The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-01-03
CHARITY WANTED.

In this mornings CREsCEST VIII De 1ounu
notice from the State tax collector of the
Second District, calling on the tax payers of
that district to come forward, without delay,
and pay the amount due by them, respectively,
under the recent ordinance of the reconstruct
ing convention. 1t will be seen that the
amount assessed in the Second District is, say
$4,000. The amount apportioned to the
First District is, we are informed, about
$50, 900, and we suppose that the sum imposed
on the whole city will reach $50 900. Tae
services of the demonstrating convention are,
no doubt, very valuable to the party which
expects to make use of it for the purpose of
consuInmating its charming programme of
negro supremacy, and of maintaining posses
sion of the government, in spite of the
wishes of the majority of the. people;
and, in this view of the case, it would
be enlinently appropriate for that party
to pay the expenses of those members who
dedicate themselves to its service. We have
seen a good deal in the Northern papers about
Southern relief meetings and Southern relief
associations, but we have yet to see that the
ostentatious benevolence of these organiza-
tons has yet effected any appreciable melio-
ration of the condition of any portion of the
population Of these States. Indeed, the re-
lief which we most need is precisely that
which we are least likely to get from any such
source-relief from the pernicious and de-
structive intermeddling Of faction which, to
subserve its ambitious purposes, is quite will
ling to turn society upside down in communi-
ties which are, unhappily, subjected to their
domination, whilst they are themselves
sheltered against the disastrous consequences
Of these social upheavals. The shocking re-
suits of radical policy are too wide spread to
be cured by contributions from relief socie-
ties, even if the Southern people were willing
TO become pensioners on the charity of those
who have received them.
To feed the idle blacks of the South, who
are now on the verge of starvation, would
require more than all that could be raised by
ten thousand times as many relief associa-
tons as have already been organized at the
North, even were there any design to do more
than divert attention from the real cause
of all the existing trouble and suffer-
ing. But there is something that those
people can do and something which
they are bonud to do by every consid-
Grafton of justice and good faith. They have
brought portion of the INDECENT population
of the South together at the various State cap
itals for certain purposes, entirely hostile to
the interests ard prosperity of those States,
but strictly subservient to the supposed polii-
cal interests of the dominant party. These
persons, especially those of them who are
acting the part of good and faithful servants
to the radicals, and who are zealously en-
gagged in doing all that they can to make mat
ters worse here, in order that radiealism may
be strengthened and perpetuated-these
people now find themselves in very necessi-
tous condition. They are in arrelrs for board
and lodging, and if they have any washer
women, those laborious creatures have, doubt
less, closed accounts on them. Nobody will
lend them any money; perhaps because IN
this part of the world, nobody has any money
to lend. A chronic impecuniosity will pre-
baby prevent the taxpayers from exhibiting
very cheerful alacrity in complying with the
requisition for zone mill per cent, whatever
that may mean, on their real and movable
property, even if they felt disposed to pay for
having their institutions overturned, their
governments displaced and their political
rights annulled In fact to get $4,000 in
greenbacks, from the tax-paying population |
of New Orleans, would be far more difficult |
task than to extract genuine blood from an |
imaginary turnip. Now here is a real case for |
the exercise of benevolence and char |
ity and those philanthropic virtues of |
which the party Of ''moral ideas" is
to possess an unlimited stock. |
The radical reconstructing conventioners
have done their work, or, at least, they are
trying to do it. They are surely entitled to
their pay. The "trooly loil " ought to be
saved from mendicancy, and imminent eject
ment from their boarding houses; from the
severe frowns of unpaid landladies, and the
daily duns of clamorous washerwomen. 1t
was an ingenious idea to make the Southern
white people pay the bill-which seems to
be pretty much all for which they are consid-
cred qualified; but, in the absence of the
means, they are unable to avail themselves of
this valuable privilege. 1t, therefore, de-
wolves on the "loyal masses" to see that
their "trooly loil" agents do not suffer for
the necessaries of life, else the whole recon-
'truction scheme may ignobly collapse under
The stern pressure of unpaid bills.