New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1877-02-10
The President and Cabinet In EmUy

DR0oeNgsAO
tended to grace the inaugural of Mfr. Til
den, but as that event seems itself at pres
emit little mythical, the show has been
thrust upon the public to save the inven'
tors from utter loss. The spectacle was
far too classical to reach the popular mind,
impression of anything except q malevo-
lent purpose to defame the President of the
United States and his confidential ad-
visers, and render the great majority
of the American people despicable in
their choice of a chief. It is not, perhaps,
an improper comment that just at this time
the Democratic leaders are commencing
the President for his frmness in maintain
ing the Democracy in q quasi authority
here, the mummers and mountebanks should
show the same President in contemptuous
degradation before the very people to
whom he is commended. We have, as
Americans, no objection to the revival and
importation of the ssturnalia of ancient or
the carnival of modern Rome. The one has
disappeared with human bondage, the other
other has been modified by the reform of
the superstition of Rome. 1t is glorious
tribute to the American republic that
it should have reflected gratefully back
upon the noble mother of all human free
dOm-a freedom of thought and action
that renders all concealment Of either un-
necessary. We could not expect mummers
and montebanks to think Of this, or to see
that the discarded devices of people in
bondage should be produced in the new
light of American freedom. We have even
known the councils of the CarbOnari to
hold their masked meetings in Louisiana
and order their emissaries to assassinate
men whose opinions were obnoxious to
their leaders. Speech and action is per-
fectly free among us. Our press is sub
ject to no other responsibility than the
withdrawal Of a subscription or advertise
ment, an action for libel, or summons to
the field of honor. The Democratic jour
nails are filed every day with personaI
abuse of the Republican President. He has
been called by turns, a tyrant and a sot;
every member of his Cabinet has been de.
famed and denounced by name. All this
with entire and proper impunity, because
if public men have not more character
than the anonymous scribblers who abuse
them, they are not fit for their positions
What use was there in impairing the force
of these violent and vulgar epitheGs by an
allegorical illustration, which requires
printed columns to render comprehensive
to the masses whom it was intended to con.
vince. 1t tends "tO make the judicious
grieve" to witness such q futile device tO
prejudice public opinion pending an honor.
able compromise. Such political pageant
must be regarded as a violation of the poll
ticAl truce.
To the elias sical and scientific mind this
attempt to bring the mystery of MOmus,
the neurological son of Night, the god OF
mookery and oensure, down to the appreei.
alton of people who merely look for q
spectacle to amuse them was a pitia-
BILE failure. The crowd cOmprehends and
greatly prefers COmus to MOmus. Laugh
ter, holding both his sides," suits people
out of work and short of bread better than
mythical and NEUROLOGICAL mummeries
They care not for the cynical umpire who
rejected the model works of Nep
tune, Minerva and Vulcan, and was
expelled from heaven for his cOntemptuous
hypercritical and extra judicial decision as
returning officer. Nor should classical
divinity be mixed up with the icthyOsauri
Of the secondary period and its strata. HiE
court should not be drawn by the fabulous
Dragon, instead of being waited on the
nebulOus couch, or winged like Mercury, el
shot like Astria into celestial constella
ton. The diabolical imps of the Christian
era should not sport around the chariots O.
the Heathen divinities. The mailed knightI
of the middle ages should not be mounted
upon pranCing and caparisoned steeds o
Spearing, Leonard, or the Fashion or any
other livery stable, and followed by bant
of United States musicians celebrating thu
apotheoais of BelknAp to the march o
the Mulligan Guards. We must as temper
ate-not tempersnce-men, remind the
master of these revels that the substitution
of the Arabic invention of distilled liquor
for tho free lunch Ambrosia, and generOu
wines of Olympus, is q sad anachrOnisr
The political directors of the show shoul
have switched off the mash tub and still
worm, typical of revenue frauds. The
should have remembered that the Pres
dent, whom it delights them to shame !
efigy, has just extended his official lenit
to prominent mAlefaetorA who hav
been released from the shame of fell
Rious imprisonment and returned
their homes to set better example
the future. To have passed any magazine
connected with these offensea, with doffe
caps and easques, and with reversed arm
to the air, "StiR 80 gently DER me stealing
would have furnished at once gratefT
tribute to impOrtunate comrades in d
mocracy, as well as to the rather generOT
lenity of the chief of the Republican part
We suppose no metaphor or allegOry WI
ever more mixed, since racks, daggers an
: masks danced before the eyes of Junius
metaphorical confusion than that whiC
/ paraded the streets on Thurday night. "
should say that those who planned Il
''mystery"-as it would have been callg
/ in the earlier sges-Eere not careful
/ competent to reconcile the dramatic NJ
ties of action, time and place. We shoul
think that to have consulted any stal
!, manager, Nine. GrOux, or any theatriC
7 costumer, or perraquier, would have saw
some absurdities in mythology, listOr
I geology and technology. That the show "
wholly ineOmprehensible 70 the geneI