Mournful Hilarity.
The Petersburg
Express very appropriately thus heads a notice of the much-talked-of inauguration ball at
Washington.
After briefly referring to the wonted gay and festive Inauguration observances in
Washington, to the pleasurable fruitions of which, it justly remarks,
Southerners contributed most, it adds:
‘
"But now a change has come over the spirit of the times.
The approaching inauguration of a sectionally elected
President, instead of inspiring gladness and mirth — instead of attracting jubilant crowds from all quarters of the
Union to the
Federal metropolis-- instead of being greeted with the customary rejoicing of a happy people — will be but a ghastly demonstration.
It will awaken no emotion of national pride and satisfaction — it will call forth no enthusiastic responses from the public bosom — it will excite no acclamations like those which have marked all previous pageants of the kind — but it will stir up the most melancholy reflections in every generous breast — it will wear the sad
insignia of a nation's woe. A disunited Confederacy — a once flourishing and mighty government now hovering on the very verge of destruction, will rise up like appalling visions before the
Black Republican revellers, and chill them in the midst of their carousals.
What a gloomy phantom of an inauguration it will be!"
’
The New York
Express, referring to the same anticipated revel, so out of time and out of tune, says:
‘
"A penitential wail over a corrupt government, the decay of public virtue, and the sapped foundations of the great edifice of popular liberty, would he far more grateful to their ears than any ball-room strains, however high or festal."
’
