New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-05-11
THE UORD "CHITALRY.v

1t is wonderful how portion of the world
permits itself to be made fool of by words.
Southern Chivalry" is a phrase which came
into fashion long ago, and it has been repeated
such an incaculable number of times in SO
many speeches, sermons and songs, and SO
persisted in and insisted upon by so many
slaveholding orators, and authors and editors,
that among a few worthy but undisceming
people it passes for the expression of some real
but occult, mysterious, and indefinite virtue
peculiar TO the inhabitants of the region south
of NJ. & DIS line. The idea is pretty much
defunct, but they play still with the ghost of
it in the Richmond newspapers. SO the other
day the irrcpressible Pollard, who has long
done the sentimental and the savage for the
South left the care of his Richmond Examiner
to other hands, and went down TO Lynchburg
10 lecture What was his subjectf What
juvenile question! Why his subject was The
"Chivalry of the South how could it 10y any
conceivable possibility have been anything else
Mr.. Pollard was cooked and primed in all pos
sible ways-he had his inspiration in his stomach,
and his manuscript in his pocket, bnt just as he
was ready to go off, so TO speak, or to go on,
if that he the proper phrase, there came stern
order from Gen. Wilcox that Mr.. Pollard was
not to open his mouth save for degutitional
purposes-or, to put it plainly, that Mr. Pollard
was not to lecture on "The Chvalry of the
"South,n As true knight Grant it was the
duty, plain enough to every reader of FroiSsart,
then and there TO have challenged Gen, Will
cox to mortal combat, in a forty-foot ring,
with squires, and Queen of Beauty, and
heralds in embroidered coats, and banners, and
battle-axes and lances, and all other things
appcrtaining TO regular tournament. lie
should have sounded defiance, and have
cried, "Wilc0x, thou craven Northern knight,
" | hate thee,r while Wilcox should have an
swered, pollard thou knight of the quill, and
peerless proprietor of the inkstand, como on !"
Then both should have saluted the charming
Queen, the ducinea of the occasion, and then
both should have gone Mt it like men, or fiends,
or what you WILL hacking and splitting, and
chopping, and piercing, until one said, Hold,
enoughw After which the victor should have
again saluted the Queen, while she, OH her
part, should have given him the prize OF his
Valera pair of embroidered slippers, or some
such trllmpeIy. This would have been den-
cous. This would have been in keeping. his
would have made South or North to crow Tor
JOY. This would have been "chivalry" IN
stead of which, Pollard merely packed his
portmanteau, took drink, swore little ana
went back to Richmond and to his mk-pots!
We would not he hard upon an Imagination
nor angry with harmless cOncelt. But, none
the less, we must say, upon the authority Oh
the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, that
"chivalry" is as dead as door-nall' dead as
Richard Ceur de Leon, and that, at the present
prices of specie a Field of the Cloth OF Gold
for Sir Pollard to prance in would be rdicu-
lously impossible. All the old Romance that
was left went ont with the incoming OF
cotton spinning and newspapers. The Southern