The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-02-26
Dining the Rebel Chiefs.

FROM Lbe N. Y. II, raid.
The volunteer Cabinet.maker and general
dispenser of the spoils for the incoming ad-
ministrati0n, finding his occupation gone in
that line of business, has undertaken the role
of the late Miles 0'Reilly in getting up fancy
dinners. The imitator, in this as in almost
every other special field of enterprise, falls
behind the original explorer but still in this
case he will pass. His latest effort is pretty
fair. It is fancy sketch of dinner by the
Manhattan Club to the late Rebel chief John
c. Breokinridge, at which 1t appears numerous
other Rebel chiefs were present, sandwiohed
between the leading members of the club.
Genuine or fictitious, the grouping of these
characters is consistent with their Democratic
afinities, and we knew, too, that since the
war the Manhattan Club, in view of the re-
construction of the Democratic party, has lost
no opportunity to dine and wine, in quiet
way, every Rebel chief dropping into the me-
tropolis; and we know that nearly all of them,
from JEFF Davis down to Mosby, have dropped
in, from time to time, under the benign dis
pensation of Andy Johnson.
A great haul of these Rebel big fish was
made at the National Tammany Convention of
July last, and a great outlay in soft crabs and
champagne was cheerfully adopted by the
Manhattan Club in doing the honors to these
distinguished guests. Gu bono? 1t was for
the same reason that a man plants a field of
Erie. 1t is all q matter of speculation. For
instance, the New York engineers of the Man
haitian Club laid and managed the wires of the
Tammany National Convention. They found
in that Convention Southern balance of
power represented by the Rebel chiefs pre-
sent and by cultivatiDg General Wade Hamp-
ton and his associate paadins OF the Southern
chivalry, "the bloated bondholders' of the
club were enabled to wind "the Pendleton es-
cort" round their fingers.
Here, then, the mysteries Of these Man
haitian dinners or suppers to these leaders of
the "lost cause' is explained. 1t is simply
| the George Sanders method OF electioneering
reduced to regular system of good cellar
| of wine and a liberal fund for the Washington
Market. The Manhattan Club have lively
hopes of Democratic President in 1872. They
have been, since the .tiaSco of Tammsny Hall,
! preparing for their next great opportunity.
! They anticipate the restoration, with the mig
ger vote, of their old Southern balance of
power in the next national election and they
are laying their pipe and wires among the
magnates of the South for the convention,
because the convention will settle everything.
Thus the investment, in the kindly offices of
fraternal hospitality, of good feed occa-
sionally, involving dozen or two baskets of
wine and few barrels of Saddle Rocks and
Shrewsburys, in honor OF some such returning
Democratic prodigal son as Wade Hampton,
Beauregard, Forrest, Magruder, Dick Taylor,
Breckinridge, Captain Semmes or Jake
Thompson, may yield in 1872 the splendid
dividends to the Manhattan Club of the first
pickings of the spoils of the succession. And
why not? Is there more beautiful lesson in
the Holy Scriptures than that of the prodigal
son and the killing of the fatted calf in honor
of his repentance and return home again Il
there an example of forgiveness that can be
more worthily followed, especially if it can be
made to pay better than a petroleum well OF
gold mine In this way and in this view
the Manhattan Club, like charity, has covered
a multitude OF sins, and still its wine is no
exhausted nor are its oysters all consumed