MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 921, 10 July 1871, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

" The editors of the state of Ohio," the Pall Mall Gazette mentions, "have lately held a convention, and some of their proceedings must be regarded in the West as revolutionary. For instance, the following resolution was passed :— ' Resolved, that we deem it unprofessional on the part of conductors of newspapers to indulge in personal denunciation and defamation in connection with the discussion of general and local topics, and that we consider it to be the duty of editors to discuss questions of public interest upon their merits, and in an impersoual manner.' The paper which reports the proceedings seems to have hardly caught the spirit cf the occasion, for it tells us that { Mr C. M. Nicholas vacated the chair in favor of Mr, Veneering Saxton, a redfaced stuffy old cock, who stumbled at every particular word of every separate resolution.' This speaker, appealing to the self-satisfaction of his brethren, remarked : — ' There are sixty or seventy editors met here now who must see and feel that they are all good fellows ; why not remember that when we separate, and keep our pens off each other !' The resc lution did not pass without oppositior. The editor of the Wooster Democrat said that 'if the editors chose to publish to the world their admission that they had been making ruffians and blackguards of themselves for years past they might do so ; he never would. He had always conducted his paper without blackguardism, he had never called names, never said a man was a liar unless he' was, and he could prove it.' It remains to be seen whether this movement will spread. We should judge that it has not yet readied Texas, as the same mail that brings us the above proceedings brings also the following ingenious calculation in the Austin Gazette: — 'Should the brains of a decent white man be deposited in the Mississippi River at St. Louis, ten drops of river*water at Vicksburg would fairly represent the intellectual capacity of Senator P. !"'

A writer in the British Quarterly Meview thus speaks of the new head of the French Government : — "As to physical appearance, it is impossible to conceive a more ignoble little being than Adolphe Thiers. He has neither figure, nor shape, nor grace, nor mien ; and truly to use the most unsavory description of Cormenin (^Timon') looks like one of those provincial barbers who, with a brush and razor in hand, go from door to door offering their savonnette. His voice is thin, harsh, and reedy ; his aspect sinister, deceitful, and tricky; a sardonic smile plays about his insincere and mocking mouth ; and at first view you are disposed to distrust so ill-favored a looking little dwarf, and to disbelieve his story. But hear the persuasive little pigmy — hear him fairly out— and he greets you with such pleasant, lively, voluble talk, interspersed with historical remark, personal anecdote, ingenious reflections — all conveyed in such clear, concise, and incomparable language, that yon forget his ugliness, his impudence, and dishonesty, and, as Rosseau said in one of his most eloquent letters, 'in listening are undone.' As a journalist he was successful, as a historian he was popular, as a minister he was notorious, and national to a certain extent. He has, no doubt, many talents and many defects, but his success in life is more owing to his worst vices than to his negative virtues. He is probably the most intelligent man in Europe, if a perception of the wants and wishes of the million indicate intelligence; but some think him also one of the most insincere, mocking, and corrupt of public men, and at the bottom one of the shallowest in all sound knowledge."