'It is the obvious interest of the North to make the persons of pickets sacred; and equally our obvious policy to shoot them down at every opportunity.'
In the midst of these slightly confused arguments on war, the writer suddenly introduces a very out of place eulogy of 'De Bow's Review, Industrial Resources, etc.,' as a periodical 'which occupies a much wider range than any English periodical, and which, as an Encyclopedia, would be more valuable than any other Review, were equal pains and labor bestowed upon its articles.' We suspect this bit to be office-made—it has the heavy, clumsy ring of the great cracked bell of De Bow. For instance:
'I know, Mr. Editor, you intend, so soon as the war is over, to enlarge the Review, without increasing the subscription-price ... and then if Southern patronage ceases to be bestowed chiefly on the flimsy and immoral literature of the North, and Southern pens cease to prostitute themselves for pay by ministering to the vile and sensual literary appetites of the Yankees, then, we say, this Review will rank with the ablest for ability, and far above them for usefulness. But this result can be attained only when we cease to be Yankee-worshipers, and when the semi-traitorous imbeciles of the Virginia Convention and of Kentucky are remembered only to be detested and despised. Already hundreds of scientific and philosophic minds who have thrown off the debasing influence of Yankee authority have contributed learned and valuable articles to your pages.'
Unfortunately the character of De Bow as a deliberate and accomplished liar, and the exposure of his infamous falsification of statistics, have somewhat sunk the character of his 'Review, Industrial Resources, etc.,' out of Dixie, where, only, due honor is paid to those who are like him
——'for profound
And solid lying much renowned.'
'Art. II.' or Article the Second, in this magazine, 'which only needs equal pains and labor' [we might add paper, ink, and a Yankee Grammar and Dictionary] to be made equal to 'any other Review'—treats of 'The Bastile—Tyranny, Past and Present.' All the doleful stories of prisoners of earlier or later ages, in the Bastile, including much sentimental balderdash, are drawled out by a very stupid and would-be effective writer, for the purpose of proving that the imprisonment of political offenders and captives by the North is precisely on a par with that of 'Bastiling' them, and that Abraham Lincoln is only a revival of the worst kings of France in an American form. We of the North have, according to this writer, 'reached the goal of despotism at a single leap. In a few months the government has achieved eternal infamy.' We commend to the reader the following superbly Southern conclusion:
'With all these evils comes the inevitable Bastile. It is an inseparable part of the system. A philosophical Cuvier, from one act or condition of tyranny, will supply the rest of the organism. Wherever despotism exists, we look for the Bastile as naturally as we do for the character of a robber in an Italian story. Like the ponderous step of the statue of the commander in the Don Juan of Molière, its approach is audible above civil commotion, above the shrieks of frenzied orators, the howlings of a demoralized clergy, and the sound of battle. It brings with it the destruction of civil liberty, and darkens all the perspective.'
To us, to whom the approach of despotism with all its horrors is not quite so apparent as the heavy footfall 'in the Don Juan of Molière,' this all sounds as if Dixie would very much like to have the little privilege of keeping all the prisoners to itself. Nothing is said, by the way, of Southern Bastiles—of tobacco-factories, in which mere boys are allowed to die of wounds in utter solitude, to which officers come for the purpose of spitting upon and kicking the 'Yanks,' and where sentinels in wanton fiendishness were allowed to daily shoot through the windows at those within. No word is spoken of officers thrown into a common dungeon with negroes and thieves, nor is there any allusion to the ingenious system of keeping Northern prisoners as long as possible, so that they may die and thereby diminish the numbers of the enemy, in accordance with the Southern plan of Fitzhugh, already cited, as 'our defensive policy of exhausting in detail the superior numbers of the invading North.'
'Article III.' gives us a rehash of the views of Dr. Cartwright on 'The Serpent, the Ape, and the Negro.'
'Article IV.' by E. Delony, of Louisiana, is the great political gun of the magazine, and inquires: 'What of the the Confederacy—the Present and the Future?' It is of course full of hope, bluster, and self-praise. 'Our armies,' says Delony, 'are not like the miserable hirelings of Lincoln—the scum of infamy and degradation—hunted up from the dens, sewers, and filthy prisons of the North, with the low vandalism of foreign importations, picked up wherever they can be found. Yet such are the creatures our brave soldiers have to meet. Our armies are composed of men who have not volunteered for pay, nor for food or clothing!'