish like claims TO be an American--he accused
us of having called Jefferson Davis, in a recen
number of this journal, the illustrious prisoner o
Fortress Monroe. We ventured mildly to repea
the Words g Mr.. Davis is an illustrious prisoner.
Whereupon the Irish American patriot burst on
in these words: 90 JEFF. Davis is damned blacl
hearted scOundrel, who ought to be hung" o
course we bowed ourselves out of the presence o
such intolerance incarnate. Truly, in men
judgments there is nothing meritorious but sue
cess. Three weeks ago Count Bismarck was tn
blackest hearted scoundTe in Europe. To-da
he heads the list of statesmen!