Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1871-05-19
"The mote In Thy Brothers Eye"

1.-THE mote ia Thy Brothers Eye"
We suppose there is nothing which
strikes US CT the South as more txtraor-
binary, than the gullihiiity of all classes
Of Northern people in regard to the social
and political condition of those States for
merly united "a Southern Confedera oy.
The whole South appears to be indeed
O terra ipcognita to those whom the sword
has decided shall be in future "our fellow
citizens of tie North. B"
This is true not only of those who by
party hftiiation might not unna'urally be
! expected to regard us with distrust and
dislike, but 1t is even true of those who
we suppose, on the whole, feel kindly to-
wards US.
! A remarkable instance of this sc lpacity
to believe" has first been brought to our
notice by recent al ticle in The Nation. a
Democratic paper of great ability and
influence. 1t is in regard to the Mr.. Luce.
Northern man of the Radical persuasion,
! who came to North Carolina some twelve
months ago and was employed by the Wilkes
in experimenting their iron works il the
western part of the State. TO whom we
referred several days since. Having been
found incom etent or unfuithful he was
after trial, discharged by his employers
and returned to the North. Here, feeling
very venomous toward the people among
whom he had been quietly sojourning, and
who while they refrained from social in
tercourse with him, had, we are Informed.
treated him kindly, he is seized with the
cacoethes scri6endi, and writes letter to
the New York Tribune, in which the
pitfalls of his wrath are mercilessIy poured
on our devoted heads. He charges that
the Ku k!ux not only existed in North
Carolina but that he himself had been a
victim of this terrible order; that negroes
were frequently and most mercilessly
logged by them. and that they were the
objects of the target practice of The South
ern chivalry. Nay more. He informs the
readers Of the Tribune, that being in O
thinly settled region, he opened Church
on his land (pious man } and got an Epis
copal Minister-an ex Confederate by the
way-tO officiato in 1t and setup Sunday
OOAAOOA
politics or anything relating to it from tn
course of instruction.
Immediately Ku-Kluxing commenced,
the clergymen was maltreated aud the
scholars beaten and shot at-and the
Clergyman having been threatened with
Aan9ing-that worst use you can put man
to-was 50 frightened that he actually shut
up his Church, and closed his Sunday
School operations
Was there ever q story more improbable?
Yet Tile NatiOm-in the whole as we have
said friendly towards tue South-believing
every word of it, makes it the text for
a long homily upon the advantages of civ
iIization and education, of which we poor
benighted Southerners possess SO little.
The whole North will read this canard
of the varacious Luce, but will never see,
and would not believe if they saw, the
denial IN toto of the statements, made by |
Mr.. Edward Wilkes and others. The Rev.
MIR. Murdoch, the clergyman alluded to
though not now assisting at the Iron Mines
is, We arc informed, greatly beloved and
respected by all classes of people in that
region of the State, and is frequently a
most welcome and cherished guest of the |
various families to whom he formerly minis
tered in sacred things It is hardly neces-
sary to say furthermore. that while he was
living near the mines, he was never directly
or indirectly an employe of Luces.
Yet our Northern fel'ow-citizens SO
shrewd about many things, believe every
word of this remarkable piece of evidenc
about the condition of the South.
We noticed the other day the trial and
conviction of a man in Connecticut, who
lived in habitual, open incest with five of
his own daughters, his wife and the neigh
bors generally being well aware of the
horrible relations existing between these
girls and their father. The North
ern press has no time. in their anxiety to
preach to the ''howling barbariaus' of the
South, to utter one word of regret that
such startling, shocking depravity could
exist, heretofore unrebuke1, in godly New
England.
"Why beholdest thou the mote that is J