The New Orleans Democrat. (New Orleans, La.) 1875-1876, 1876-07-01
LOOK ON THIS SCENE.

during the present week, first at the
st. Louis Hotel, then ut Mechanics
Institute, and finally at the St Charles
Theatre, has certainly been disgrace
to our State. No such exhibitions as
those which daily transpire In what Is
called the Republican State Convention.
we venture to say. have ever before as
tonished a civilized community. The
negro legislatures and conventions
which governed the state and pretty
much controlled It's politics In the hrst
years of reconstruction were bad enough,
but they are not to be compared to the
present convention.
The scene i'm the ST. Charles Theatre
yesterday was hideous and disgusting.
The dress circle and the galleries. to the
ceiling, were crowded with negroes
men, women and children interspersed
here and there with white men, scarcely
distinguishable from the black and
surging mass. The pit was occupied by
the delegates, and the stage by the Off
GERS of the convention, reporters, and,
we presume, candidates and their lobby
lists.
The banquettes in the vicinity OF the
theatre and the entrance to the building
were crowded with half drunken, swear
ing, staggering negroes and white men,
mingling together upon terms OF per
feet equality, with their arms thrown
over each others shoulders, button
holiDg each other, drinking and hob
nobbing together. The scene on the
street was vile enough, yet 1t gave no
idea Of that within tho building. The
interior OF the theatre was gloomy
almost to darkness, and the spectacle
which met the eye on entering impressed
the beholder with the idea that by some
evil spell he had been transported into
d world of hideous shadows
The atmosphere was hot almost to
suffocation. The weird and shadowy
forms in the pit sprang up and down in
the gloom, waving innumerable palm
leaf fans, swung their arms to and
fro in threatening or defiant gestures,
seeming like crawling brutes who had
assumed the most hideous likenesses of
men in which to serve the devil. The
roar Of angry and excited voices, the
yells, the cries and shrieks from the pit
crowded with dark and undistinguish-
able shapes the fierce responses
from the stage the shrieks OF applause
and Kisses OF contempt from the surg
ing galleries, occasionally partially
drowned by the thunders Of the band,
which, hidden by some invisible power,
ever and anon broke in upon the tu-
multi, all combined to intensity the
fancy Of supernatural and diabolical
transformation.
A spectator observed that the scene
reminded him of Milton g description OF
Pandemonium." 1t left no such inn
preston upon our mind. Millions
Pandemonium" is terrible picture,
hut it is fun Of grandeur; the spirits
there are fallen spirits, but they are
heroic spirits still. The glory Of their
wings is faded, but they still wave
majestically in the lurid glare OF the
unholy fires. There is ''the beach
of sulphur, the ocean OF fire
and the palaces of the fallen
Nominations glimmering through the
everlasting shades" The spectacle at
tho st. Charles Theatre rather re-
minded us OF some of the most hideous
scenes in the Inferno Of Dante. 1t was
more like the dance in the witches cave
in Faust than the Pandemonium
AS we watched the surging
and wrigling mass Of hideous forms in
the pit, and the hot waves Of air laden
with revolving stencil swept through
the building, we should scarcely have
been startled had we seen serpents
crawling in the gloon and rearing their
Kissing heads in the throng. A band OF
bowling dervishes, Voudou dance, are
probably the only mortal things which
could compare to the Radical Conven-
ton yesterday One figure in the rout
alone sd med to riselabove the level Of
the british mass. But even that figure
only had the dignity Of superior brute.
1t was the snake charmer, with black
and yellow and scaly reptiles wriggling
and crawling and Kissing around him,
but daring not to strike. That. figure
was Pinchback. He stood solid and
unmoved; he could not guide the mob,
but he held them down to their wrig
Cling and crawling and bowling and
kissing, and they could do no more. He
could not tame them, but he was all the
time superior to them.
And these are the sort Of creatures
who for eight years have been electing
Governors and other officials, and MAX
ing laws for the enlightened people Of
louisiana Is it wonderful that
we have been discouraged that we
have grown FESTIVE; that poverty has in
vaded the country and decay smitten
the city? Is it surprising that
our hearts are full OF bitterness /;
that there is social ostracism Of
Radicals; that there is little tole-
rance in politics in Louisiana :?
} 1t would have been well if some Of our