The harpies.
--There are some people having a good time out of this war. There are spoilers, sharpers, extortioners, who are bleeding the soldiers and the community at every pore, and who are growing rich and fat upon their blood. Such prices as these greedy and rapacious monsters demand for articles of prime necessity are almost fabulous. Such profit as are required to satiate their ravenous aws would be deemed incredible by the hungriest landshark in any other age or country of Christendom. Talk of Yankees or of Chinese! Why, the most remorseless Yankee speculator, between Richmond and the North Pole, would die of shame and vexation, if they could see how operators in Dixie Land surpass their boldest feats of plunder. It is in vain that Governors of States issue proclamations; that the people yell out at every fresh turn of the screws; that the whole community stand aghast at the shameless greed of the cormorant crew. Where the carcase is, there the eagles will be gathered together. You might as well appeal to the moral sense of buzzards and vultures to abandon their prey on the battle-field, as expect the harpies of high prices to relax the grasp of their sharp claws, and let their poor victims escape. It is a beautiful sight to see some sick soldier, who has been blistered by the sun and wet by the dews of six months campaigning, and has faced danger and death in the battles of his country, asking timidly at some counter the price of an article necessary to his comfort, and turning away with a heavy sigh as the man of pence names a price which a General of Division could not afford. A great world, this, a world, as Carlyle would say, much forsaken of God, and in pressing necessity to be lammed.
