Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1874-02-24
BY THE wAY-NO. 1.

CNcINNArI. o.. February 20, 1874.
Travelling, at best, is a fatiguing and
doubtful luxury, but when ore misses
the connection every day, and trip
from Memphis to New York bids fair to
occupy full week, the undertaking in
creases to the magnitude of a voyage
across the Atlantic. | left the Bluff
City Wednesday at l o'clock, and am
here at the Burnett House, with re-
mote prospect of getting off some time
tonight. After walking myself down, |
have succeeded in finding in all this
wilderness of men and business a soli-
tarY acquaintance-the genial Enoch
Taylor, late of Memphis, and Southern
Superintendent of the Great Western
Dispatch. His Office is the headquar-
ters of Memphis people, and was con-
spicuoualy so during the yellow fever
times, when large number OF Mem
phians we're here. Mr.. Taylor was one
of the number so successful in raising
funds and aid here in various shapes for
our afflicted city. Cincinnati responded
with tender heart and lavish hand to
our cry Of distress, and should never be
forgotten while we cherish a respect for
good and noble deeds.
At Louisville / was surprised to learn
from various friends that the Memphis
Mardi- -Gras, and especially the Memphi
affair at the theater, had been failure,
and that drunken mob held possession
of the. city during the day. Having
been on the streets during the day, as
we'll as at night, without seeing more
than half dozen drunken persons, the
news was matter of great surprise.
The people of Louisville generally ex-
pressed regret, and few, perhaps, were
Indifferent, as it did not happen in their
own city. The editors and proprietors
of the Courier Journal were, to say the
least, annoyed at the tone OF the mali
cious special dispatch which gained ad-
mission to the columns of that paper,
aud l will venture the prediction that
more rigid supervision will hereafter be
exercised over the personal effnslons OF
come of its correspondents who may
have held presumably confidential rela'
tions with the paper.
Louisville is awful quiet, and business
is to all appearances dull. The same
applies to this city. Memphis is not the
only place that has suffered in fnan-
cial point Of view within the past year,
and is better off to-day in many respects
than a number of other places. Mem
phis has wonderful elasticity and powers
of recuperation, else she had sunk out
of sight long ago. She will recover in
a year, while it would take almost any
other city five years. Let not our peo-
pie despair. They have great cause for
encouragement and hope.
Mast, the artist for Harper Weekly,
lectured on a blackboard at Louisville
night before last. | did not hear him,
but saw him the next morning, and
with much curiosity as his
carlcatures had a powerful influence IN
the last presidential election. He wields
a more potent power to-day upon the
masses of the people than any United
States Senator. His pictures are effec-
tive arguments, and inevitable oonclu
sions to the most ignorant, for they ap-
peal to the eye and presume facts which
often do not exist, but the result is the
same, for people trust their external
senses sooner than the slow
process of inner evolution. Hence,
Mast is power in the land, and
a power more dangerous than any dem
agogue, for he is utterly unscrupulous
and rabid Radical. Born in South
Carolina, he would have been a violent
but nurtured in Northern
cline, he happens to be a vindictlve ex-
ponent of the ultra Republicans BE is
about thirty-three years old, is short and
heavy, with a red face and black mus
tache. Il is said that he is rather con
vivial in his tastes, and adapts himself
very readily to Bourbon county whisky.
On this point a doubt still remains.
DR.. Luke P. Blackburn boards at the
Gait House. he has consented to fur
nish some facts in regard to his expert
ence in Memphis, to be used in the his