Challenge from a Southern Woman.
In the deserted office of The Appeal we found the following manuscript:—
"A CHALLENGE
"where as the wicked policy of the president—Making war upon the South for refusing to submit to wrong too palpable for Southerners to do. And where as it has become necessary for the young Men of our country, My Brother, in the number To enlist to do the dirty work of Driving the Mercenarys from our sunny south. whoseWhose soil is too holy for such wretches to tramp And whose atmosphere is to pure for them to breathe
"For such an indignity afford to Civilization I Merely Challenge any abolition or Black Republican lady of character if there can be such a one found among the negro equality tribe. To Meet Me at Masons and dixon line. With a pair of Colt's repeaters or any other weapon they May Choose, That I May receive satis factionsatisfaction for the insult."
"Victoria E. Goodwin."
"Spring Dale, Miss., April 27, 1861."
Confederate currency was a curiosity of literature and finance. Dray-tickets and checks, marked "Good for twenty-five cents," and a great variety of shinplasters, were current. One, issued by a baker, represented "twenty-five cents in drayage or confectionary," at the option of the holder. Another guaranteed to the bearer "the sum of five cents from the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad Company, in freight or passage!"
A Droll Species of Currency.
One of my acquaintances had purchased in Chicago, at ten cents a dozen, lithographic fac-similes of the regular Confederate notes, promising to pay to the bearer ten dollars, six months after a treaty of peace between the United States and the Confederate States. A Memphis merchant, knowing that they were counterfeit, manufactured only to sell as curiosities, considered their execution so much better than the originals, that he gladly gave Tennessee bank-notes in exchange for them. My friend subsisted at his hotel for several days upon the proceeds of these fac-similes, and thought it cheap boarding. While Curtis's army was in northern Arkansas, our officers found at a village druggist's several large sheets of his printed promises to pay, neither cut nor signed. At the next village one of them purchased a canteen of whisky, and offered the grocer a National treasury note in payment. The trader refused it; it was, doubtless, good, but might cause him trouble after the army had left. He would receive either gold or Confederate money. The officer exhibited one of these blanks, and asked if he would take that. "O yes," he replied; "it is as good money as I want!" And he actually sold two hundred and fifty canteens of whisky for those unsigned shinplasters, cut off from the sheets in his presence!