Not only do the leading
articles teem with coarse personal abuse of political opponents, but a
rival journalist is often freely stigmatized by name; his antecedents
are viciously dissected, and the back-slidings of his great-grandsire
paraded triumphantly; though this is an extreme case, for such an
authenticated ancestor seldom helps or hampers the class of which I
speak. A year of such ignoble brawling must surely be sufficient to
annihilate more moral dignity than most of these small Thunderers can
pretend to start with.
One is prepared for anything after seeing whole columns of journals,
boasting no small metropolitan and provincial renown, filled by those
revolting advertisements, that the lowest of our own penny papers only
accept under protest.
Upon one point, certainly, all agree--constant distrust and depreciation
of England; and, all things considered, I know no one spot on God's
earth, where the hackneyed old line can be quoted so complacently by a
Britisher:
Sibilat populus, mihi plaudo.
It would be unfair, not to give the American Press credit for great
energy and ability in collecting intelligence from the different seats
of war. Considering the vast surface over which military operations
extend, and the immense distances that often lie between the scene of
action and the place of publication, it is really wonderful to see how
copiously the New York journals contrive to minister to their readers'
curiosity.
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