.... that numerous piece of monstrosity, which taken
asunder, seem men, and the reasonable creatures of God; but confused
together, make one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than
Hydra: it is no breach of charity to call these fools.'

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

I like, Fritz, in my quiet way, to moisten my
pen in the dribblings from any butts of ridicule,
even though they stand upon the floor of our Tabernacle.
Our towns-people are a very Christian
people, and, of course, a very civilized people; but
they also have an odd rotatory sort of way of serving
God and the Devil by turns, as best chimes
with their humor. They get up a comfortable
charity, and the next day will hatch us a mob.

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

We have anniversaries of missionary movement,
which are damned with faint praise of the journals;
and we have anniversaries of mob-movement,
which are zealously defended. We keep our Chatham
well sustained, and our Churchman in lusty
health. We point the dullness of our Lenten fasts
with Opera critiques; and many good Presbyterian
Elders take off the scandalous edge of their Sunday's
Herald with the pious causticity of the Independent,
or the mild magniloquence of the Observer.

Our police arrangements, since the introduction
of the Star and cigars, and since the election of our
new Aldermanic Council, are said to be highly perfect;
and our journals are most consistent and
order-loving journals, actuated naturally by the
most conscientious intent: And yet, Fritz, the
week past we have had a demonstration of order,
philanthropy, Christian intent, police perfectibility
and newspaper independence, which must carry
the weight of a counter opinion as far as the
cracked dome of that temple of St. Peter's, which
the Christian Union and Dr. Adams are trying hard
to crack wider.

The anatomical argumentation of Dr. Grant, very
cogent as it seemed to his abettors, would have
been worse than useless, if any such infernal

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

bickering had disgraced a company of negroes, as belonged
to either the first or the second session of
our American Anti-Slavery Society. As for municipal
perfection, it is quite lost in the shadow of the
heavier clouds; and let them put the disturbances
at whose door they may, they reflect very badly on
town-civilization, and still worse on human dignity.

Don't understand me, Fritz, to endorse any of
the crazy fulminations of our Garrison zealots,
while I point out the barbarity and usurpations of
our Bowery demagogues. Whatever may be monkeys
or negroes—whatever may be Rhynderses or
hyenas, and whatever geese or Garrisons, order is
one thing, and disorder is another. City tranquillity
is manifestly one affair, and city turbulence,
setting its accursed heel on the altar of our churches,
is quite another. The distinction needs no Grant
anatomy for its exposition, and none of the electric
flashes from any dark Ward, to light it. It does not
even need a tea-sitting of the Aldermen, or a consultation
of his Honor the Mayor, with his other
Honor, the District Attorney, for its elucidation.

You know, Fritz, that we have been gathering
in our town, for a week past, a corps of workers,
variously equipped with white cravats, broad brims,
black coats, petticoats, and carefully-committed

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

discourses, to help forward the heathen and black
men a stage or two in Christian civilization; and
so vigorous has been the endeavor, that we have
recoiled with the shock into the ditch of barbarity.
Journals have been found, which, though they
pointed their eulogiums with exclamation marks at
the shooting down of the Astor mob, could yet
sketch a yielding veil of sympathy over the better
paid and better drilled mob which choked the
cackle of the Garrisonites.

We have been showing the Philadelphians latterly,
that the title of their city to the metropolis
of misrule is in danger; and we have weakened
the strong and steady influence of a great city by
a little eruption of bile, which has already grown
putrid in the eye of sense. What a story to carry
to our angust plotters at the seat of Government—
that a few conscientious and Bible-reading fanatics
could not compare notes, and quietly exorcise all
the demons in Christendom, without drawing out
a rush, and a howl from Bowery freebooters, to prove
man an ass—to stretch their pewter panoply over
our General President, and to defend the insulted
dignity of the nation! It makes a modest man
blush for his patronymic when the national dignity
is in such keeping.

Senator Foote, indeed, might accept the defence

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

as refreshing and germane; but the conqueror of
Buena Vista, used, as he is, to the bad smells of a
camp, one would think might turn up his nose in
disgust at the brimstone odors of such Bragg artillery.
The Disunionists will, perhaps, take heart
from this town flurry, since all disorganizing tendencies
are kindred: moreover, they have much
need to take heart, and they will find few sources
of capital so abundant and so well adapted.

But do not let me spoil the freshness of your
spring air with such nauseous memories. We
will return to topics which belong to the every-day
life of the town, and which rise at every hand,
`sueing to be pressed.'