A fourth of July Hoax.
--The Petersburg Express, of yesterday, has the following paragraph:‘ A friend who is acquainted with the people of Norfolk and Portsmouth, assures us that the letter which we extracted from the Baltimore American and published in our paper on Wednesday, purporting to give the proceedings of a meeting of the "Norfolk and Portsmouth Union League," is a hoax played off on the gullible editor of that paper. The chairman of the meeting, Robert Batt, Esq., of Portsmouth, is a man of extensive reputation, being no other than Bob Batt, the grave digger, a very respectable mulatto, who made himself very useful during the yellow fever epidemic. James Green, Esq., noted for his munificence, who so handsomely contributed $1,000 for the support of the families of soldiers in the Yankee service, is the veritable Jimmic Green, the miser, noted all over Norfolk and vicinity for the dirty and degraded manner in which he has always lived. Dr. D. W. Todd is a Water street quack of no position and less character, and Dr. Z. Sykes is a pepper doctor, utterly worthless and beneath contempt. Among the other names may be recognized some of the traitors whose conduct has disgraced the city and State, but there are none, we are assured, who ever were esteemed or respected before the war.
They were creatures of fortune, ready to take sides at any time with the strongest party, or with that side which would pay best P. H. Whitehurst, who formerly kept a negro groggily, is the leading man among them G. E. Kociler was appointed by Lincoln mail agent on the N. & P. R. R., but never assumed the office, because of his fear of being mobbed at this end of the lies.
’
