Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-06-29
THE CHOLERA visITATIoN.
Third Paper-SOme Additional Facts
..-.....- and Suggestions.

/ Third Paper-SOme Additional Facts
/ -.-...-- and Suggestions.
Who is to blame for all this {? l asked il
| No. 2 series, and VIXEN will it end? "Oul
| sins have found us OUT Come with me
to the dsns and dOg-hoies around Us, most
| of them built out of the deb'is of war and
ruin. Old smoke-houses, old cellars, old
Easements, old stables, and old, God knows
what-msny of them in which one sun
beam never thrusts itself, and never will;
see these, worse than the matched cabins
of the Hindoo, for there is air and light.
Filled with misery and want the feedman
and his offspring, with this, his legacy OF
naked misery from the Federal Govern
ment, Of whom he is the special protege.
| See how they live in rags and dirt, almost
starving that they may once 10 . while be
able to strut our sidewalks with the airs
and manufactured forms of other more IA
vored fOols-their coat tails licking up the
filthy, unnamable matter incident to the
dampest season ever known TO US; then
after strutting awhile, away to the church
to rant and hOtUI, and make midnight
hideous-like the women Of old by tie
brooks of Palestine, sweeping for Tamuze,"
agetting religion as they call it, and are
led to believe It, the 'sreLigion of the silent
man of Bethlehem or Nazareth. From
these churches in heat and disquiet, away
to their hamlets TO become sane 'and cool
off amid stencil, miasm and ruin-breeding
pestilence. IT'S thus most Of them live,
and thus they must live while gathered in
and around our city by politicians to vote
for them, and by fanatics to bounce around
with them 10 the burning sur. on decoration
days-sWill beer, or worse, eat ice cream
like trash, spend their last cent for show
the females in pa tic1lsr, while their hus-
bands, hard workers, go about in rags with
the abdomens as lank, wrinkled and flabby
as runnet hanging In cheese-house, for
want of good food and q clean, cheerful
home, or home at least fit for one of Oar
wins third cuts from the "Tad Pole Era"
Who is to blame for all this? Not the
least guilty of all the guilty, is be, she or
they who for few miserable dimes lent out
these gates of death and Io0e to the poor
freedmen. Poor sordid creatures these
'Their sins have found them out" And
this wild pestilence, the retribution of
just God, Is following them in their retreat
ing path and their children reaping the re-
war; of their deeds.
God is Just. His laws and the laws of
act and consequence are the same, and are
irrevocable. Don't talk about retribution
in the next world as the only or greatest
thing to fear and tremble before, for q sad
retribution is here and knocking at our
doors; and this prodigy of the Federal gov
eminent is its neglected instrument in Goes
hands. The government at Washington
freed them and cast them homeless badge
CT ignorance and helpiessness broadcast
over tire land, to sdue itself--a military
necessity was the cause-not stu Offering
of mercy and Justice, as it should have
been. The government led these creatures,
naked, blind and empty, to the ballot box
and courts of justice, saying, with the bayo-
net in its teeth, that all the world might
hear, "theSe are men," ard then these crea-
lures, dropped in ignorance and rags, Gas
we raised them) are left for the use of poll.
ticians and hounds of all grades on election
dsys-a sure element in support of party
which would and do endeavor to cover the
"sainted Lincoln" act of "military neces-
sitS" under mantle Of God-like mercy and
Christian philanthropy. Reader, We have
made history, It will be writton hereafter
with a pen of burning truth, for
that is ompipotent. ask who
is to blame tor our present sor-
row and tears? l ask once more:
Is it not in a great measure you, ye land
lords and ladies' of our city, who for few
dimes have filed your stables. (of old) your
barns, smoke-houses, cellars and every
other sort of house and place with this
long bowed down race? The wooden shan
ties also are your work; but for this and
these accursed rookeries this strange ele-
ment of Gods creation would now be
scattered over farm and field, cheerful and
happy as of old. They would now be ad-
ding to the treasury of our common land
by their labors and gradually but surely fit
ting to fill healthy place in our body poll |
tic, for they could not have remained in our
city as now 10 run after drum aud fife and |
flag and other "Tom foolery." They would |
have been on the upward grade, improving |
in virtue and manhood, not as now, like a |
mildew plant, passing away.
What can county and corporation do for
them now? Nothing, for their past sins |
have found them out, also; made them sub
jects not citizens-sabjects with the bayonets !
by hair over their heads, That |
these creatures whose his tory is long ages |
of degradation, may hunt death snd ruin |
their own way. They are free as |
the helmless ship on the dark ocean. |
Not so the cOrporation,-she is not free, |
but bound by her own laws, by the laws 1
of God and man, to examine these deDs /
and abste these nuisances. Laws are the /
offspring of circumstances. The little /
wooden shanties were built subject to the
law of nuisance, to be pulled down or re-
mo7ed when declared nuisance. This /
the builders a knew and so understood 1t
when the permit was given to build them.
them gradually, and let their in
mates scatter where their labor is needed.
Make the committer of nuisance abste it
at once or fine him; if he is refractory i'm
prison him. You have the right and will
be backed, or we are semi-barbariaE. Do
this-put your present laws in full force.
Make every citizen cleanse bis own pFelni.
,es; cleanse or condemn the old cellar and
other dens, and let their present dying in
mates seek country air and work. You
will thus save your city from collapse as
fatal as death. Fsg1z--
Aud to you, gentlemen of the Blue, don't
psalm sing about philanthropy and all that
hing. Your necessities in the wild war
storm, raised by madness, cast distressed,
Town. trodden people a broadcast, naked
-uin among us. Our neglect to teach them
made them what they are. Our sins have
ound us out and so will yours. Look at
he bloody skeletons of by-gone nations and
emember the end is not yet.
WILLIAM DRIVER.