New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-07-20
COUTHEPN SOCIETY,

One of our leading magazines for August
gives the first place in its pages to dolorous
lamentation from SOuthemer over the pres
ent state of society in that land of fair wo-
"men and brave men, The subject was a
pregnant one, and, with its actual tragic facts,
might have satisfied the most ambitious maya
zine writer. The curse of sudden poverty the
bitterness of defeat falling upon the dominant
class, and the equally abrupt elevation of
race of serfs to political level with their
masters, suggest countless dramatic comblna-
tons, not only full of food for thought for the
philosopher or statesman, but which might
well have served as the text for few OF those
sensible, friendly words whose healing power
are so much needed and welcome, nowadays,
between the South and North.
The cause which induces this modern Jere-
miah, however, to take up his tale of woe is
far different one. Slavery is the Holy OF
Holes over whose Dissertation he weeps. He
portrays her laid waste, trampled under the
feet of mudsills and carpet-baggers, with such
extremity of JUNCTION that, like the Prophet,
his soul is vexed within him, his eyes do fail
with tears, his bowels are troubled for the
destruction of this daughter of his people. 1t
is not either the bald, ugly fact of Slavery as
popularity known that he delineates, but that
ideal patriarchal institution whose infinitely
sweet and tender relations were wont to be
urged upon us in poem and novel by gushing
Southern ladies. The thing being finally and
incontestably dead, we vainly hoped that our
Southern friends would be content to bury its
unwhOlesome corpse and be done with. 1T.
What is our dismay, therefore, to find them
raising an Irish "Keeno such as this over the
dead body, and threatening to come again and
again with fresh ardOr to unending funerals.
But this is not the only mistake we have
made, it seems. Popular opinion held that
there were two classes of whites in the
Slave-hOlding States before the war, whose
dividing lines were tOleraby sharply
drawn-the wealthy and cultured order, and
the clay-eat "the poor trash" on whom
even the negroes looked down. Our friend,
however, represents a state, on the contrary,
of entire and blissful democracy. "The wife
"of wealthy man was the friend of poor
"sempstress; and the principal of a childrens
SCHOOL he adds, breathless, with uplifted
hands, "Once entertained at her table the high
"est in the land! ~ From this Acadan sim
plicity the war has dragged them; large for
tunes have been made as well as lost envy
and jealousy for the first time find entrance to
their bosOms. "They murmur not, and revile
"not," he informs us sadly but how terrible
is the disintegration that thus tears apart the
sempstress, the President, and the school
teacher and casts them upon paths so different.
The picture he draws is pathetic enough.
The Yankee newcomers "have strange habits
"and outlandish ways; tho servants are hire
"lngs the skeleton peeps from the cupboard
cat every cOnvivial meeting, and Atra Cura
"sets behind every hOrseman.n Atra Cura is a
very unpleasant companion in any shape; but
are we to understand that she appears to our
Southern compatriots as henf
1t is for fallen Slavery, however that he
ends, as he begins, his wall and really so
strongly does he put the case, that we are sur
prised at the obstinacy of our colored friends
in remaining free if they could possibly vote
themselves again into the flowery chains of
such pleasant bondage "They feel in their
hearts, he tells us, that they were in the
Glands of friends who did what could be done
"for their welfare and happiness. The slave
remained for life devoted friend of the
"master, and was ever greeted with beamiDg
"eye and cordial joy. The serving race re-
"ceived far more than the ruling race, and the
freedmen therefore viii feel the loss gliev-
"ously in comfort and happiness" After paus-
ing to weep $50 lavish is he of tears) over the
blinded freedman thus rushing on his own de-
struction of liberty, he reaches the eliminating
point of sentimental pathos, the hight of mis-
chance wrought by the war, which will prob
ably surprise most of our readers. Thousands
"Of Southern men and women in the South in
"eveTy generation had been brought up by
"colored wet-nurses. White nurses are now
introduced wherever they can be procured"
He then enters into disquisiton on the subtle
change this will produce on the next genera
ton, bemoaning the loss of the influence of
the colored nurse on the white foster child.