The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-05-21
The Magazines.
Excerpts from the June Numbers.
SOUTHERN CIVILIZATION.

We wonder if the South knows how hard II
Is making It for its friends and those who would
think well of its spirit and society. We know
there are two Souths, but everybody does not
know it. We are quite aware and everybody
is likely to be SO, that the South is politically
unit for its own purposes. Even in this we
| think SOutherners make grave mistake as
Southern solidarity will be sure to beget
Northern solidarity, and the South knows
what that means for them and their views of
national policy. But for this we have no dis
position to blame them. We understand in
this quarter that the South has no great love
for the national flag as such, and that "the
lost cause" isstill very precious to its polit-
clans and its people. We understand this, we
say, and we expect in all their dealings with
national affairs only such policy as would
naturally be dictated by the circumstances i'm
which they are placed, and the unrepentant
| spirit which still possesses them and ON which
they take their stand and boldly make their
boast.
With this we do not quarrel. We expect it.
1t is the most natural thing in the world that
we should have it; but certain events have oc-
Cured in the South of late with astounding
frequency, which betray condition of morals
and society that makes every true friend of the
South and every true American hang his head
i'll shame. Murder after murder is perpetrated
i'll high life with the coolest blood and nobody
is arrested for it and nothing is done about it.
| Now, as we have said, we are perfectly aware
| that however much of unit the South may
| be politically, there are socially two Souths
| There is a law-loving and law-abiding South,
and there is a South that is neither the one nor
the other We understand perfectly that TO a
great number of Southern people such beast
ly murder as that of Judge Chsolm and his
family is horrible. We understand that to these
people such notable murders as have taken
nla oil fIn So11f1 l..
months are great shock and great sorrow.
The feeling finds expression in some of their
best newspapers; but the trouble is that this
South is utterly overawed by the other South,
so that no man dares to move for the mainte-
nance of the law and the punishment of crime.
Murder is committed and the murderer shakes
his bloody hands at the law everywhere and
walks the streets with entire freedom and inn
punity. Human life is accounted of no sacred
ness whatever, and law and the executors of
law are held in perfect contempt. The Judge
upon his bench is not safe Even the lawyer
who tries case that involves any serious per-
sonal relations takes his life in his hands when
he does so. The most trivial causes seem suffi-
cient to awaken the brutal instincts of men and
TO induce the extreme of violence. Fighting
weapons seem to be in every mans pocket, as
if he lived in a state of war, and he does not
hesitate to use them ON the smallest provoca-
tion.-Dr. Holland in June Scribner.
MRRRY (NEw) ENGLAND.
So far as the statistics of mere amusement
go, we may well rely on that veracious chroni-
cler,-the very Court Journal of New England
village life-the Springfield Republican. Each
daily issue of that lively sheet has page of
"locals" from every town in the western coun-
ties of Massachusetts,. We learn from the
latest number at hand that in Holyoke "the
Taft reception party is engrossing the town
talk" and that Barney Macauley is sure of
vI01 I<..1A Al. Al.
there is ''social''; in Longmeadow dramatic
reading; in Williamsburg Methodist oyster
supper; in Westfeld freman's ball and
musical entertainment; in Greenfield two rival
balls and an amateur play by Congregational
women;'' in West Deerfeld "sociable"; in
South Deerfeld public ball; in Shelburne
congregational entertainment; In North
Adams military ball. in Pittsfeld symphony
concert; in Athol some Methodist tableaux
and music; in West Warren an operetta in
Congregational chapel; in Hardwick ''sur-
prise party and so on. This is single days
exhibit, and so it goes on day after day. 1
make no account of farmers clubs, harvest
clubs, religious meetings and lyceum lectures,
though these last, in these times, are certainly
to be classed under the head of "entertain-
mentS." Here we have amusementS III abun-
dant quantity, it is certain; aud as to the quail
ity you must not be too particular, whether in
Europe or America. If 1 may Judge by my
own observation, traveller who should find
such evidences of social vitality in Eng
land, France or Germany would be quite
amazed, and would write to the New York
Herald to describe it all; and yet the scene of
all this is what one of your contributors, bor-
rowing the phrase from Mr.. Matthew Arnold,
describes as region of "hideousness and
ennu." am led to the conclusion that such
writers can never have visited the New Eng
land of my experience, or that / have never
had the i'll luck to visit the New England of
theirs; or else that in social observation, as in
the study OF nature, 1--WE receive but what we
give" and find only what we resolve to find
Contributors Club Atlantic.
MODERATION.
We have heard an intelligent but not a wise
politician call the grog-shop the poor mans
club, and the question is often asked why the
poor man should not take his whiskey if the
rich man takes his Champagne. But anyreas-
enable orator will see the fallacy of such reas-
oning. If the whiskey be no more noxious
than the wine, and the wine be innocent, and
if the man can afford it, and if he drink it
without exeess-in other words, if conditions
exist which do not exist-there can be no harm.
If the postulate of the temperance orator be
that every form of wine as well as of ardent
spirit is unwholesome, and can not he taken
without injury, that it is in fact a seductive
tary and social reason condemns, then of
course there is no degree in the wrong of the
use, as there is none in the freshness of an egg
But if the cause is to wait until this point is
settled, it will not advance. Indeed, the merit
of DIR. Crosby's position is that he proposes to
punish the disorder which drunkenness pro-
duces, while he restricts in the most sensible
way the sale of drains, and meanwhile encour-S
ages every appeal to the moral character and
resolution of those whom the tempter tempts
OF course his plan does not discourage the eff
forts of those who are persuaded that the use
OF wine or of any beverage but water is morally
wrong and physically pernicous. But he saws
only that If we would prevent the immediate
consequences to society of drunkenness, we
must agree that the sale shall be sensibly regu-
lated, and that drunkards shall be made to pay
for the offenseS which drunkenness produces.
The questions of the essential poisonousness of
all forms of the juice of the grape of the iniqui-
ty of the least sip, and of mutual responsibility
he leaves to be fully considered But ''moder-
alton" wisely insists that meanwhile the work
of regulating the sale and of relieving society
shall go on, and holds it to be pity to repel
the active and earnest cooperation in this good
work of those who are very powerful and al
ways sober, 1t is pleasant to remark the cor
dial welcome which Mr.. w. e. Dodge, pa
triarch of abstinence gives to the movement
as a forward step.-Editor's Easy Chair, Har-
per's.
MaCaZina NOticaS