The New York Herald

Our Baltimore Correspondence.

BALTIMORE, Nov. 9, 1859.

Social and Moral Degradation of the Monumental City.

Since my last I have rambled around a good deal, and, with the exception of a day spent in Washington, have passed my time in this, the city of my birth, among many of my old friends, collecting, as best I could, the real sentiments of all classes. Alas! how sadly changed is the social and moral tone of good old Baltimore! The pleasant, chivalrous, piquant feelings of former days I fear have passed away forever. In their place prevails a studied, sullen, savage acrimony, underlaid by a semi-religious strata of the most bigoted and intolerant character. In every part of the city wherever I went the recent outrages, or the bloody record of the past five years, was the common topic of conversation. How truly has it been said, "No man knoweth what a day may bring forth." Who would have ever supposed that in the midst of this enlightened and Christian city, in the broad day, and in the presence of numbers of his fellow citizens, such a man as Adam Barklie Kyle is conceded to have been could have been pursued by a desperate gang, and after he had taken shelter in the third story of a quiet private mansion, brutally dragged from his place of refuge, and while in possession of six of his captors, savagely murdered before he reached the street? The heart recoils at the recital of an outrage so cold, so cruel, so dreadful. The darkest and bloodiest pages of the French Revolution have been outdone.

Those were--The sudden crimes engender'd By the down thundering of the prison wall. And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd. Gushing from freedom's fountains--where the crowd, Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud And trample on each other to obtain The cup which brings oblivion of a chain Heavy and sore--in which long yoked they plough'd The land. Not so here. Here where power is presumed to emanate from the people where the strength of constitutional government secures to every man the privileges of a free man; where the crushing curse of despotism is supposed to have no existence, and where the humane and charitable doctrines of Jesus Christ are almost hourly preached from a thousand altars, there exists no such palliation as might be offered for excesses in the crime fed capital of France. As I stand upon the beautiful hills of my native city, I gaze with admiration upon the wonderful spread of improvement--the noble structures and the tapering spires which pierce in all directions the cloudless skies. In silent rapture I listen to the Sabbath bells, and memory, dear, delighted memory, carries me back to the bright and cheerful days of happy boyhood--the pleasant sail, the merry sleigh, the vocal frolics of a night. Where are they now? Where are they? Turn to the bloody scenes of Wednesday last, and let them answer.

The recent so called election has created a profound sensation. At no time since Maryland played so important a part in the Revolutionary movements of 1775-'6 have the intellectual energies and reflecting patriotism of good and true men been so thoroughly aroused. Kyle's murder and the dastardly assault upon the democratic nominee in the Third Congressional district have capped the climax. Every honest man shares in the grief of the venerable Adam Kyle, and feels the treacherous blow inflicted on William P. Preston. This feeling of grief and indignation is not of a partisan character. I have yet to meet the first man who sanctions, in the most remote degree, either of these outrages. The American party condemns them as sincerely and severely as the democratic or reform party. Both are looked upon as the offspring of that degraded ruffianism which it would be uncharitable to hold any political organization accountable for. The lamented Kyle I had not the pleasure of knowing. Mr. Preston I have known for nearly thirty years. I saw and spoke with him the day before I left for Washington. He was looking remarkably well; the cheerful, unostentatious kindness so characteristic of the man; his bright and playful smile, and the full and musical tones of his earnest voice, were as effective as ever. When I heard of the assault I could scarcely credit it. I thought he was the last man in the community upon whom such an outrage would be committed. Since my return I have taken pains to investigate the matter, and find intelligent persons concurring in the opinion that the assault was chargeable, not to any mere political objection, but to a passage in Mr. Preston's speech delivered a few days previously, at the joint discussion in the court house at Towsontown. At that meeting were several of the ruffians, and at that time they attempted to interrupt him. The election took place the following Wednesday. The "bloody fraud" and wicked contest were again "renewed," and the bold and fearless speaker treacherously stricken down, whether by the hand of some ruffian prompted by a "Clodius," or some mere brute wincing under the speaker's eloquent rebuke, remains to be discovered.

