The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-13
rHE nav YORK PREss.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIos-CoMP1LED EVERY
DAY FOB THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
The VOID "OhIvaIrY.W

The Word "ChIvaIry."
T3-on1 me Tribune
II is wonderful how portion of the world
aermits itself to be made fool of by words
s'southern chivalry'' is a phase which came
INTO fashion long ago, and it has been repeated
6mcb an incalculable number of times in so
many speeches, sermons, and songs, and so
persisted in and insisted upon by so many
Rlaveholding orators, and authors, and editors,
chat among a few worthy but undiscerning
people it passes for the expression of some real
INT occult, mysterious, and indefinite virtue
macmillan to the inhabitants of the region south
IF Mason and Dixon's line. The idea is pretty
much defunct, but they will play still with the
Ghost oft in the Richmond papers. So the other
Iav the irrepressible 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
20 lecture. What was his subject What
invenile question Why his subject was "The
Ghivalry of the South''-how cOuldit by any
conceivable possibility have been anything elseH
Mr. Pollard was cooked and primed in all possi-
ble ways-he had his inspiration in his stomach
and his manuscript in his pocket, but just as
he was ready to go off, so to speak, or to go on,
If that be the proper phrase, there came a
stern order from Gen. Wilcox that Mr.. Pol
lard was not to open his mouth save for deglu-
tiional purposes-or, to put it plainly, that
I r. Pollard was not to lecture on The Chi
lalry of the South" AS a true knight-errant,
it was his duty, plain enough to every reader
of Froissart then and there to have chal-
1euged Gen. Wilcox to mortal combat IN
fosty-foot ring, with squires, and Queen
of Beauty, and heralds in embroidered coats,
and banners, and battle-axes, and lances,
and all other things appertaining to regu-
lar tournament. He should have sounded
q defiance, and have CRIED "Wilcox, thou
craven Northern knight, 1 hate thee" while
Wilcox should have answered. Pollard,
thou knight of the quill, and peerless pro-
prietor of the inkstand, come on ~ Then
both should have saluted the charming Queen,
The Dulcinea of the occasion, and then both
should have gone at it like men, or fiends,
or what you will, hacking and Sitting, and
chopping, and piercing, until one said, "Hold,
enough % After which the victor should have
again saluted the Queen, while she, on her
part should have given him the price of his
Valor-a pair of embroidered slippers, or some
such trumpery. This would have been deli
CiOus. This would have been in keeping. This
would have made South or North to crow for
Joy. This would have been "chivalry ~ In
stead of which, Pollard merely packed his
portmanteau, took a drink, swore little, and
went Dack 10 hlcnm0nd ana TO MS 1nK-p0tS
We would not be hard upon an imagination,
nor angry with harmless conceit. But, none
the less, we must say, upon the authority of
the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, that
E'chivalry" is as dead as a door-nail, dead as
Richard C@ur-de-Lion, and that at the pre-
sent prices of specie, Field of the Cloth of
Gold for Sir Pollard to prance in would be
ridiculously impossible. All the old romance
that was left went out with the incoming Of
cotton-spinning and newspapers. The South
ern people may thank their fortunate stars
that there is nothing the least like it left il
Lynchburg or anywhere else. With all its
advantages, it was not nearly so pleasant in
fact as it appears in the pages of Monstrellet OF
Confines; but, good or bad, it is gone A. D.
1867 scared away by locomotive-whistles and
needle-guns. The assumption of any peculiar
bravery, valor, strength, courage, refinement,
courtesy, honor, gallantry, civility, or gene.
rosity, by Mr.. Pollard or his compeers, would
afford excellent food for comic journal, if ouI
comic journals were not all as dead as ''chi-
vaIry." Meanwhile, the prattle about it,
leading to assumption, self-delusion, and
foolish vanity does great deal of harm, and
against this we suppose, General Wilcox
meant to guard.