Smyrna times., 1876-11-08
The N. Y. Tribune on the Centennial
Tournament.

The Tribune of last Thursday printed the |
following editorial:
When the South had her innings at the
Exposition fortnight ago, she chose
peculiarly Southern mode of celebration,
the tournament, in which young Virginians
have displayed their prowess at summer
watering-places for years. More than
hundred and fifty thousand Southern0rs
gathered about the lists to see the thirteen
brave knights careering around them with
painting steed and pointed lance. 1t was
only an iron ring they charged on, to be
sure, but the fervor of excitement was just
as high as when the Disinherited Knight
bore Front de Bouf to the ground, and the
triumph and defeat as keenly felt. The
CITY was full of Delaware peach-growers
and Maryland planters and their wives.
The Virginia cottage was crowded with
black mustached knights from Fanquier
and Henrico, and women talking in that
unmistakable sweet shrill treble which
belongs to the old State.
The difference in the moving masses of
people from those that filled the palaces OF
the Exposition on any of the days set apart
for New England States was curiously
marked the features of their faces were
less compact and sharp, the voices thicker
and of better tone; nobody, although the
time was so short, was in a hurry, nobody
intent on displaying his knowledge or on
adding to it. 1t was on the whole good
natured, leisurely crowd of people, who
had always plenty of time, in the midst of
the ravages and ruin of war, to find all the
amusement in life, and to turn now this
great educational opportunity" as the
Bostonans call it, into tournament for
the plucking of iron rings from a post.
The whole affair seemed to the shrewder,
more practical part of the States silly and
meaningless enough, no doubt. We hear
that the intelligent part of the audience
were not tempted out of the buildings to
look at the knights at their sport But
after all, it was fitting and right that each
section of the country. should have it,
characteristic mode of celebration on thc
day given to it; the mastery hoIseman
ship and expertness of eye required in thi
contest bring it up to level with the row
ing or shooting matches which we al
agree to call manly sports; and wheths
the American people do not need to learl
to take life easily and to find pleasure il
trifes as much as any lesson which the Ez
position can teach them is matter open
argument? Every other class and part
have met at the Centennial buildings
express their patriotic feeling in their ow
way-the farmers have talked cooperation
the Presidential candidates have mad
capital, the Catholics have exalted th
Pope and Father Mathew, the Presbyt
rians Witherspoon, the Advanced Wome
themselves; why should not our Souther
friends turn their day into holiday7
The "chivalry" they paraded on thi
day is the type of the idea which has rule
in the South since the days of Carroll
CarrolIton. The Virginian was never slo
in proving himself physically brave MAJ
or in paying exaggerated homage to wome
if they were his social equals. This Sc
of chivalry is good thing in its way;
is expert horsemanship; SO is goo
humored idleness: to pay public homa
to a pretty girl as Queen of Love al
Beauty is better than to pay no homage
women at all. But we would suggest
our young Southern friends that there a
even better things: that life is to be tax
at its food-tide as well as in its flush al
sparkle; that the citizens of States torn
contending races and which are left
behind in the race to development al
wealth, would find accomplishments
brain and body better worth cutivatic
more useful to their State and ennobling
themselves, than are a firm seat on
horses back or keen eye at plucking
the ring from a wooden post. Don't
them make the mint, anise, and cumin t
weightiest matters of law.