New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-07-27
THE ISIS, THE LESSON, AND THE DUTY

l. AS9Ss LIE AESSVN, ANSD The X
Povdy may be great inconvenience but
it is nc disgrace. Our Southern people are
poor. There is no use in Disgusting the fact.
War ha robbed them of the main part of their
wealth Where estates were undervalued in
| thousads they are now more than overvalued
by as many hundreds. We once moved
over hlcyon seas in the staunch and fine
ship PDsperity our ship is wrecked, and out
of it's mbers we made the raft on which we
now bat at the mercy of the winds and
waves.
In aousands of Southern homes where
princeike hospitality was once dispensed
impoverished families are now living with the
means only of a scanty subsistence. Thou
sandsof families who were once accustomed
to annual journeys to the North are now for
tunatdn finding plain food and rude cloth
ing a home. There is scarcely a civilized
peopa on either continent whose condition
in pat of property is worse than that Of the
Poop of the Southern States. Even the
profile soil which nature gave and which
neitlr armed invaders nor malignant legisla-
tors ould destroy or remove is encountered,
in nmy places, with non producing, vaga-
bondnegroes, made vicious and idle by the
sudda change in their status. A very large
propttion of all the vast wealth created by
the ne, skill and labor of our people has
beendestroyed and the very springs and
founins from which their wealth flowed have
beenried up. They are now compelled to
submit to privations for which they are not pre-
parody experience, and to practice economy
quite in contrast with the habits of early
year.
TIE hardships of poverty may be mitigated
between wealth and respecta-
bilit never existing to the extent assumed,
ougl to be entirely discarded Wealth ought
to csse from. constituting basis of social dis
tincbn. When we consider the way in which
weah was used by some and kept by others
amog Confederates. during the late war
we i've more reason to honor those who lost
thanhose who saved or added to their pro
pert That which was meanly held back
from suffering soldiers and the starving
poopught not now to be looked upon as a
titleo high social rank. Now, in fact is a
protious time for the formation of a genuine
codof social distinctions, founded on patriot
ism, Intelligence and character, wholly indie
penent of accidents, and more especially of
PRIORITY Now that we are all brought so
neay to common level by the destruction
ofpoperty incident to war it seems highly APP
proriate to abandon wealth as a token of
soal consideration, and to develop an aristo-
cray in the better sense of the word-an aris-
toaey of morals, culture and intelligence.
Afr the trials, sufferings and temptations of
thefrightful and searching ordeal through
whh they have passed, the characters of the
survivors, are well known to each other. They
Eng who can be trusted, whom to follow,
whm to honor. They are all poor together,
anCthe most of them must so continue for a
lon time but that poverty need not compel
Thea to do homage to vulgar wealth dishon-
orally saved, or disreputably won.
ht not the good people among us once
mae rich by thrift and good management,
busince made poor by the warifsel that they
haR lost in caste by the loss of wealth the
of the esteem and respect of their
frinds will take from their loss half its pain |
lie nothing be said or done to make any
wdhy Southern man, woman. or child feel
ashamed of poverty. 1t is now more than
ew Incumbent upon those few, who have the
mans Of procuring Injuries to refrain from
1sntation and extravaganza, out of defer
ore to the feelings of their less fortunate
lghbors. A new social era ought now to be
nlesurated where society can be enjoyed in
laespun and Calico free from any banker
ms after imported luxuries of the table, the
noage or the wardrobe Some of these pri-
aons are found not little annoying, more
socially to those once used to abundance
ua little patience aided by a little just ard
rper pride will enable them to endure the
hinge without murmur A eommendable
pit in this respect is already beginning to
aonspieuously manifest, and if our radical
lnies would but let us alone in our poverty
could show them that we can be content
ilout the profits Of their shops, or the pro-