the lands, who have drawing-rooms, in om it possesses and

slaves of the South, who own the best always controlled its politics and swaye whom the disease is hereditary or origin pervades, like the leprosy or the scrofula, or, rather, like the falseness of the Stuarts and the imbecility of the Bourbons-these men will remain, as long as they draw the breath of life, enemies of all the good meaning which is summed up in the words, United States. It is from studying the characters of these people that we moderns may learn why it was that the great Cromwell and his heroes called the adherents of the mean and cruel Stuarts by the name of "Malignants." They may be rendered innoxious by destroying their power, i. e., by abolishing slavery, which is their power; but, as to converting them from the error of their minds, that is not possible.

General Butler was aware of this from the beginning of the rebellion, and his experience in New Orleans was daily confirmation of his belief. Hence, his attitude toward the ruling class was warlike, and he strove in all ways to isolate that class, and bring the majority of the people to see who it was that had brought all this needless ruin upon their state; and thus to array the majority against the few. Throwing the whole weight of his power against the oligarchy, he endeavored to save and conciliate the people, whom it was the secret design of the leaders to degrade and disfranchise. He was in New Orleans as a general wielding the power of his government, and as a democrat representi g its principles.

The first month of his administration was si alized by several warlike acts and utterances, aimed at the Spirit of Secession; some of which excited a clamor throughout the whole secession world, on both continents, echoes of which are still occasionally heard. The following requires no explanation:

"NEW ORLEANS, May 13, 1862.

"It having come to the knowledge of the commanding general that Friday next is proposed to be observed as a day of fasting and prayer, in obedience to some supposed proclamation of one Jefferson Davis, in the several churches of this city, it is ordered that no such observance be had.

"Churches and religious houses are to be kept open as in time of profound peace,' but no religious exercises are to be had upon the supposed authority above mentioned."

This was General Order No. 27. The one next issued, the famous Order No. 28, which relates to the conduct of some of the women of New Orleans, can not be dismissed quite so summarily.

One might have expected to find among the women of the South many abolitionists of the most "radical" description. As upon the white race the blighting curse of slavery chiefly falls, so the women of that race suffer the consequences of the system which are the mostdegrading and the most painful. It leads their husbands astray, debauches their brothers and their sons, enervates and coarsens their daughters. The wastefulness of the institution, its bungling stupidity, the heavy and needless burdens it imposes upon housekeepers, would come home, we should think, to the minds of all women not wholly incapable of reflection. I am able to state, that here and there, in the South, even in the cotton states, there are ladies who feel all the enormity, and comprehend the immense stupidity of slavery. I have heard them avow their abhorrence of it. One in particular, I remember, on the borders of South Carolina itself, a mother, glancing covertly at her languid son, and saying in the low tone of despair:

"You cannot tell me anything about slavery. We women know what it is, if the men do not."

But it is the law of nature that the men and women of a community shall be morally equal. If all the women were made, by miracle, perfectly good, and all the men perfectly bad, in one generation the moral equality would be restored-the men vastly improved, the women reduced to the average of human worth. Consequently, we find the women of the South as much corrupted by slavery as the men, and not less zealous than the men in this insolent attempt to rend their country in pieces. In truth, they are more zealous, since women are naturally more vehement and enthusiastic than men. The women of New Orleans, too, all had husbands, sons, brothers, lovers or friends, in the Confederate army. To blame the women of a community for adhering, with their whole souls, to a cause for which their husbands, brothers, sons and lovers are fighting, would be to arraign the laws of nature. But then there is a choice of methods by which that adherence may be manifested.

When General Butler was passing through Baltimore, on his way to New Orleans, he observed the mode in which the Union

soldiers stationed there were accustomed to behave when passing by ladies who wore the secession flag on their bosoms. The ladies, on approaching a soldier, would suddenly throw aside their cloaks or shawls to display the badge of treason. The soldier would retort by lifting the tail of his coat, to show the rebel flag doing duty, apparently, as a large patch on the seat of his trousers. The general noted the circumstance well. It occurred to him then that, perhaps, a more decent way could be contrived to shame the heroines of secession out of their silly tricks.

