Lest We Forget Ben Butler. 193
word bravery. It only remains for them to show that they have also a special interpretation of the word honor.
And it will be a sweet repayment for all the insults they have en- dured to hear the taunting accents change into sobs of despairing supplication to see the disdainful cheek mantled with the blush of hopeless, helpless shame. Accordingly, General Butler issues his edict: " Any lady who shall, by word or gesture, express contempt of any Federal officer or soldier," shall be liable, without protection or redress, to be treated as common prostitutes are treated. Gen- eneral Butler spares us the details of that treatment for the Amer- icans are a very decent people. He is, no doubt, fully conscious that the insulted officers and men will need no special instructions. It may be said that this is no affair of ours, and that if General But- ler and his officers choose to treat the ladies of the city they have conquered as Alaric's soldiers treated the nuns of Rome, or as the Sepoys are said to have treated our countrymen at Delhi, it does not concern us in England. It may be so. At least our indigna- tion and our sympathy must be alike barren of practical result. We may be told, as we have been told before, that if we censure Ameri- cans with the freedom we have been wont to use toward Englishmen we shall embitter a powerful nation against our country; that we shall be sowing seeds of hatred that we shall reap in war. It is very possible. If generals in supreme command are so thin-skinned that to suppress a sarcasm or a gibe they are content to perpetuate an outrage to which the history of modern warfare can present no parallel, it is likely enough that they may wince at the outspoken language in which English politicians and English journalists record their judgment against deeds of infamy. Yet, it has not been the habit of those who guide opinion here to modify their censures of wrong on account of their sensitiveness or the power of the wrong- doer. The cruelty of the Minsk, the horrors of the Neapolitan pris- ons, the threatened bombardment of Palermo all called forth a prompt and powerful reprobation from English writers and speakers. But none of these outrages will leave upon those who contrived them as deep a stain as that which this New Orleans proclamation fixed upon General Butler's name. The crimes of European des- pots have either been justified by some precedent of statecraft or of war, or were palliated by the barbarism of the people among whom they were committed.
But this Republican proceeding was done among people for whom their maudlin advocates here claim a special enlightenment and a
