SOCIETY IN AMERICA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 154, 27 June 1878, Page 4

SOCIETY IN AMERICA.

(Otago Times correspondent ) !t>an Francisco, May 13. As I anticipator! ia ra y last, the Baecher-Tilion scandal, has broken out in a new place. Mrs Tilton published a carol in which she admits her adultery with Beecher, and Beecher rejoins denying that she was "guilty of the great offence." As usual, opinion is divided. Beecher's friends would not convict him although they had ocular demons (.ration of his guiif, while the vast mojority of cleanly-minded people are disgusted. But Beecher profits by Mrs Tilton's card. He is on a lecturing tour, and so greatly has it revived his popularity that several newspapers state that it is a clever advertising trick of his agent, Major Pond, of the Boston Lyceum Lecture Bureau, while that gentleman alleges fhat it is a case of black-mailing. In any case, it is a mud volcano which vitiates the moral atmosphere. Following the renewed Beecher ssandal came an infamous charge againßt a Methodist Episcopal bishop, a man over 70 years, and hitherto of unimpeachable repute. The Chicago newspapers published what purported to be letters addressed by him to a young lady, a ward of his, who had been recently married, fall of suggestive and licentious matter. Reports of misdoings of a promiscuous character were likewise published, and the .details were telegraphed all over the country as the most acceptable kind of news. It turns out lhafc the whole affair was a malicious libel, the letters having been fabricated by a discarded suitor of the lady. Yet the Jaw in this country affords no protection to innocent persons, and the sole remedy in this, as in similar cases, is the bullet. No issue has been had in the Bishop M'Coskry scandal; but public opinion would justify the shooting of the slanderer while cherishing the scandal. In truth, such is the morbid condition of American society that a fresh sensation is demanded almost daily. 'Ihe Plymouth Church scandal contains nothing new. The novelty of "neat-hiding* had passed But the Michigan bishop's scandal possessed the salacious piquancy needed to stimulate the sated appetite of the public. For this reason it is certain to engross public attention, despite its utter untruthfulness, until new sensations in social life supplant it. And unhappily these are of frequent occurrence. So vitiated has the public taste become that men and women deliberately do and say things revolting to morality and religion for the sake of newspaper notoriety. Indeed, not a few of the most serious crimes committed in this country may be traced directly to this cause. It lies at the root of the more unamiable traits of American character. It influences politics, commerce, the bar and bench, and is the power which absolutely rules the pulpit. Everything is got up fbir 'display. Shoddy reigns, sincerity has no footing; the Press, no doubt, is responsible for much of this : but then, it must be re membered, that the newspapers of a free country reflect the popular taste. They cater for their constituents ; and when newspapers serve up daily messes of filth and obscenity, or magnify the doings of criminals and rascals, as if they were the acts of heroes and public benefactors, be sure the community is not much; above the level of such literature. The American Press undoubtedly does much to make crime popular by its method of narration ; but the American juries treat crime with extreme laxity.