New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-12-26
popular Fallacies-SeyeraI Things
that the World Believes with
out Knowing why.

I oht ANO"1NS why.
SOmo writer remarks that there is VOL
derlul vlgor of constitution in a popular IA
lacy. When once the world has got hold
lie it is astonishing how hard it is to get
out of the world. You beat it about the hea
and it seems to have given up the ghost: an
10! the next day, like Zachary Taylor, VIII
didn't know when he was whipped by SAINT
Anna, it is aliyo and as lustv as ever.
Proofs OF the truth of this observation Wi
suggest themselves to every one. OF III
scores Of fine sayings that have the adyant
age OF being fallacies, one of the most popu
lar is the assertion that 81 boaster is aiway
coward" 1t would be very agreeable t,
ma this so; but so far is it from being true
that among the braveSt people on earth ar,
the Gascons, who are such boosters that WI
nave derived contemptuous epithet from
thelr name. They are unquestionably thu
| most courageous and fiery-spiritea of the
Frankish race" saucy, full of gibes, auf
quarrelsome as weaseP'-and their valol
and GOODNESS in danger, their immense vani
W, ana mountainous me-" as Emerson
would term it, are so notorious that they are
almost invariably selected for heroes by some
! OF the best French novelists.
Was Achilles or any one of IlOmer's he.
roes a cowardo Yet the great father of 30.
etry, who dissected the human heart as keenly
as any modern anatomist, makes his cham
pions "crow like chandeliers" over their
achievements on all possible occasions. Who
is ignorant, too, that Millions Satan, whose
sublimest characteristics is his ''unconquerable
VIII, the resolution not to submit or yicld,''
brags necessarily, in the most sarcastic and
biting language, Of the "fell route" with
which he has visited the host of heaven /,
With few exceptions, the Southern rebels
were most insutferable boosters, from jeff.
Davis downward; yet, did they often show
the white feathers on the field? Did ever a
Drawer man draw sword than General Wolfe ?
Yet we are told that, dining with Pitt, the
British minister, OH the day before his en-
barkation for America, he broke, as the
evening advanced, into a disgusting strain of
gasconage and bravado. Drawing his sword
he wrapped the table with it, ffourished it
around the room, and talked Of the mighty
things which that sword was to achieve, till
the two ministers, Pitt and Temple, stood
aghast; and when Wolfe had taken his leave
and his carriage was heard to roll from the
door, the former, shaken for the moment in
the high opinion which his deliberate juds-
ment had formed of the soldier, lifted up his
eyes and arms and exclaimed to the latter:
:" Good God! that 1 should have entrusted
the fate OF the country and the adlninistra-
ton to such hands ~ it is said that 6 bark
ing dog doesn't bite" but those persons
who, relying upon this saw, have provoked
bulldog to plant his teeth in their calves,
know better. Read the life of that bravest
and braggart Of artists, Benvenuto Cellini,
compared with whom Falstaff was an incar-
nation of humility, and you will abandon the
popular, but foolish notion, that real talent
is never vain, and real courage never boast
full
Akin to the foregoing hackneyed fallacy,
is another on everybody's lips, viz: THAT
brave men are never cruel" Bravery has
nothing to do with either cruelty or Glenn
ency; it is alike independent of either.
There are cases, doubtless, where brave men,
not fearing their enemies, have spared their
lives, while coward, from very fear, would
have shown no mercy. But the brave men
who have been habitually mcrcful, have
been very few. Did any man, however he
might have execrated the cruelty of Haynau,
the Austrian butcher, doubt bis courage?
True, he was woman whipper, and proved
himself to have had brutal disposition but
did he ever show himself pigcOn-liyered on
the battlefield, or, if insulted by another,
would have hesitated to measure swords with
him? Was Graham, of Claverhouse, a cow
ard?-yet did he not shoot innocent peasants
without hesitation or conjunction? Was
BOnaparte coward?-yet did he not, with
cold-blooded cruelty, order Palm, the book
seller, and the Duke de Enghien to be shot,
and butcher thousands of Turkish prisoners
at Jaffa? Did he not leave legacy to Cam
tillion, the would-be assassin Of Wellington ?
Is Napoleon LII. cOward-yet did he not
on the I'd day Of December, 1852, NOW down
thousands of the citizens of Paris with his
cannon to place himself on the throne of
France? Did Marius or Sylla ever show the
white feather, or the courage of Richard the
Third ooze out, like that of Bob Acres, at
his fingers ends? The Duke of Alya, who
shot down the Netherlands like dogs, was
never twitted Of tmidity. Nobody ever
doubted Lord Nelson's bravery, yet Brit
ish writer admits that he practiced the most
atrocious cruelty upon the Neapoltan pat
riots, to say nothing Of the infamous breech
Of faith by which these cruelties were pre-
coded.
Another popular fallacyis that murder wilrI
out" That such were the fact, is consum-
nation devoutly to be wished, but almost
every year proves its fallacy. The crime is,
indeed, of SO startling character, and the
remorse often so poignant, that the perpe-
traitor cannot so easily remain concealed as
the knave who rObs a bank or picks pocket.
There is an astonishing number of cases
where the crime, even after long conceal
ment, has been discovered, and the excep-
tons are comparatively so few that they will
deter those who mediate the act. Yet there
have been murders the authors of which
have never been, and probably never will be,
revealed-not, at least, till the lifting of the
curtain at the last day shall disclose them.
Who has forgotten the famous Cannon street
murder in 1866, committed at eight o'clock in
the evening, in one of the most crowded
thoroughfares in London--a crime to the au-
thor of which not the slightest clue has yet
been found? Or who has forgotten the
Rodgers homicide in New York, the perpe-
traitor Of which is still shrouded from the pub
lie eye-a homicide that took place at
O'Clock in the morning in the open street,
within few steps of Broadway, when much
of the industrial life of the city was already
astir? To these instances we might add the
mysterious murder of Parker, some twenty
years ago, in Manchester, New Hampshire
that of Estes, the fireman, in Boston; that Of
Appleby, the grocer, on Randolph street, in
this city, about Q O'Clock in the evening, in
1856; and, more recently, the vet battling
mystery of the Nathan murder, in New York.
A strange paradox in the history of some of
these crimes that the difficulty of tracing them
to their authors has been aggravated appa-
rently, by the very lack of caution and Sc
crecy in their commission.
Of all the plausible fallaces which mass