The New Orleans daily Democrat., 1877-06-27
THE NEW ORLEANS DEMOCRAT WEDNESDAY, JUNE ~ 1877.

that have sturdy moral stamina will
come to land and the rest will drown.
| With this prologue we think we car
do no injustice to these boys. or tn.
Harvard scrape we can venture to ga,
nothing, because such an affair is moi
comprehended in the "badness" of g
Southern boy. Our idea is that these
boys had no felonious intent and that
they thought, with the lights before
them, that it was high old fun to stea
q lot Of ladies' underwear and dress
themselves in it,
But no such thing Is admitted under
our peculiar civilization. With us oil
the South, among whom women's rights
have never intruded either in the
covert shape Of chemiloons or the
open and undisguised pattern of
DR.. Mary Walkers neither garments.
there is sanctity about the mysteries
Of female dress that no man dares
to outrage or in any manner violate.
But under the vaunted civilization Of the
North there may be no sacrilege in 80
doing, and in Difference to moral
culture that we are taught to believe
entirely superior to our own, and which
certainly passeth all understanding in
these regions, we forbear comment.
We can only say that, according to our
ideas, these boys were low fellows, de-
serving neither Of sympathy nor mercy.
But, as Macaulay observed of Machia-
velli's morals, "a vice sanctioned by the
general opinion is merely a local NAL
ady" that involves no degradation.
But Of the Annapolis boys we feel
more at liberty to speak. No man with
anything like e. proper knowledge and
appreciation of fcollege ethics and morals
will be SO bold as to intimate that pro-
fessor's wine cellar is sacred domain
that every "bad boy" has not an in
herent right to poach upon. But the
purloining Of the questions for the
impending exam nation was most
immoral according to the true
code. We hardly think it was pal
lated by the culprits not availing them
selves Of them, but giving them to their
doubtful classmates. At all events,
it is strictly in accordance with the
moral code that the boys guilty of such
offenses should be expelled. These boys
may, b owever, be forgiven, if fthey cannot
be excused. But there Is no extenuation,
no mercy for the miserable wretches
who, while they profited by the stolen
goods, turned States evidence against
the boys from whom they accepted
them. That sense of honor for which
the people of the South are so much
ridiculed, and to which they affection
ately cling, may be unsuited to the
practical purposes Of this era Of civiliza-
ton, but it has forbidden any such act as
this in our boys who were brought up to
reverence and be guided by it. In our
day. at South Carolina College and the
University Of Virginia, these questions
were given out in the class-rooms and
the students took them away with them
to their private apartments, where their
text books were at hand. They wrote
out their answers and they were &C
cepted on nothing else than this simple
legend, written and signed at the bot
tom: "On my honor I have written
these answers without referring to the
books" This was deemed satisfactory
and it was a most rare and exceptional
case when the boy lied in signing that
"Boys will be boys" but their delin-
quencies will be shaped by the moral
ideas and discipline in accordance with
which they are reared. Some great
French writer has said: "It is So
ciety that developes crime-he who
it is but an instrument" The
system Of espionage, based on the pre-
of inherent depravity, which
s the basis of discipline in these insti-
tutions, is more to be blamed than the
boys who are punished for such o.
lenses. Correct the system and the
boys will conform to it.