[correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.]
the treatment of prisoners North and South--a Contrast — indignities to ladies. Richmond, Jan. 10, 1862.
Recent Northern journals bring to us copies of letters written North by Yankee prisoners confined at the South, as well as the published statements of those who have been released from confinement and generously permitted to return to Lincolndom.
In every instance that your correspondent has observed, they represent that they are treated badly at the South, which, to my own knowledge, is a barefaced falsehood.
They are treated twenty per cent, better here than are our prisoners North.
For instance, when Capt. Rickett's was released and arrived North he, with his wife, gave an outrageous account of how they were treated while in Richmond, when the fact is generally known that the ladies of Richmond — among the foremost of whom, I believe, was Mrs. President Davis--gave them all the attention and kindness imaginable.
So much for that case.
Now, let us see what treatment is bestowed upon those from the South who have been so unfortunate as to have fallen into the hands of the Yankees.
I recollect of an instance which came under my own personal observation, while on a visit to Washington city.
There were about a dozen Confederate prisoners brought to that city.
They were marched down their principal street, Pennsylvania avenue, to be shown off to the Yankees.
While going down the avenue, guarded by a few outlaws, every indignity was permitted to be inflicted on them — even the negroes were allowed to step in between the guard and slap them in the face, the guard not offering a word of remonstrance for such outrageous conduct.
Such treatment is not permitted South.
They are treated, on the contrary, with too much kindness.
In a speech made a few days ago by Mr. Ely in Washington, he said that a young lady of Richmond made him a present of a beautiful writing desk.
If such was the case, under all the circumstances, she must be in some measure related to the Yankee nation; for I cannot think that a true Southern lady would be guilty of such indelicate conduct, to say the least.
I am also informed that it is the practice of our Government to allow fernals to go North without being subjected to search.--Now, when a lady leaves Baltimore to go to any part of Maryland, she is thoroughly searched, her baggage and person, to see whether or not she has any contraband article about her. Not long since a couple of Southern ladies left in a steamer from Baltimore, for one of the lower counties of Maryland.
The steamer was taken to Fort McHenry, and remained there for five hours.--The ladies were taken in the ladies cabin, and two old Dutch women of notorious reputation, who have been hired by the Lincoln Government to search all females leaving that city, were sent to examine them.
They were required to divest themselves of their clothing, all to one garment; the lining of their bonnets and shawls, even, were ripped open in order that nothing ‘"contraband,"’ might be carried away.
Without finding anything, however, they were permitted to dress themselves and proceed on their journey.
Their trunks were then searched, piece by piece, by a guard of vagabonds, a part of the Baltimore police, under the Yankee Marshal of Police, Geo. R. Dodge, who owes his living to the Southern population of that city, aided by his officers, Deputy James L. McPhall, another unprincipled scoundrel, who sold his country for a few dollars.
Instances of this kind daily occur in Maryland; and, Mr. Editor, why should we ignore all examination of these Yankee women, who are so often facilitated by our Government on their journey North, in the face of such indignities as are visited upon the pure and refined ladies who have the misfortune to reside in the midst of such vagabonds and cut-throats as almost universally characterize old Abe's hirelings?
Let us retaliate upon them — it may be the means of arresting them in their diabolical practices in future.
If old Maryland should be redeemed — which I think she will before long — there is not one of those worthless hirelings who would be allowed to remain upon her sacred soil twenty-four hours. God grant that the time is not for distant when she will be free, and forever throw off her letters from the Lincoln tyranny.
Hoping that the good people of the Southern Confederacy will take warning from the above, and that our Government will soon devise some means to aid the down-trodden and oppressed patriots of that State in their efforts for liberty is the sincere prayer of a
Maryland Refuge. 