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There is an amount of talent, energy and vim employed, at present, in burglarious invasions in this city which might be valuably occupied in a war of defence. Grant, Sherman, and other military burglars, might take lessons in their profession from some of the accomplished house-breakers of this capital. The time was when a quiet citizen of Richmond could walk at midnight from Screamersville to Rocketts without dreaming of the garroter; when he could go to bed and awake and find "the situation" in the larder unchanged.--The time was when watchmen could snore with impunity and dogs had nothing to bark at but the moon. A very difference has arrived. A division of sappers and miners, composed of the most skillful engineers of the continent, is now quartered in the very heart of the capital, and lays bare, with unerring precision, every cellar and store-house in the town. It carries on its operations with an audacity equal to its genius, and is accompanied by heavy baggage trains, which carry off the spoils of war. It is evident that the occasion requires special measures of protection. The civil police could much more hopefully be pitted against General Sheridan than against the sagacious and successful raiders who are now laying the town under contribution. The division of sappers and miners must be set upon by a division of Confederate soldiers and marched to the front. If they display half the talent and energy manifested upon our cellars and store-rooms, they will commit a successful burglary upon Grant's fortifications in a week. Let the commanding general promise them all the provost they can capture, we would like to see the Yankee bolts and bars that will keep them out. If they never come back again, so much the better. At present, no man when he lies down is sure of his breakfast the next morning unless he adopts the suggestion of a contemporary to put it in a balloon, and tie the cord to his wife's big toe. Even then there is no security that big toe, balloon and breakfast would not be jerked off together.
The Daily Dispatch: February 6, 1865. Richmond Dispatch. 4 pages. by Cowardin & Hammersley. Richmond. February 6, 1865. microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mi : Proquest. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.
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