Atchison (KS) Freedom’s Champion, “Paying the Piper,” January 28, 1860

PAYING THE PIPER. There is said to be not a little commotion in Virginia about paying the cost of Gov. Wise’s military presidential demonstrations at Harper’s Ferry. What might have been accomplished without any guard at all, to wit, the safe keeping of John Brown, who did not want to escape – Gov. Wise employs seventeen hundred men rank and file to do. Besides this, Gen. Taliferro’s [Taliaferro's] staff number sixty-four chivalric Virginians, at per diem allowances of eight dollars – just eighteen larger than the staff of Napoleon when at the head of his conquering legions. All this was done to advocate Gov. Wise’s claims for the Charleston nomination. The tax payers of Virginia think it an expensive mode of electioneering, and that Gov. Wise ought to pay the major part of the cost.