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Reign of terror in New York

A gentleman of Richmond, Va., was in New York. The scenes which lie witnessed in the streets reminded him of the descriptions of the Reign of Terror in Paris. Nothing was wanting but the bloody guillotine to make the two pictures identical. The violent and diabolical temper everywhere conspicuous, showed but too clearly whither all things are tending in the commercial metropolis. A spirit is evoked, which can only be laid in blood. The desperadoes of that great city are now in the ascendant. At present, they are animated by very bloody designs against the South. They have been persuaded, or urged by hunger, to believe that by enlisting for the war they will win bread and honor and riches. By-and-by, they may come to reflect there is an abundance of meat and bread, and inexhaustible supplies of money all around them — in the banks, the palatial residences, in the fire-proof safes of the princely merchants. They may consider that all this meat and bread and money may be won with fewer risks of cracked pates and bloody noses than the meagre, unsavory food of the poor South. That they have only to demand to have it. That they have as much right, as men and Christians, to call for it and help them-selves, as to be compelled to travel five or six hundred miles to plunder a poor people, who never did them any harm. It is quite natural for such thoughts as these to come into the heads of men who, having no means of subsistence, and being elated with a sudden idea of their great importance, and seeing a wealth of treasure and good things all around them — to be had for the taking. We do not know that their quick wits have yet comprehended all the advantages of their position. But they will not be very slow in finding that they are masters of the situation. They have only, in swaggering along Broad-way and looking into some of the magnificent stores that grace that vaunted street, or stepping into one of the Banks, or looking over the list of the recipients of specie by the last steamer from California--or the names of the subscribers to the last Government loan — the Grinnell's-King's Sons, &c., to be convinced that a military contribution on New York would yield a hundred fold more than they could hope to realize in ten bloody and desperate campaigns in the South.--Richmond Whig, April 22.

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