The Beast.
Since his late snubbing by Mr. Ould, the Beast is in a great and glorious passion. He expected to be recognized as a civilized person in the very gateway of the capital where he had been proclaimed an outlaw. He imagined that, by a little blarneying and wheedling, he could make Confederates forget the blood of Mumford. But, if we are weak at all other points, our memory is excellent. If we have not been able to avenge the demoniac murder of Mumford, we at least have not forgotten it. When the Ethiopian changes his skin and the leopard his spots, then may the Beast cause the blackness or that devilish deed to pass from our recollection, and change the red spots of the blood he has shed to white. He is a malignant and deliberate murderer as ever stood at the bar of a Court of Justice on trial for his life, and in no other light can he ever expect to be looked upon outside the limits of the United States, in which country murder, so long as the victim is a Confederate, is considered an accomplishment, and has attained the dignity of one of "the fine arts."A Yankee correspondent informs the World of great and terrible things that Butler intends to do if the Confederates retaliate for murders committed by his officers. --He says it will be a day of sorrow for the Confederacy when they do that thing. We have no doubt he means what he says, and that he would cause to be massacred in cold blood, if he could, the ten thousand Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout, who lately gave him such a complimentary reception, for any one Yankee villain's life taken in retaliation for deeds of blood. Having murdered deliberately one innocent man, he is capable of murdering ten thousand, provided they have not arms in their hands. The correspondent also announces that, in Butler's opinion, the refusal of the Confederate authorities to permit themselves to exchange prisoners on his terms will kindle just such a fire at the North as was aroused by the fall of Fort Sumter, and that multitudes will rush forward to take Richmond and deliver the prisoners. Well, the fire kindled at Fort Sumter was put out at Bethel, and the multitudes who are crying to take Richmond may meet the fate that other multitudes have met half a-dozen times before. Nobody need be afraid of the Beast except the unhappy victims that fall into his hands. This is not the first time that he has threatened to seize Richmond. The war was opened three years ago, when his headquarters were first at Fortress Monroe, and he is no nearer Richmond now than he was then. The first battle — that of Bethel — took place under his auspices, and we trust the last may take place under the same generalship. Not that he took part in person in that battle, or ever has, or ever will, in any other, but it is of happy augury that he has been brought back again to his old starting point. We trust that the war, which begun with a Little Bethel, may end with a Big Bethel, and that will be the closing scene in the career of the most infamous being that lives.
