Jim Lane performing in New York.
--We have lately perused portions of a speech delivered in New York by
General Jim Lane, of
Kansas notoriety.
It would neither benefit nor amuse the
Southern reader to peruse such a conglomeration of villainous stuff.
The following comment, from the Cincinnati
Enquirer, we consider decidedly good:
‘
General Jim Lane has been playing oratorical tricks at the Cooper Institute in New York city, where he seems to have climbed pretty high and to have exhibited himself in proportion.
He appears also to have found an audience with tastes suited to his performances; for the higher and more ridiculous his flights, the more vehement was the applause.
When our parsons turn politicians, they may be known by the free and easy way with which they treat the name of God and dispense his providence; but
General Jim--who thinks little of God, and is ‘"not a believer in special providence,"’ hopes to die, and expresses great willingness to encounter that event, in case he can, by that means, inculcate in the
city of New York ‘"a fair and candid spirit concerning the institution of slavery."’
General Jim's speech is, as may have been expected, abolition in the extreme.
He believes that a white man is almost as good as a negro.
He boasts tremendously of his exploits in
Kansas, and, if he is to be believed, all the war and all the politics of that country have been carried on by himself.
He says that four thousand negroes have emigrated from
Arkansas and
Missouri into
Kansas; and that he has aided twenty-five hundred to emigrate this year; and looks forward with great pleasure — which seems to have been partaken in by his audience — to the time when the negroes will be educated, enfranchised, and elevated to social and political equality with the whites in that country.--it is of little use to complain of a windy braggart like the
Kansas General for his half-witted extravagances; but that in an intelligent and polished city like that of New York an audience could be found to listen to and applaud such a performance, is remarkable.
The only theory upon which it can be accounted for is, that people attend on such occasions to be amused; and as when they witness the feats of a juggler or a mountebank, the more extravagant the tricks the better they are satisfied.
They pay their twenty-five cents, and expect to get the value in fun; and for this purpose, in the absence of a monkey,
General Jim is the man for their money.
’
