"Greedy, insolent, and cowardly," these are nice fraternal terms; and what a truly loving spirit is evinced by swearing "fearful vengeance" upon the "assassin," and handing to posterity the keeping of the oath!
No whit less affectionate in feeling is what follows:--
"If we do concede the demands of England, however, it will only be because we desire to crush this rebellion, as a duty we owe to mankind. It will be because we prefer to master the great evil, and do not wish to be alienated from our duty by an international and comparatively unimportant quarrel; it will be because we prefer national salvation to the gratification of any feeling of national pride. It will be a great act of self-denial. But when we come from this rebellion it will be with a magnificent army, educated and organised, and with the sense of this wrong weighing upon them. It will be with a navy competent to meet any navy upon the globe. It will be for us then to remember how England was our enemy in the day of our misfortune, and to make that remembrance a dark and fearful page of her history, and an eternal memory of our own."
That these are the opinions of most people in America nobody on this side of the Atlantic will believe. But that there are roughs and rowdies in the States, who as they have nothing they can lose by war are always full of bluster and warlike in their talk, this may any one in England very easily conceive. Of course it is to please them that such stuff as we have quoted is stuck in Yankee newspapers; and our sole surprise is that the journals which admit it find it pays them so to do. The rowdies as a rule are not overflushed with wealth and can ill afford to spend their coppers upon literature, which, the chances are, they scarcely would know how to read.
[Illustration: BOXING DAY. MR PUNCH. "NOW THEN! WHICH END WILL YOU HAVE, JONATHAN?"]
For the benefit of the American jingoes _Punch_ on December 7th, issued the following warning, with an appropriate cartoon:
[Illustration: "UP A TREE." Colonel Bull and the Yankee 'Coon. 'COON. "AIR YOU IN ARNEST, COLONEL?" COLONEL BULL. "I AM." 'COON. "DON'T FIRE--I'LL COME DOWN."]
JONATHAN, JONATHAN, 'ware of the Lion: He's patient, he's placable, slow to take fire: There are tricks which in safety a puppy might try on, But from dogs of his _own_ size they waken his ire.