The Idaho world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1864-1918, 1871-05-25
IDAHO WORLD.
THE MODERN DEMoGoRGoN.

THE MODERN DEMOGOkGUN
On the tawny margin of the great LibyaI
Desert. where no shadow falls except the red
lurid, death-fraught haze of the simeon; where
the fery sun streams down its glowing, lnces
SAINT shower of heat to seethe the brain; wher,
man and beast and bird bury themselves out O
sight until the night fetches in its simulacrum
of GOODNESS to make breathing less than bur
then, and motion lighter than an ache-there
q wonder of the world during all the w0ndrous
ages, unscorched, unwinking, equable, calm as
river god in his reedy, cool grOt, sits the mys
FERROUS statute of the Sphynx, gazing with IN
scrutable eyes upon the desert, outstaring al
starels, mOtionless, unfeeling, unconscious Of
fiery sun and blistering dust. and mad, scald
ing dancings OF the heat-frenzied sands As
Sphynx in her desert, so sits Benjamin Z. But
Ter in Congress and before the nation un.
scorched, unblenching, unwinking. the inscrut-
able mystery of shamelessness, the incarnate
ideal of naked, brazen effrontery, upholstered
by the hot scorn of ten million tongues shout.
ing indignant rebuke; mistaken by the fierce
smoOns of invective before which honest men
would wither and drop like tender flowers cut
down, impervious to the fiery prick of mad
dening consciousness, and the unalterable de-
graded sense of universal spewing forth! What
u spectacle il is!
We find but few parallels to this paragon of
unblushing mendacity in all the pages of his
tory. We might, indeed, be able to pattern
him better were we more largely informed
shout those sweaty, oiled, and perfumed mon
sters of the Greek and Roman lower courts,
who waited on the EmperOrs, catering to all
nnutterable shameless vices and sickenlng. hid
eOus depravities, with smooth countenances
nd Inn Ma al
and PetrOnius have celebrated, and Juvenal
has scourged with his indignant lash. We
might be able to discover examples by which
to read him could we penetrate into the fright
tul mysteries of the Ottoman Porte, and read
the histories of some of those fat, impassive,
sodden Pashas, who began life as the boy favor
ties of MahmOud or his chief officers. We
might find instances mete to put alongside of
this in the annals of the Court of Charles H.,
of England, the filthy Court where the mon
arch himself sat an example of depravity,
where Rochester played the astrolOger to get
Court secrets, and Granont got rich by open
use of cogged dice, and Sedley, husband,
father, a noble, noble and wit, was pelted
by the mob and egged by the fsh-women for
outraging decency on the very streets, and be-
fouling the air with ribaldry to make linkmen
blush and the coarse populace hang their heads
We might find parallels in the records of the
BOrgias, and in the chronicles of tho excep-
tionably wicked Regent of Orleans, for But |
ler's brazen front; and yet we honestly believe
instances can be picked ont in his career which
make him tower above them all. Why, even
that great cowardly, belching butcher, Com
missioner Yeh, of Canton, after he had decap-
itated his hundred thousand men and stolen
his twenty millions of dollars, and slanged and
bullied, and lied and cheated, when he was at
tackled and defeated, and dragged by the Eng.
lish sailors out of his hiding place, where he
lay quivering like great pudding thrust into
pot too small to hold it, and was confronted
with the people whom he had tortured and ma
llgned, could not retain his assurance, but
averted his face and stammered and tried to
explain and extenuate But Butler! who ever
saw him blush? Who ever saw him stammer
or seek to draw even the slightest veil of de-
cency and decorum over that mOnstrous front
of brazen iniquity? Behold him challenging
his cur-like record as general, coolly uncork-
ing himself with the same instrument that bot
tied him up; behold him jibgling in public the
plumber ne swept up in Southern homes; count
ing his spoons to see that no one serves him as
ne served others; clinking his doubloons and
rafting his bonds in the very face of the out
-aged and astonished world! Behold him in
Congress, baited, beaten, baff1ed, scorned,
'nubbed, scOurged, spit upon, branded with
every foul epithet, and every foul eplthet stick
ng to him, even that which he deems toulest of
lny-fool! Behold him sitting there defiant in
MS dishonored seat, old Sphynx come back
again, and propUunding to a nation all aghast
he inscrutable, monstrous riddle of shame.
essness!
For, when all is said, it is o problem too
ieep tor US to solve, that this man, so utterly
'ase, so utterly found out in his baseness and
and so utterly loathed for them of
Ill men-it is problem we cannot solve, we
ay, how he is able to front 1t all so calmly.
There is certain sublimity in his audacity:
here is an unique quality in this characteristic
If his which seems to set him apart and mark
lm with certain sort of individuality, like ,
hat abstraction SO sharply drawn by Haw-
borne OF the man who had committed the I'm.
'ardonable sin. So long as Butler lives as he I
low lives, acts as he now acts, and dares as he I
low dares, this age may claim to have pre- G
ented TO history the one person in all its null q
luminous variety of event and character who 7
ad quite forgot that ingenious trait of inno I
ence which brings blush to the maiden's i
oft cheek and deepens the bloom on the boys :
rank brow; who was, alone of all men, the :
erson totally and absolutely unconscious of I
nat sense OF wholesome shame which selects :
ven the lowest type of men from among the
rutes to some desert of honor and reverence. :
: Washington Patriot.
In
ORIGIN OF LOAFER-An old Dutchman J
,ttled at New York, and acquired consider .
bic fortune He had AN only dauphtar mud a o