The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1881-04-09
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.

OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
Assassination Among the Masses-COm-
munism in the City-What New York
Can do in the Way Of Observation-Disclosures
Death of Col. O'Isrien-The Political
Fight in New York-The Dutch Invasion
--scl,witzer Kase Versus Altar Of Roses
City Improvements-The Weather and
Revivals, Etc, Etc.
New YORK, April 2, 1881.
EDITOR CHIEF:
l don't know what has got into our
people, but the most casual observer can
not fail to note that within the past six
months a radical change has taken place
in the opinions of the masses, which
bodies serious trouble in the futuye. On
the streets and in She club-houses men
are still discussing the assassination OF
the Emperor Of Russia. As a general
thing "a sensation Of this kind is forgotten
in IL few days, some new wonder takes
it's place, and it sinks into Oblivion but
about the taking off Of this dead Roman
off there hangs something which, like
the ghost Of Banquo: will not go down.
Among the thousands who daily talk
this matter over, it is remarkable that so
few express the unqualified sympathy
which the circumstances would seem to
call forth. Probably they remember tina:
New York is no stranger to assassination
and you well know the old adage, that
familiarity breeds contempt" The
death of the Car was fearful, terrible,
because he was a Gar; yet, here i'll the
heart of the city, in broad daylight, and
on it's most public throughfare, an assas-
sination occurred in the presence Of thou
sands Of people, alongside Of which the
death of the Russian Emperor palcs into
insigniicance. It was on the l4th
of July, 1868, day never to be forgotten
as long us one stone shall stand above
another to mark the site Of the city Of
New York. The draft riots were i'll full
blast, and excited thousands of ignorant,
brutalizel ruffilns filled the streets,
urged on in their work Of destruction by
an army of female furies, whose counter
parts could only he found among the
devils Of tue low er regions. Col. H. +.
O'Brien had been depnted to put down
the riot, and, with i portion of his COM
mand, the Eleventh Regiment, he was
finally compelled to fire upon the mob.
A short time after, he was attacked by u
crowd Of ruffans while coming out of Il
drug store, and literally tramped to
death. After dragging lis body in the
mre for more than a block, they hung
the inanimate form to IL lamp-post.
Then they cut it down, and, selzing the
legs, dragged it about the streets, drunk
Ell men and women dancing III wild fren
~, as If it were u masqne or u carnival.
For six mortal hours this horror was
enacted in one of the most public streets
in the city, and Negroes We're burnt alive
in their houses by horles Of mur,lerous
rutlians, many of whom still live, I'M
harmed and unwhipped by justice. 1t
is not astonishing, then, that the death
of a single man, even though that man
be an Emperor, eXcites no very lively
sympathy. Ii understand the signs
Alright, the sympathies of the mass of the
people go out to the thousands of wretch
Cd captives who toll ont hopeless lives
in the dark Siberian mines, and to the
miserable women, many of them delicate
~ nurturcd, whose backs have been well
ted 10y the bloody knout, and who, torn
from their bones and all they loved on
earth, are waiting impatiently for death
as their only hope Of release. Our peo-
pie grow more communistic every day,
the exactions Of capital are every hour
becoming mole burthcnsome and over
bearing, and it will not lie long before
the masses will show you "what they
are going to do about it,"
The quarrel between the rival factions
Of the Republican party is, in its present
shape, the seyerest strain that that polit-
ical organization has been called upon
to endure. There is one thing morally
certain, and that is, there can be no ac-
tive coalition between these factious in
the future. The present fight means
destruction to one OF the other: whether
the gontalon of the Sage of Westchester
shall 80 down in the melee, or the white
plume Of our knightly Senator shall be
trailed in the dust, is something which
time alone can tell. Perhaps both : ma.
get their qnetus. | am noL| good Il
n,,nSsiny, but we slaE...s- what VIC Shall
see.
The mania for tearing down and re
building seems to have taken the sllap
Of an alarming insanity. TO wall
through some streets one would thnl
that Il destroying angel had passet
through them. The last financial earth
quake, the three per cents, has force.
capital to seek other outlets for its funds
and if this thing keeps OH it will not b.
many years before New York will he on
of the hansomest cities in the world.
Talking Of Dutch, and when | s;,,
Dutch | mean German-you should SCI
'em, shoals Of them, armies of them
swarms of them, thicker than the locust
Of Egypt-Dutch, Dutch, Dutch, Ger