The negroes have been holding meetings here, marked, apparently, by more than their usual discretion, and, indeed, so wisely conducted as to elicit from one of the Savannah papers this eulogium:
A more orderly, decorous audience never assembled within the walls of an edifice, than these enthusiastic people, whose sincere gratitude was depicted in every emotion. We rejoice that these people understand, perfectly, that freedom does not mean idleness, but perseverance and industry.
A correspondent of one of the newspapers is reminded, by their bearing, of certain passages of Scripture, and copies out, and the paper gravely quotes, in its editorial columns, as follows:
For the Lord our God, He it is that brought us up, and our fathers, out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed. (Joshua xxiv: 17.)
And when thy sons asketh thee, in time to come, saying, what mean the testimonies, and the statues, and the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you?
Then thou shalt say unto the son: We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
And the Lord shewed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household before our eyes.
And He brought us out from thence, that He might bring us in, to give us the land which He sware unto our fathers. (Deut. vi: 20, 21, 22 and 23.)
The newspapers which make these Scriptural applications, however, it must be remembered, are the productions of the Northern editors who have come down in the wake of the army, or of Southern journalists who have stood ready to change with the tide.
This evening several of these gentlemen called on me, on board the boat. One, of unkempt hair and clothes, and glittering eye, that even opium could have made no brighter, and air at once of the gentleman and the seedy Southerner, has already a wide Northern acquaintance. Who has not read of “Doesticks,”—his adventures at Niagara, and his multifarious encounters with a single glass of ale? “Doesticks” turns up in the flesh in Savannah; and Mr. Mortimer Thompson assures us that he finds it pay down here very well, if it “were not for this cursed blockhead of a Commanding General!” Alas! how that ghost still stands in the way of the enterprising journalist! Even Punch, with all his gibes, is overawed before our conquering Northern Mars; and Doesticks groans under the oppression of the uniform of the “Commanding General.” His circulation is good, he avers (and there lurks no fun, for a wonder, beneath the word), every Rebel takes the paper, because every Rebel wants to know the news from the Yankees; and there is a better chance than ever before, to spread Yankee notions among this people, if it weren’t for that cursed Commanding General! Advertising is good; Savannah merchants and Northern sutlers compete for the trade of the army and the city; news is plenty; there is no trouble about selling papers and coining money; if it weren’t for the perpetual interference of that blockhead of a Commanding General! Northern men could succeed, even better as journalists here than Southerners, because they have more industry, know more about their business, and could make better papers, if it weren’t for that Commanding General! I believe, from a hint Gillmore has given, that the Commanding General is about to be changed; and, from the bottom of my heart, I congratulate Doesticks on it.