Valley Virginian

Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.

Staunton, June 13, 1867.

The particular sensation this week of this active, busy, sensational little city of the mountains has been produced by the closing exercises of the session of the "Augusta Female Institute," a school under the direction of Miss Mary J. Baldwin. This school is the largest institution of the kind in the State, and is now at the full tide of its usefulness and prosperity. The number of young ladies in attendance during the late session was ninety-six, drawn from nearly all the southern States. The spacious Presbyterian church of the town was filled last night to overflowing, to witness the distribution of diplomas to the graduates and to the proficient in the different branches.

After this ceremony, Rev. T. V. Moore, D. D., of your city, delivered an address to the pupils. High as was his reputation in this community, as a chaste and vigorous writer and thinker and most eloquent speaker, the large audience were hardly prepared for the beauty and brilliancy and eloquence of his address upon the occasion.

His theme--the character of the true woman, and her duties and responsibilities, especially in the South in this day of the country's trial, was handled in a most masterly and impressive manner. Not one, of that throng of beautiful young maidens, will ever forget the lessons of wisdom conveyed by the reverend gentleman in such charming style.

The audience before whom the address was delivered was certainly as appreciative as any which can be assembled in this State, and the universal opinion was that no production of a similar character had been heard by them of a higher order of merit. It is hoped that the distinguished gentleman will yield to the earnest wishes of those who heard him, and permit the address to be published. It was just suited to the times, and would be productive of great good.

I feel that I would do a real service to your many readers to direct their attention this most admirable school. Here, I assure you the great work of education is thoroughly done. The principal, Miss Baldwin, is a most remarkable lady--such an one is rarely met with more than once in any State during one generation. Possessing in an eminent degree the high traits of character marking her distinguished relatives of the Valley of Virginia, she is devoting all her energies and powerful faculties to the cause of female education in such manner as that the prediction is confidently made, that her school will at no distant day, take rank with the most famous schools of the country. This may seem extravagant, but mark the prediction, and you will certainly see it verified.

Your correspondent is somewhat a stranger here, but he has been much impressed with the "go-a-head-a-tiveness" of the Scotch-Irish people of this Valley. They are exhibiting an energy and a vim in recovering from the effects of the war which is wonderful. When they went into the revolution they went in with a rush. Mad all the time, they fought sullenly and desperately, but when it was over, they threw down their arms and snatched up their axes and their farming implements, and went to work to repair the damage which had been done, as energetically as they had pitched into their late enemies. They are an earnest people, and what they do they do with all their might.

On the 24th of this month there is to be a grand outpouring of the people of this county, to take steps to help your Richmond people of build the Covington and Ohio railroad, which all here see is the only thing which can save your beautiful city from certain death. Those people will back you in this enterprise to the utmost of their ability, and all here are speaking in the highest terms of praise of the sagacity and ability displayed by the Dispatch upon this and similar subjects. Long may you live in building up the fortunes of the State.

The current of human affairs flows onward, says the Richmond Dispatch, whatever be the disturbances and temporary impediments in its course. Men get alarmed occasionally, and fear that it is to be turned away from its channel, and that it will uproot and destroy everything in its way. But in a little while their fears are quieted because their apprehensions are not realized, and they find that if things are not as they wish them to be, they are certainly not as they might be.

Most events of these days are of the character of temporary disturbances, which will have little effect on the future of this country. The one great event of the abolition of slavery will be enduring in its consequences; but all the partisan movements and the excitements of the day will in a short time cease to have any influence and be forgotten. Abolition will have no permanent bad effect upon Virginia and the adjoining States, and may not have such an effect upon the Gulf States. Indeed, it will prove beneficial to Virginia, and help to increase her material resources, and increase her population and political power. But all the class of movements and disturbances growing out of party ambition and greed for office and emolument--all the tricks for the gratification of these, which are now alienating the two races in the South and producing anxiety in the public mind, will after a time be frustrated and brought to an end, leaving us not much the worst for the achievements. The current will continue to flow on and present so smooth a surface as to bear no sign that it had ever been disturbed.

We must have peace. A party sustained by hostility and hatred cannot exist in peace. The public mind under a condition of peace cannot be agitated to the height of passion and malignity. The office-hunters and place-holders cannot work up the public feeling to that point when all is quiet and order under a restored equality among the States. Everybody does not want office, and cannot get it. So a whole community is not going to lash itself into a rage because one man wants an office. The furious office-hunters trading upon sectional animosity, will find their capital gone, and their manufactured stories about southern disorders, cruelties, and brutalities, of no avail when the South is able to deny and disprove them--when indeed, she will have power that will command respect; and it will be neither politic nor safe to undertake to malign her.

Thus the war for office and power by warring on communities will break down, and white and black in the South will be left, as they ought now to be, to manage their own affairs without the intervention of outsiders. They will divide without distinction, and express their preferences without respect to the prejudices and passions engendered now under the delusive pupilage of selfish and unscrupulous imported partisans.

