The Daily Times farther explains its "Buoyancy."
[From the
N. Y. Freeman's Journal.]
It seems hardly worth while to notice a paper that contradicts itself on alternate days.
But the
Daily Times, after all, is the best exponent among the morning two pennies of the common, vacillating, unthinking throng.
The
Herald so habitually plays the buffoon that no one knows or cares whether it is in fun or in earnest in what it writes — whether its ‘"puffs"’ are meant for compliment or for satire.
The
Tribune, ever driving after, and ever missing, its own underhand and base objects, keeps in the foreground the cry of the
negro and speaks of nothing except in correlation to this idol, in making shrines for which it has hoped for much profit.
The
Daily Times is your true shop keeper.
‘ "What do you wish, sir?"’ ‘"
Anything to accommodate you, sir!"’ ‘"We have
all colors here, sir!"’ ‘ "If our assortment
to-day does not suit you, we have ordered something
altogether diverse, and it will be out in a day or two!" ’ Thus, two days after its ‘"buoyant"’ article of last week, it had a leading article of two columns of the very most doleful declarations of dismay that we have seen in any American paper.
In its issue of last Sunday it returns to explains the ‘"buoyant" ’ thus:
‘"The
popular expectations were based on a misapprehension as to the actual and possible power of the rebels, and a want of knowledge as to what the phrase 'crushing out the rebellion' really meant.
There is, however, as we remarked on a previous day, a positive gain, if not cheer to us, in the fact that we knew this."’
When the
Times says the ‘"
popular" ’ expectations, it must not except itself and its conductors — whether these be
popular or not. If it says that
its expectations were not ‘"based on a misapprehension,"’ &c., it would stamp itself as a
wilful deceiver; for, through long months of last year, it cried ‘ "traitor,"’ ‘"Secessionist,"’ ‘"Southern sympathizer," ’ at those who
did rightly apprehend, ‘"the actual and possible power of the rebels."’
We told the truth last year, and that we were not in ‘"
error"’ was even then made manifest by the fact that
William H. Seward sent armed men to our office, and locked us up in Fort Lafayette, and that, while we were there locked up for publishing the
Freeman's Appeal, the same
W. H. Seward excused himself for not interfering with
Russell, of the London
Times, by quoting
Jefferson's words, that ‘"
error may safely be tolerated so long as reason is left free to combat it!"’
Russell's
error, it thus appears, saved him, while our
freedom from ‘"error"’ made certain officials think that our words could
not ‘"safely be tolerated"’ by the policy that those words opposed.
The little men of the
Daily Times referring to their most obtuse ignorance of what every man fit to write on our politics
ought to have known, says, smartly, ‘"we
now know this."’ But the little fellows have the audacity to say farther:
‘"We
knowthat if
Gen. McClellan had fifty thousand more soldiers last month, the rebel host would assuredly have been overcome.
Richmond would have fallen, and
Davis and the remnants of his army and Government would probably, by this time, have been as far South as
South Carolina.--Had he that number of additional troops to- day, he would bring the campaign in
Virginia to a speedy and triumphant end."’
Are the little people of the
Daily Times one whit more sure of all this than they were last year of the thousand and one foolish things that they said then that they
knew and said we were traitors for denying?
Last week, the
Daily Times ‘"knew"’ that if the salvation of the so-called Confederacy depended on it, the rebels could not raise ten thousand more men than are now arrayed.
This week, the same little people's paper publishes from its own correspondent in
McClellan's army, the report brought back by one of the released chaplains of the
Union army--
Father O'Hagan.
That report says, as the result of free and full intercourse with all classes at
Richmond, that ‘"they boast that they can, in a far less public manner, call to the support of their capital from five hundred thousand to six hundred thousand men. As yet, their drafts upon the
Southern militia have been restricted to soldiers under thirty-five years of age. They will now, if necessary, (and they speak in the most indifferent manner about the necessity,) draft or call into the field men between the ages of thirty-five and fifty."’
This boast of the rebels is, of course, exaggerated.
Six, or five hundred thousand men, are not so easily to be improvised by the
South.
The ‘"in different manner"’ is assumed, not real.
But the
truth is that the
South have had, hitherto, all the men that could be effectively used, and that the supply is very far from exhausted.
Meantime,
how does the
Times know that with ‘"fifty thousand more soldiers"’
McClellan could have taken
Richmond?
How does the
Times think it knows that with ‘"that number of additional troops to-day he could bring the campaign in
Virginia to a speedy and triumphant end?"’ Would ‘"fifty thousand more soldiers"’ added to the decimated legions on the
James river make that army
equal in number to the entrenched and defiant foe that is determined to hold
Richmond or die?
What trash, then, at this day, to say that fifty thousand or one hundred thousand
more of the best troops could ‘"bring the campaign of
Virginia to a speedy and triumphant end!" ’ The tone of papers like the
Daily Times gives to the rebel press a good apology for saying as the Richmond
Whig in a recent issue, that ‘ "If anything on earth can exceed the impudence of Yankee assertions, it is the folly of Yankee credulity"’--that is, supposing the forecast of the
Times to be believed by any body of people.
