The miserable extortioners.
We have never heard of anything in the history of man like the high prices which prevail for every article of use and necessity. Everybody who has anything to sell or dispose of seems to have no other thought than to wring from the wants of the purchaser the last dime that can be squeezed out from him, and to turn the screws upon the poor victim to the last point of human endurance. Seventy-five cents a pound for butter, thirty cents for sugar, four dollars and a half per pound for tea, fifty cents per quart for salt, fifty cents for a string of three miserable fish, a shilling to twenty-five cents a pound for beef, seventy-five cents a peek for sweet potatoes, forty dollars for an ordinary jeans coat, twenty-five for an indifferent pair of trowsers, twelve and fifteen dollars for shoes, are only a few specimens of the gigantic oppressions which the rapacity and avarice of man are exercising on this community. To declare gravely that there is no necessity, no reason in such prices, would be as absurd as to aver with solemnity that the sun is the source of light, that the weather is warm in summer and cold in winter, and that when a man ceases to breathe he ceases to live. It matters not what commodity is to be disposed of, it is the same throughout. The wants of the distressed and of strangers especially are taken advantage of in every shape and form. This war, which has given rise to some of the noblest examples of human nature that were ever heard of has also developed the most intense and disgusting selfishness. Whilst the mass of the Southern people have given up everything to the war, their time, their money, their children, their own life-blood, Congress has squabbled over the amount of its pay, the Legislature exempted itself from military duty, the speculators and land sharks drained the soldiers who were fighting for them of their life-blood, officers sacrificed the general good to their personal jealousies, and thus marred and imperilled the noblest cause that man over drew the sword for. Of this fair structure of our young Republic, it may be said to the extortioners and speculators of every grade, as was said to their predecessors in the Jewish temple, "You have made it a den of thieves." Oh, for a lash of cords in some Divine hand, to scourge the whole ravenous crew from the edifice that they have polluted and almost destroyed!At all events, the high prices ought to be recorded in some enduring form, with authentic testimonials, and filed among the archives of the State, in order that future generations may be enabled to believe what would otherwise appear incredible. That such a deluge of greed and extortion should sweep over any community, and that community a Southern community, and that Southern community in the midst of a life and death struggle like this war, is absolutely astounding and appalling.--If our country falls, it will be through the accursed principle of selfishness, manifesting itself in so many forms of ambition, jealousy, and love of lucre, and making victims of the noble and generous masses who have joyfully given up their all to the cause. The heart sickens when it turns from a pure and disinterested people, whether on their farms or in the ranks, to the greedy birds of prey who darken the whole air and drown with their discordant screams for prey the groans of the suffering and even the roar of the battle.
