The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3011, 18 February 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1881.

The Melbourne Age has a vigorously ! writteD article on what are known an society journals, in the course of which it is remarked that it may appear j analogous to breaking a butterfly upon a wheel to compare the society journals i which flourish in the mother country and have recently been introduced into Australia, with pornographic printp. Truth, The World, Vanity Fair and Whitehall do not rely for their success upon foul details chosen for no other reason than their foulness. They rather owe their success to the vulgar love common to vulgar persons, who are anxious to be thought upon the verge of society, to know what is going on amongst the classes whom they foolishly regard as their betters. The success of society journals in due to the same foibles which Goldsmith satirises so severely in the Vicar of Wakefield when he tells bow his Grace the Lord Duke called out three times, in a loud voice, " Jemingham, Jerningharn, Jerningham, bring me my garters." The number of guests at the Countess of Southdown's ball, the dresses worn by Lady Wilbelmina Araminta Skeggs on that enchanting occasion, the flirtation of Lord Deuceace with the Honorable Julia Dnmbello, ami probability of its ending in the orthodox way at St. George's Hanoversqnare, rather than in the lady having to waltz through another season a forlorn spinster, a r r , topics of the most profound interest a* Olapham and Camden Town, amongst people to whom the affairs of the Southdowns and Dumbellos should have no interest whatever if they had the slightest respect for themselves, and who would not know one of those grandees even if they met them in Rotten Row. And yet Mr Tompkins, the stockbroker's clerk, and Mrs G v rdy the wife of the emincLtly respectable Ua-dealer, read the weekly twaddle of Mr Yates, Mr Labouchere and the rest of the tribe of society journalists with as much zest as if their solvency of salvation depended upon knowing Burkes Peerage by heart, and they follow the proceedings of Mayfair and Belgravia with as much attention and care as a student of algebra would devote to the solution of a problem in quadratic equations. Bat although apparently quite different in their scope and object, it is none the less true that from the society journal to the pornographic priut is but a step, and that not a very wide one. The line which divides sprightliness from licentiousness is speedily passed over, and from telling anecdotes about Mrs Langtry and the other professional beauties to inventing coarse lies about their private life, and raking up -candals about their history and antecedents, the distance is much less than the society journal editors care to • acknowledge. It is only fair to state that no charge of immorality can fairly be laid against any of the society journals which have been fouaded in Australia. But we are not quite cure that they may not drift into it. Competition is just as keen amongst these small-fry of the press as amongst more pretentious periodicals. They commence by being filly, they may end by being wicked. Their readers w»ll soon tire at being told the dresses which young ladies wear at lawn parties. Milliners' French is not very interesting at the best, and it becomes a little wearisome by reiteration. The young women themselves are at first gratified by the easy publicity which they acquire, and their feminine vanity is tickled by the implied compliments to their beauty and good taste. But some society editor, ambitions of success, and eager to acquire a large circulation, may see—or imagine he seen—a short and easy road to notoriety and wealth. He perceives that journals have jumped at once to a condition of apparent prosperity by simply chronicling that Tom Titmouse was in Burke-street last night, and that Miss Canarybird looked very pretty at Mrs Goldfinch's party. He may determine to go a step further, and adopt the same means for forcing success which gave to a French pornographic journal, not twelve months old, a circulation of 150 000, which is twice as much as all the high-class daily newspapers of Paris put together. He begins to invent scandals about both the Titmice £nd the Canaries, he violates the sanctity of the home and the decencies of society, he fills his paper with direct lies and foul insinuations, until at 'ast justice interferes, and the pornographic journalist meets with the just punishment of his offence.