The women of New Orleans by no means confined themselves to the display of minute rebel flags on their persons. They were insolently and vulgarly demonstrative. They would leave the sidewalk, on the approach of Union officers, and walk around them into the middle of the street, with up-turned noses and insulting words. On passing privates, they would make a great ostentation of drawing away their dresses, as if from the touch of pollution. Secession colors were conspicuously worn upon the bonnets. If a Union officer entered a street car, all the ladies in it would frequently leave the vehicle, with every expression of disgust; even in church the same spirit was exhibited-ladies leaving the pews entered by a Union officer. The female teachers of the public schools kept their pupils singing rebel songs, and advised the girls to make manifest their contempt for the soldiers of the Union. Parties of ladies upon the balconies of houses, would turn their backs when soldiers were passing by; while one of them would run in to the piano, and thump out the Bonny Blue Flag, with the energy that lovely woman knows how to throw into a performance of that kind. One woman, a very fine lady, too, swept away her skirts, on one occasion, with so much violence as to lose her balance, and she fell into the gutter. The two officers whose proximity had excited her ire, approached to offer their assistance. She spurned them from her, saying, that she would rather lie in the gutter than be helped out by Yankees. She afterward related the circumstance to a Union officer, and owned that she had in reality felt grateful to the officers for their politeness, and added that Order No. 28 served the women right. The climax of these absurdities was reached when a beast of a woman spat in the faces of two officers, who were walking peacefully along the street..

It was this last event which determined General Butler to take

public notice of the conduct of the women. At first their exhibitions and affectations of spleen merely amused the objects of them; who were accustomed to relate them to their comrades as the jokes of the day. And, so far, no officers or soldiers had done or said anything in the way of retort. No man in New Orleans had been wronged, no woman had been treated with disrespect by the soldiers of the United States. These things were done while General Butler was feeding the poor of the city by thousands; while he was working night and day to start and restore the business of the city; while he was defending the people against the frauds of great capitalists; while he was maintaining such order in New Orleans as it had never known before; while he was maturing measures designed solely for the benefit of the city; while he was testifying in every way, by word and deed, his heartfelt desire to exert all the great powers intrusted to him for the good of New Orleans and Louisiana.

It can not be denied that both officers and men became, at length, very sensitive to these annoyances. Complaints to the general were frequent. Colonels of regiments requested to be informed what orders they should give their men on the subject, and the younger staff officers often asked the general to save them from in-. dignities which they could neither resent nor endure. Why, indeed, should he permit his brave and virtuous New England soldiers to be insulted by these silly, vulgar creatures, spoiled by contact with slavery? And how long could he trust the forbearance of the troops? These questions he had already considered, but the extreme difficulty of acting in such an affair with dignity and effect, had given him pause. But when the report of the spitting was brought to him, he determined to put a stop to such outrages before they provoked retaliation.

It has been said, that the false construction put upon General Order No. 28, by the enemies of the United States, was due to the carelessness with which it was composed. Mr. Seward, in his conversation on the subject with the English chargé, "regretted that, in the haste of composition, a phraseology which could be mistaken or perverted had been used." The secretary of state was never more mistaken. The order was penned with the utmost care and deliberation, and all its probable consequences discussed. The problem was, how to put an end to the insulting behavior of the

women without being obliged to resort to arrests. So far, New Orleans had been kept down by the mere show and presence of force; it was highly desirable, for reasons of humanity as well as policy, that this should continue to be the case. If the order had said: Any woman who insults a Union soldier shall be arrested, committed to the calaboose and fined,-there would have been women who would have courted the distinction of arrest, to the great peril of the public tranquillity. If anything at all could have roused the populace to resist the troops, surely it would have been the arrest of a well-dressed women, for so popular an act as insulting a soldier of the United States.

It was with the intent to accomplish the object without disturbance, that General Butler worded the order as we find it. The order was framed upon the model of one which he had read long ago in an ancient London chronicle.

"GENERAL ORDER No. 28:

"HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMENT of the Gulf, "NEW ORLEANS, May 15, 1862.

"As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy ou our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation."

"By command of

"GEO. C. STRONG, A. A. G., Chief of Staff."

MAJOR-GENERAL BUTLER.

That is, she shall be held liable, according to the law of New Orleans, to be arrested, detained over night in the calaboose, brought before a magistrate in the morning, and fined five dollars.

When the order had been written, and was about to be consigned to irrevocable print, a leading member of the staff (Major Strong) said to General Butler:

"After all, general, is it not possible that some of the troops may misunderstand the order? It would be a great scandal if only one man should act upon it in the wrong way."

"Let us, then," replied the general, "have one case of aggres sion on our side. I shall know how to deal with that case, so that