New-York tribune., 1870-02-04
CBIgALRY IND CARPET-BAGS.

CHIV1LRI AND CAhfEi-D"""'
Few scenes are more painful and suggestive
than that which occurred the other day in the
Virginia Court over which Judge Underwood
presides. and in which ex-Gov. wise mas
lately been admitted to practice Inc ouuse,
who. be il remembered, is Iul-pioooeu
Yankee. and was the jealous ana roughes'-
spoken pioneer of Northern innovators oeioro
the war. took advantage of some lucky open
ing TO review succnctly his first advent in.o
Virginia. his opposition to Slavery ana the
bospitality of the people shown to MN. III
was in fact. a gracious holding out OF both
HIS hands in the name of Yankee settlers 10
the ancien regime, premeditateo pcaoo
ing, ending with an especlh triou'e VI
personal compliment to Governor WIS.,
The Governor, whose deafness preVehteo ms
catching more than a word or two iahcieu
taunts where there was only Kindness ana,
supposipg the red rag of slavery" was haunted
in his face with willful malice, rushed to the
conflict with a heat of invectve, an outcfy Oh
defiance and woe pitiable beyond description
The Judge and spectators, we are toiu' sa1
dumb with astonishment and pain. 1t IS the
first time that the class to which Gov. WISE
belongs, the old representative men OF Virginia,
have given any expression to their sense OF
real or fancied wrongs since the war. We find
nothing to laugh at in the spectacle OF the
white deaf old man. who lost sons,
property, and rank in3 society in the conflict,
giving vent, like Esau, to this loud and ex-
ceeding bitter cry.
1t was natural to him to utter lamentations
in the streets over griefs which his brethren
bore in silence. Wise is man whose blood
was poured at birth into his veins at fever
heat and who has never since given 1t time
to cool. man who would give home and
patient. genial welcome by his hearth for life to
an irritable, underbred old woman, because she
had showed him some kindness when boy;
man who, hated as he loved in the EXTREMIST
mood and always to the bitter end, and who
was so loyal to his State that he knew no higher
appellation for his Maker than the "God or
Virginia. Yet, faulty as they may have
been, he and the class in Virginia for whom
he spoke the other day deserve something
better at our hands than ridicule.
The war was q savage necessity to answer
certain end. 1t is over; its work is done.
Let u.s. in the name sOf God and his justice,
bury it out of sight, and not perpetually drag
its decayed carcase to the light by social,
puerile squabbling, and unmanly jeers. Now
that Virginia has returned let us meet her
with open hands, not afraid to look with just
eyes at her and our position. The social feel
ing against the North is exceptionally bitter
there, we are told 1t is natural it should be
so. 1t is, we fear, in some measure due to the
conduct of Northern settlers since the war.
They have gone in too many instances into
Virginia as into conquered province, seeing
no good in any but the blacks, and burning to
avenge the old wrongs of the negro by their
actions and words The result has been
want of fusion between the two elements of
society as absolute as between oil and water.
Gen. Grant, the other day, in effect assured
the Virginia delegation that manufactures
"were better worth cutivating than chiyalry"
But while it is worth their while to remember
this, it is worth ours to consider that there was
something inherently good and worth saving
in that much laughed at chivalry. The North
ern new comers may bring capital, intelligence,
and enterprise into Virginia, but they should
beware lest they ignore and destroy something
which is there as valuable as any of these.
Civilization is not more matter of railroads
and factories than of honorable instincts, of
pure domestic life, of sincere hospitality and of
gentle manners. The Northern people have
suffered themselves too much to judge of Vir-
ginia by her slave-breeders, her blatant poll
ticians and would-be duellists. But behind
these was the great landholding population
a people simple hammered, bearing the traces
of generations of ease and culture; kindly, hos
pitable, genial Our crude and chaotic Ameri-
can social life can lily spare so sincere and
good type. 1t is these people whom
we should welcome back again, overlook
ing any temporary bitterness among them.
Judge Underwood's words were eminently SEN
sible and fifty spoken. We commend his ex-
ample to all new settlers in the South. Let
them couch their eyes in the beginning, and
be willing to recognize among their foes men
who bear without abuse the grand old name
"of gentlemen" A friendly and pure social
life is worth as much as stable government;
and the man who went with the heartiest
highest motives into the war, will be the most
Jealous now in establishing with his old enc
mics the basis of real and Christian brother
mood.
SUEENYS SCHEME.