Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-11-08

not hold that anyone is justified in shoot.
ing down his friend with whom he may
fall out. They do not believe that any
mans "honor' requires him to commit
murder under any circumstances And
the civilized world is of the same general
opinion. Nowhere to-day among civilized
men is the Southern idea of homicide held
or tolerated
1t is absolutely necessary that the South.
ern people should understand this, because
until they do SO they cannot possibly real
ize the position which they occupy. 1t is
the widest nonsense for them to talk about
the "manliness of homicide. There is
nothing maLly about it, unless the prac-
tees of untamed savages are to be taken
as standard of msnliness. In really civ.
i,izsd society men are educated so to be.
have to one another that there is no danger
OF brutal ARRAYS. The civilized man con.
trolls his passions, guards his tongue re-
Trains from offensiveand insulting language,
and carefully avoids whatever may tend
toward physical violence. The civilized
man respects human life as the most sacred
possession known to the human intelli.
gence. He is desirous to let the ape
"and tiger die" and to develop in himself
all the higher and nobler attributes of hu-
mainly. He is unable to conceive of a
justification for such ruffianly, murderous
events as that in which Common and the two
Mabrys fell the other day. He rightly
characterizes all such crimes as indications
of very crude and low stage of civilizs-
ton. In fact it would be difficult to find
anything more characteristic of barbarism
than this particular case General Mabry
had lost some property. A mortgage upon
it had been foreclosed, and the property
had passed into the hands of Conner. This
was the origin of the feud. Mabry
swore that he would kill Common on sight,
because the latter had foreclosed a mort
gage on his land. Could there be,a more
conclusive evidence of hopeless bsrbsrism
than this?
And this case is by no means excep.
tional. The Southern people appear to
have resolved that comrpe,cial disputes
shall be settled by murder. Take the case
in which Ton Baford deliberately assas
va Judge because the Latter had de-
cided suit against him. Was that the
act or the motive of civilized man?
Assuredly it was not, and vet such crimes
are common at the South. A man owes a
debt which he cannot pay. So he gees out
and murders his creditor. Is there any
"manliness" about that? Was it proof
of "manliness" that General Nabry
should have sworn to kill Common because
the latter had dispossessed him of his land
by perfectly legal and honorable methods?
On the contrary, all these acts, and their
motives, are the acts and motives of saw.
ages, and not of civilized men. Aud when
thu Southern papers talk about the supe-
rior ''manliness of this atrocious habit
of murder, do they realize that they are
encouraging the practice they affect to
condemn? Do they understand that they
are affording fresh excuses to the rising
generation for the perpetustion of that
ruffianly, swashbuckler habit, which has
been the shame and disgrace of the South
SO many years?
We have heard much of late about the
increasing enlightenment at the South
about the growth of conviction that the
natural resources of the region must be
developed /; about the necessity of welcom-
ing and inviting Northern capital and en-.
terprise. But the South may as well
understand that it can never succeed in
getting its resources developed properly
until it has abandoned its savage ard
bloody customs until it is as safe for a
man to walk the str acts of New Orleans,
or Richmond, or Louisville, as it is for him
to do the same in New York or Boston, or
Philadelphia. Capital and enterprise will
not go to country where human life is
held so cheap, and commercial principles
are SO strange, that the capitalist may at
any time find himsef the object of blood.
feud, arising out OF his ordinary business
transactions. The South will continue to
languish, or at least to grow very slowly,
SO long as occurrences like the Mabry.
Common case remain possible, and 10
long as the local press seeks to justify or
excuse such atrocious deeds.
The preposterous Southern doctrine of
personal honor is % truth survival from
barbarous age, aud it is altogether out
of place in commercial age. No North.
ern business man win care to have dealings
with people who c;,nnot be trusted not to
cut and shoot on the smallest provocation.
and who are in thos habit of paying their
debts with shotlnns. If the Southern
people have not the culture necessary to
understand the ct neal falsity of their so.
cisl creed, so mitch the worse for them.
They must not, However, seek to palliate
their very serious faults and vices to them
selves by pretending that their Northern
neighbors are given to similar homicidal
practices. Even if this were true it could
not help them, inasmuch as two wrongs do
mot make a right. But it is not true, and
4 they resily comprehended the extent Of
the gulf which separates them from truly
civilized communities, we can hardly be.
lieve that their self respect would not in.
iduce them to determine upon radical re
form. But whatever they may say, the
judgment of the civilized world, from
which there is no appeal, must be that
people who tolerate and even encourage and
defend the hopieidal habit, as it is toler-
ated, enspnfaged and defended at the
o-sa, are but little way removed from
barbarism, and possess no valid claims to
be admitted to the circle of civilized COM
munities.
THE London Spectator believes that the rapidity
with which women engaging in the serious work
ing change in their relaaons with men, They must
obviously be content TO forego the Difference real or
assumed, which men have hitherto paid to them
Anyone who has served on mixed committee
of men and women knows that the women either
completely submit 10 the men, or that the men press
their opinions with quite as much eagerness when
tneir opponents happen TO be women as when they