The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-06-14
SATURDAY EVENING, JUNE IA, 1873.

THE word "Csntennial" tells the whole story.
No explanation can break the force of this little
tell-taie We don't want to celebrate it.-Dis-
pdteh
The Dispatch is fastidious, we think,
beyond all assimilating or fraternizing rea-
son. 1t don't want to celebrate the Fourth
OF July any more, especially the centennial
Fourth. We are sorry for it. We wish
we could say something or do something.
in the way Of explanation or apology, to
break the force of that " little tell-tale,"
whatever it may be, that our contemporary
might be less disgruntled and we more
happy. For we want to see everybody
looking and feeling as bright and happy as
May morning, on our national birthday,
especially the centennial. We are even
willing that the historic " redcoats" should
Join us on that day, and share in the general
enjoyment and jubilee. After hundred
stages in the worlds great journey, we
should be loath to part even with them as
companions by the way. with many Of
them jogging along in the same inevitable
stage-coach with us. Can the worlds
passengers, q promiscuous company,
afford to fall out about an old feud in
which a great grandfather Or two got his
skull broke, or broke somebody's else
skull, in the hope Of achieving different
result from what unluckily TRANSFERRED at
the time? Would it be either philosophic
or prudent to recall an old feud of this
sort, when friends were making merry a
hundred years after it had been amicably
settled, and ancestral skulls had ceased to
be brokenin the contumacious fray? Just
imagine an old Britisher with us on the
fourth of July, 1876, sitting apart as grum
and sullen as Carnac mummy, or surly as
churl, in one corner of the coach, cloaked
in unsociality, and trying to make every
body else as miserable as himself, because
our ancestors didn't allow his to whit
them in 1776! Suppose we should rail-,
him on his want of geniality and genera
good humor, and he should say: 81 dom
want to be happy, to-day Pm discon
ISOLATE, way-won traveller, as mlserabl
as | can be, and | don't wan
to be happy, and ,ooaf be happy! Cele
brate your old "Centen" as much as yo
please, and be id to you; | won't join /
it!n Suppose our old British malconten
should thus sit and NOPE and growl, an
apparently delight in making himself per
fectly miserable, what sort of a days jour
ney should we have of it in the stage-coac
of life, where the highest happiness Of a
is the object of the benticent Hand tina
guides the coach?
No, neighbor, this spirit won't do; yo,
should break away from it at once. Vii
GINA has too many grand association
linked with this old centennial stage-coach
to allow any Of her subsequently, thos
as capable Of enjoyment and happiness a
our friends OF The Dispatch--to be so ut
terly miserable as they would make them
selves. The old coach was never in finer trir
than now. 1t has been new spoked and fe
1oed, with the best of steel tire and othe
new appointments, and we should dislilI
to see our neighbor jump off at this crtica
juncture. No national coach ever mad
such capital time before, or ever had
better general set of passengers. 1t has ha
some rough stages, and gone through SON
unhappy lava-beds, but this was no mo-
than what the condition of the journey d
manded. Let us take heart as we near Il
Pacifc slope, and rejoice that our journe
liac in that ploriauS direction in which IL
star of empire makes its way. IL The Di
patch can do no better, let it jump on to tt
tail board and ride as far behind as possibl
If it STAYS in the lava-beds the Modo,
will dispatch it in a way that will be
s'More childlke than bland,
With knife on the head
And a scalp in the hand