fellows, intent and fervid for freedom and for planting a higher-law commonwealth- a far better class too they were than the majority of the out-atelbow hungry poor devils who came South - became what we see through their kindly offices unassisted. Now empty that deadly mixture upon the South,

"Cool it with a baboon's blood,"

and, gentlemen of the committee, I do assure you that you will not need to fetch in the "old aristocratic class" to enable you to account for Southern contemporary gangrene. The gruel will be thick and slab enough without.

But that word gangrene implies a dreadful danger, and let the Southern people take heed to it, for the danger exists. There is but one chance of keeping the South so that she will be worth saving when the time for her final political redemption comes, as it will eventually come. That chance lies in the fact of her better people, her real people, remaining free from any taint of the political demoralisation which pervades the country. So soon as the better people, driven on by despair, by business needs, by the bad influences of the sights ever before their eyes, of rascals prospering continually and honest men excluded from their just opportunities and rightful industries - so soon as these classes, concluding that because they cannot destroy the corrupt combinations of carpet-baggers, scalawags and negroes, it is right to buy service of them, become hagglers in the markets of corruption and try to outbid the professional hucksters therein, actum est de Republica it is all up with the South. While those whom we distinctively know as "our people" keep aloof from such contaminating things, and preserve their political virtues as severely and as chastely as they preserve their social virtues, there will always be a hope for the future, for there will always be a leaven in reserve with active energies sufficient, under favorable circumstances, to leaven the whole lump and bring back the country to the integrity of its primitive periods. But, if these fail us now in the hour of need and darkness, all fails us, and we may never hope for better things than our present bitter environments.

I have said that the danger exists, and I think that the occasion calls for plain speaking. During the war, when the best of the Southern people were in the field, a set who are now principally scalawags and Radicals, managed by their evil predominance in civil affairs and in the commissary and quartermaster's departments, to precipitate fatally the final issue of the great struggle. "Speculators" were then able to corrupt the instruments of government and obstruct the game of war. Take care, men and brethren. The endeavor is being constantly made to invoke among you a spirit quite as fatal as that which kept Lee's army from getting meat and bread by too eager pursuit of and too frantic speculation in the poor luxuries that eluded the blockade. If "our people "fail under the combined pressure of adversity and temptation, there will be need for pity for the whole civilised world. We will not fail, we cannot fail, if the Titan's blood be still in our veins as of yore, for that will still give us power

"To suffer woes which Hope deems infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To dety Power which seems omnipotent;
To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent."

E. S.

THE SOUTHERN MAGAZINE may justly claim the merit of having given the impulse to a joint action on the part of the Southern States in regard to the important subjects of Direct Trade and Immigration. Those of our

readers who have read with care the exhaustive paper on these subjects which appeared in our April and May numbers of last year, will not be surprised to learn that it has been read, copied and commented upon in all Southern States. To show the growing interest felt in these vital subjects we may mention that virtually, within the past few weeks, the advocacy of Direct Trade and Immigration and of a closer union with the Western States, with whom our South-Atlantic and Southwestern States have the most marked and intimate interests in common, has resulted even in a Senatorial election. General Jno. B. Gordon, whose key-note was these subjects, was elected a U. S. Senator, and upon that issue mainly, with great enthusiasm. This election signifies a new era in our political life in those few Southern States, at least, where the native white elements have fully regained their ascendancy. It means that the material future prosperity of our Southern country must no longer be unrepresented in the halls of .Congress.

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While this Magazine is going through the press, the Southern States meet in Convention at Augusta, in compliance with a call, the language of which is from the same pen to which we owe the paper on Immigration of Capital and Population." This document, which is too long for us to quote entire, is signed by the committee of gentlemen appointed for the purpose at the session of the Georgia State Agricultural Convention, of which committee Gen. Gordon is chairman. It calls upon the planters, farmers and mechanics of the seven States south of 35° N. L., and upon the citizens of their chief commercial cities, to meet the Georgia Agricultural Society for the purpose of bringing about a united and general action on the part of the Cotton States in furtherance of the great objects of Immigration and Direct Trade. A cordial invitation is also extended to the Chambers of Commerce of those Western cities in which the trade of the South and West centres, to be represented at a convention in which great common interests are to be discussed.

We look forward to this meeting as one of happy omen, not only in a commercial but in a political point of view. The interests of the West have always been almost identical with those of the South; and nothing in reality divided them but the question of slavery. Slavery being at an end in the South, the wall of partition is down: why should they not stand side by side in maintaining their common rights and promoting their common interests? They as well as we are now tributaries of the East. In the words of the address" At the expense of the South and West a huge commercial wealth and preponderance has been established, which quickly and surely is progressing in its ulterior aims of imposing eternal commercial impotence upon two-thirds of our common country. This commercial preponderance also means political power. . . . . Álready the arms of this monopoly are seeking the sole possession of all lines North and South; let us likewise seek to counteract it by the establishment of lines East and West."

We hear much talk about a restoration of peace, harmony and good will. May it soon come; but let it rest, not on the merely sentimental basis of forgiving and forgetting, but on the solid rock of common interest and interdependence of prosperity, on a hearty union to maintain right and resist wrong, and a firm resolution that while the rights of no section or interest shall be invaded, they shall not be allowed to include among those rights the privilege of treating the rest as if they were feudal vassals subject to gabelle and octroi, taille and corvée, at their will and pleasure.

The April No. of THE SOUTHERN MAGAZINE will contain A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE LATE COMMODORE MAURY, with a fine portrait engraved on steel.