Can we wonder that in such a state of society men should breathe hard and women tremble? What man with the smallest considerations for the institutions of his country, his home and fireside, and the children growing up around him, but must dwell with torturing solicitude upon the probable future? The laws degraded, perverted and despised--Christian precept and example trampled under foot--murder, bloodshed and brutal attempts at assassination stalking abroad at noonday.

The Governor of this State has just issued his proclamation for "a day of thanksgiving and prayer," on which public acts of devotion and gratitude are to be offered up to the Creator and Governor of all men, for the blessings of the past year. Oh Baltimore! Baltimore! clothe thyself in sackcloth and ashes, repair to the tombs of thy murdered victims, prostrate thyself before Almighty God, and in the bitter humiliation of penitent remorse, pour out the vials of thy grief.

Communities, like families or individuals, may be educated to a degree of degradation almost inconceivable. The process is even more swift than is generally supposed. Commence by insidious attacks upon the law--find facile or corrupt adjuncts in those empowered to administer it--immunity from crime soon follows, and very shortly every fiend-like passion rages. As naturally as the sparks fly upwards, villains congregate around the decomposing body corporate. I speak knowingly when I say there are gathered together in Baltimore at this time more desperate villains than in any other city of the United States. These men care nothing about politics--they are neither democrats nor Americans, but professional plunderers, willing to act with either party, and watching an opportunity to sack and destroy should the occasion present itself. They are able to estimate with extreme accuracy the force of their position, and the moral calibre of the police. The condition of this city is well described in the language of a distinguished poet:--By numbers here from shame or censure free, All crimes are safe but hated poverty. Prepare for death, if here at night you roam. And sign your will before you sup from home; Some heartless drunkard, reeling from a feast, Provokes a brawl, and stabs you for a jest.

I go farther: I assert that, but for the Spartan virtue and manly firmness of the powerful and populous Eighth ward, this city would ere now have been subjected to indiscriminate plunder--the banks would have been broken into, and the specie taken from their vaults, with less difficulty than attended the destruction of the ballot box in the Twentieth ward. Who would have stopped it?--the police?--the police who stood smiling by while a ruffian with a loaded gun menaced and openly obstructed the right of suffrage?--the police who made no arrests while volleys of musketry were fired in broad day from fortified houses adjoining the polls? Let no man underrate these remarks or say they are rashly made: rather let him receive them as the suggestive voice of deliberate caution. A timely warning was given in relation to the meditated onslaught upon Harper's Ferry. The warning was not only unheeded, but treated with derision. Behold the result! I repeat again, the city owes more to the Eighth ward than will ever be acknowledged. Every man in this community knows that on the day of the election every ward in the city except the Eighth was surrendered to the ruffian control of lawless men, who trampled under their feet with reckless impunity the laws of the land and the laws of God. Every man also knows that during the entire day, the Eighth ward was not disgraced by a single outrage. A peaceful dignity commensurate with the occasion prevailed throughout, and every legal voter, whether democrat, American or reformer, deposited his ballot without the slightest interruption. Oh, what a commentary upon the scoffs and sneers so cruelly cast upon the "oppressed of other lands!" At the closing of the day, in nineteen wards out of twenty in this large and populous city, the bird of Jove, as an emblem of the law, lay prostrate, trembling and in the dust. How truly may it be said:--So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart That winged the shaft which quivered in his heart. Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel; While the same plumage that had warmed his nest Drank the last life drop of his bleeding breast.

The dawn, however, is breaking. I shall, I believe, have the pleasure to see my beloved home regenerated--the Monumental City disenthralled. The Legislature in both branches is largely democratic, and ruffian rule in Baltimore will be effectually crushed. Even if this had not been the case, I am told that several of the members apparently elected by the glaring frauds of Wednesday last had determined not to take their seats--a course reflecting more honor upon them than ever could be gained by exercising power won by fraud and sealed in blood.