In this way we shall pass through a period of annoyance and trouble and reach smooth water in a short time. All that is necessary is calmness and fortitude. A straightforward, dignified policy, while trusting in the justice of an overruling Providence, will insure a triumph. Virginia has the men and the material advantages to insure also a prosperity and growth in physical power that will place her among the first of States in that, as she has been in moral grandeur. This is a certainty; yet there is that in her latitude, atmosphere, and topography, which protects her from that other certainty anticipated by the Charlottesville Chronicle--viz., the being overrun by northern sentiment and morality. The spirit and genius of the people will be Virginian as long as she remains a State. There is every reason against despondency. No man should think that the world was created at his birth, and will end at his death. Our brief experiences are nothing. The river of events will flow on, and all traces of the things we deem so momentous in our day will be washed away.

Manassas, June 15, 1867.

The Ladies' Memorial Association of Manassas, appeal to you to aid them in collecting and suitably interring the remains of the gallant men who fell fighting, gloriously, for you and yours, on this ever memorable field. The victories gained have sent a thrill of joy through every Southern heart and home, but, still, the bones of those who gave their lives to gain them, lie uncared for and unnoticed. Our immediate section of country was so devastated by the war, that we are not able, unaided, to perform the work before us. A site has been donated for the Manassas Cemetery, and here we propose to gather together the remains of all who fell in this region. We ask every one who lost a friend here, not only to render us all the aid possible, but to communicate with the President of the Association, and give all the information they can, about where their friends are buried, their Brigades, Regiments, Companies &c. We do not deem it necessary to make a stirring or eloquent appeal to the friends of the brave boys whose bones now whiten the "Plains of Manassas." The fact that thousands, from every State and County in the South, fell here, should be enough to make every one give his mite in aid of so noble a work, on so proud a field.
For the Association,
Mrs. Sallie E. Fewell.,
President.

Papers throughout the South, Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky please copy.

Did it ever strike the negroes that the important question to them was "can we live here, when skilled white labor comes in to compete with us?" It is the all important, for just so sure as day follows night, the tide of white immigration will follow the track made by the armies of free labor, in the South. They will compete with the negro at every turn, and it will require more energy and intellect than he now possesses to live with this competition, harassing and pushing him to the wall. The colored people had, and may still have, one chance to live here, and they should have clung to it as a parasite to the oak--viz, the prejudices and habits of working of the Southern people. But it seems they have determined to throw this chance away and go, as a body, with the enemies of their only friends. While we regret this determination on their part, we can only point them the dangers ahead and bid the white people be of good cheer, for this "important question" is certain to be settled in our favor, by immigration, in a very short time. It is for the negro to say whether he will share our great future or go to the wall. We must submit to the inevitable.

In Virginia, if the white men of the State are true to themselves, their wives and children and the honor of their race, the military bill does not necessarily doom us to political helotry. Our safety and the security of unborn generations can be secured only through the narrow defile of general registration. Promptly, with energy, and with a ceaseless vigilance which will send every white man to the polls, we must "accept the situation" in Virginia. Prosperity, security to life and property, the continual dominancy of the Caucasian race, all depend upon our doing quickly and thoroughly the work before us. We must kick from our path the bones of old parties, old prejudices, and all false ideas of dignity, and work to secure all that we can from the wreck and debris of what the civil war has left us.--Southern Opinion.

The papers from all parts of the South bear the same testimony;--that under management of the demagogues and office hunters, the population of the South is arrayed race against race,--black against white. The only contest is a contest of races. A thousand maledictions will light upon the wretches who have brought about this great evil, full of sorrow to both races and involving the destruction of the blacks.--Rockingham Register.

We have probably all of us met with instances, in which a word heedlessly spoken against the reputation of a female has been magnified by malicious minds until the cloud has been dark enough to overshadow her whole existence. To those who are accustomed, not necessarily from bad motives, but from thoughtlessness--to speak lightly of ladies, we recommend these hints, as worthy of consideration. Never use a lady's name in an improper place, at an improper time, or in mixed company. Never make assertions about her that you think untrue, or allusions that you feel she herself would blush to hear. When you meet with men who do not scruple to use a woman's name in a reckless and unprincipled manner, shun them, for they are the worst members of a community--men lost to every sense of honor, every feeling of humanity. Many a good woman's character has been forever ruined and heart broken by a lie manufactured by some villain, and repeated where it should not have been and in the presence of those whose little judgement could not deter them from circulating and bragging of the report. A slander is soon propagated, and the smallest thing derogatory to a woman's character will fly on the wings of the wind, and magnify as it circulates, until its monstrous weight crushes the poor unconscious victim. Respect the name of woman, for your mother and sisters are woman, and as you would have their fair fame untarnished, and their lives unembittered by the slanderer's biting tongue, heed the ill your own words may bring upon the mother, the sister, or the wife of some fellow creature.