TALMAGE ON NEWSPAPERS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 103, 7 May 1879, Page 4

TALMAGE ON NE WSPAPERS.

In the coarse of oqo of his sermons 00 " City Life in New York," the Rev De~ Witt Talmage recently said :— " Hastening on up a few blocks, we came where, on the tight side, We caw large establishments abiasafrom foondation to capstone. These were (be great printing bousea of ; tbe New York dailies. We went in. :Wa went up from editorial rooms to type-setters' and proof-readers' loft. These are the foundries where the great thunderbolts of public opinion are forged* How the pen, scratched! How the types rolickfed ! How the scissors out ! How the wheels rushed, all the r.©sag.o,v«r tba cylinder iikeflfiagßro a* Table;, fy>ck. GreaJ^tor^ots jof .opinion, of k crimes, .of . accidents,! oi of deairoyed reputation!, of avenged $fo*X*4&* - Wjib ca n . ,£BtinWie . ihe mightiness for gpod, or &v,i\ of a dailyi newepaper ? Fiogera oh atlael picking off «he end of teiegrapjiio wires facts of ralim'ou »n(I, phiioaopby and, io formation, from the four winds ofheayen' In 1850 tbe Associated Frees began to pay 200,000 dob a year for news, and ;8ome ; of the individual -fleets paying 50,000 dolj. a year extra for despatches. Some of, (hem* independent of ibe Associated Press, with a wire rake gathering up abeovea of ttewa .from all the great,Jharv^atfields oi the world. It i« high time that good men understood that ihe printiag-preas is the mightiest engjoe of all tbe centuries, ' The high-water mark of the printer's' type-case- shows the ebb or flow of the greatest oceanic tides of civilisation or Christianity. Just think of it ! In 1835 all the daily newspapers of New York issued but 10,600 copies. Now there are 500,000, and taking the ordinary calculation that five people read a newspaper, two million five hundred thousand people read the daily newspapers of New Yrirk! 1 once could not understand how jthe Bible statement could be true whea ifc says that shall be born in a diy.' I ,can understand it now^ Get jthe operators and editow convert-

ed, and in twenty-four hours the whole earth/ will hear the salvation call. Nothing more impressed me in tbe night exploration than the poWer of the press. But it is carried on with oh ! what aching eyes, and what exhaustion of health. I did not find one man out of ten who had anything like brawny health in the great newspaper establishments of New York. The mal odour of the ink, however complete the ventila tion ; the necessity of toiling at hours when God has drawn the curtain of the pigbt for natural sleep ; the pressure of (laily publication whatever breaks down ; the temptation to intoxicating stimulants in order to keep the nervous energy up, a temptation which only the strongest can resist — all these make newspaper life something to be sympathised with. Do not begrudge the three or the five cents you give for the newspaper. You buy not only intelli gence with that, but you help to pay for sleepless nights, and smarting eyeballs, and racked brain, and early sepulchre."