The Nashville Daily Union

Incredible as it may appear to those persons who are always proclaiming the liberality and generosity of the Chivalry, even as the Pharisees of olden times proclaimed their innumerable virtues, the great organ of Rebeldom says that the "vile lusts of avarice and extortion rage almost universally in the South," and that "the whole South stinks with the lust of extortion :"

In the developments of the war we are waging there is one lasting stigma on its moral character. We refer to the almost universal rage in the South of the vile lusts of avarice and extortion, in which native Southern merchants have outdone Yankees and Jews, and have not only defiled themselves, but inflicted a burning disgrace upon the nation, prostituted a noble war to the most infamous purposes, and blackened their country in the eyes of the world.

The whole South stinks with the lust of extortion. The extent to which it prevails in this city is enormous and shameless; trade is reduced to a devilish art to make money out of the distresses of humanity: and, that hypocrisy may be added to other diabolical accomplishments, the extortionists take the upper seats in church, talk patriotism, and give into the subscription box small pinchings from enormous gains; dandy preachers and hospital matrons take these filthy gifts of the plunderers of society as tokens of the liberality and patriotism of the donors.

The lengths to which corruption has gone in this community are almost incredible.

A single instance may serve as an illustration. Through the active and enlarged exertions of the government clothing bureau in this city, contracts have been made with a number of mills in the South, by which it has been agreed that they shall furnish supplies for the army at stipulated prices. Some days ago an officer purchased at this bureau for his use a piece of cloth at two dollars and sixty cents a yard. This, the government price, was largely remunerative to the manufacturer; it paid him a considerable profit, and he was satisfied to obtain that without grasping for the utmost gains of avarice and extortion. The price of the same style of cloth, manufactured at our doors in Richmond, was inquired at stores on Main street: the reply was sixteen and eighteen dollars a yard.

But we ask if it is unreasonable that any vice should follow, after the enormous and all comprehensive one of treason?