Semi-weekly Louisianian., 1872-02-04
8" THE MAN OF NERVE, AND
THE NERVOUS MAN"

In the play from which we have
borrowed our title, if we mistake
not, the nervous man was thought
to be a man of nerve, and the man
of nerve was thought to be nerv-
ous man until the sequal of the
story revealed the mistake. The
man of nerve was so brimful of
sympathies that every critical situa-
ton made him tremble with anxiety
for the safety of others though his
own heart was firm with every i'm
pulse of manhood, while the nerv-
GUS man appeared to be cool amid
the most appalling dangers for the
reason that sel6shness and fear were
constantly suggesting expedients for
securing his own safety.
These characters have had their
political counterpart in our State
within the last week or so, except
that the melodrama changed some
of its features for that of tragedy.
when young Wheyland was ruth
lessly assassinated in the streets of
New Orleans.
Our political opponents have been
wont to make merry over the charge
that Gov. Warmoth thinks discre-
ton the better part of valor, while
the disorganizers in our own ranks
have been loud and extravagant in
their eulogies of George w. Carter
for his bravery. It was boasted by
them that during the four years of
the war the enemy never saw Mr.
Carter's back, and asserted that
Warmoth's enemy but seldom saw
his face, hence the Governor was
set down as the nervous man, and
the late Speaker of the House COM
mended as the man of nerve: here
comes the sequel.
On the first day of January, when
the House of Representatives as
sembled, Gov. Warmoth occupied
the usual executive departments,
surrounded by no other force than
his private secretary and his janitor,
giving free access to all important
visitors and granting an easy egress
to all who desired to leave, without
questions or surveillance of any kind.
Anxious that the community should
not be disturbed by the presence
either of a large police force or that
of military companies he transacted
his usual business unsurrounded by
the revolvers Of policemen or the
bayonets of the militia though he
had reason to suspect, and the Sc
quel sustains such q suspicion that
Carter's thugs and aszassins would
have sought the slightestproyocation
to take his life. He knew that the
business Of that holiday season and
the continuation of those social am
menities that belong to it, and the
quietude of the community and the
rules of order under which it rests,
all hung upon the display of COM
posure in his department and nerve
in his administration-that is the
so-called nervous man.
Now mark the conduct of Col.
Carter, the so-called man of nerve.
He came to the House Of Repre-
sentatlves on the same day surround
ed not only by his immediate fol-
lowers in the band of disorganizers,
but fanked by Democratic fol-
lowing composed of some men as
worthless, as unscrupulous and as
ragged as Falstaff g famous army,
and of other fossil self-important
and punctillous Democrats, as pre-
tentious as Sir Huddleston Puddle
son. The agitation of his nerves
needed not only the reassuring ar
rangement of false award OF seats
by which he placed his henchmen
of the Legislature nearest to him,
but it was needful that all the time
twenty outsiders should hold revel
in his own private room, screwing |
their courage to the sticking point
by large potations of rye and bour-
bon in case the man of nerve should
need them-these facts, we hope.
will forever set at rest the rival
claims of the nervous man and the
man of nerve.