The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-12-01

South, where keen sectional disappoint-
ment, sudden transition, in very many
instances, from affluence to poverty and
bitterness resulting from defeat and the
emancipation of the slaves, haveinfamed
the passions and provoked to violence
and bloodshed We should expect the
people of the North, as well as Of the
South, to exhibit the demoralizing effects
4 Of war, and the great wonder is that the
Decentralization Isl, in fact. so atrlfling.
We know that great numbers of youth,
whose characters were not formed, as
well as many who were predisposed to a
dissolute life, entered the service, and
there acquired familiarity with scenes
Of plumber and destruction and carnage
well calculated to break down their
sense of the sacredness of property and
human lite. The mass of our citizen
soldiery astonished the word, ind covered
themselves with brighter glory than
that reflected from the hard-tought field,
ny resuming the implements of peace the
moment they laid down the implements
of war. And yet some of them, he it
said without disparagement to the great
| host of their heroic comrades, learned
Lessons of idleness, dissipation and vio-
| lence and these, added to the existing
| criminal classes, have unquestionably
increased the relative amount of crime.
But the recruits after all, have chiefly
come from the army Of camp. followers
who plundered in the rear of our ad
vancing coluinns,and th,t other army that
II has 70 go N,.S ot<
parts of the old world From both these
sources, we have received an unusual and
very unwelcome accession of desperate
characters and it will require at least
another decade to get rid of or reform
| them. Under such circumstances, de
cline in the public sense of justice, and u
growing laxity in the punishment of
crime, is greatly to be deplored.
ABSENT M1NDED.--The following story
| is told of tie absent mindedncss of .
lclergylnan Of the Church of Scotland :
He married rather late in life, and the
marriage tour was on the continent. At
one of the halting places, Mrs. retired
to the hymenial bower in advance of her
lord, who sat cogitating down stairs.
Presently he came to himself, and sum-
moning the waiter, requested to be
shown to his bedroom He was OF course,
shown to the room to which his wife had
already retired. But he had forgot all
about matrimony and what it involved,
and recoiling from the doorway in hor
ror, turned upon the waiter with angry
upbraiding for showing him to room
already occupied by woman! One
Sunday morning he was dressing in his
bedroom, on a chair in which lay tray
containing half dozen shirts, starched
with fitting clerical stiffness He pro,
crossed leisulely in his dressing till he
came to fastening his waistcoat, when
| he found that operation impossible
After many Intellectual struggles, he
called his wife to his aid, who likewise
found the waistcoat difficulty insur-
mountahle. She was at a loss to explain
the phenomenon, till she happened to
cast her eye on the shirt-tray. 1t was
empty. The minister, in his absence OF
mind, had put on the whole half-dozen
shirts, one on top of another, and it is no
wonder that his waistcoat would not but
ton. On another occasion he and his
wife were under invitation to dine at the
mansion of the laird of the parish. The
minister had been out for a long days
work, visiting his parishioners, and when
he came home, little late, he found the
mistress already dressed aud waiting
He at once went up stairs to make his
toilet, with strict injunctlons from the
good lady to be quick, He was so slow,
however, that she got impatient, and went
to see what was the cause of the delay.
Entering the bedroom, she found the
worthy man placidly enjoying his first
sleep Having undressed, 1t seems that,
In his absene of mind, he had taken it for
granted that the natural sequel was to go
to bed, and he lay totally obl1vious of the
dinner party at the laird's.
When the war broke out, Theodore
Schweisgut was studying mathematics at