Evansville Daily Journal

A Proposition for Exchange.
The Richmond Whig, of the 5th of
June, urges the expulsion from the rebel
capital of "some fifteen hundred or two
thousand Irish and German women,
who are now living there on the score
that their husbands have gone over to
the Yankee service." The Southern
gentleman who writes this in one of the
leading rebel journals, shows his gentle
breeding by the way in which he speaks
of these unfortunate women and their
children. He says: "They do not pretend to do any kind of work, and spend
all their time in running from one place
where charity is dispensed to another,
just as hogs, in the fall of the year, run
from one apple tree to another."
We have no doubt the husbands of
these "Irish and German women" would
have preferred to enter the Union armies; but there is every reason to believe
that they have been conscripted into the
rebel ranks, and have either died there,
or are still forced to fight for these rebels, who now propose to expel their helpless wives and children.
When the slaveholders in 1861 told
Russell, the London Times' correspondent, that when the fighting was done they
meant to put down the Irish, he only expressed what was in the heart of every
slaveholding rebel, who sees in a free
working man a "mudsill," a "filthy mechanic" and a person dangerous to
slavery.
As to sending these Irish and German
women and children into our lines, we
can only say, they will be welcome. The
men of the free States have never refused an asylum, safety, shelter, food,
clothing, and kind offices to helpless
women and children. But when they
come to us, let our Government send
South, to Richmond, an equal, or, better, a double number of the rebel women
with whom the boarding houses of New
York are crowded, and not less than
twenty thousand of whom are known to
the police. By such an exchange we
shall be greatly benefited.—N. Y. Times.