JOURNALISTIC HYSTERIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4559, 30 October 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

JOURNALISTIC HYSTERIA.

That mysterious disease called hysteria (says the Pall Mall Gazette) is well known to be “catching,” and there are attested cases in which not women only but men have been afflicted with it. It has been communicated—we need not say how—to the Daily News, nor has The Times altogether escaped infection. To none can the wretched fact be better known than to the members of the Arctic Expedition, who must have wished themselves long ago far out of the bounds of civilised life, if only to escape from gushing articles, and from the maudlin and absurd letters of special correspondents, which are really calculated to draw upon us the ridicule of Europe. Our merchant seamen in unseaworthy ships bound for unhealthy shores, our North coast fishers, our whalers and seal-hunters run as much danger of disease and death, or being drowned or starved, with far less of coddling and comforting, and thinking nothing at all aboht it. The men of the expedition must feel ashamed as they read all the drivelling of which they have been the subject. The Daily News has told them that many of their number deliberately devoted their last night of leave to the pleasures of intoxication, and went on board exceedingly drunk. And then in a leading article they may read that the “whole heart of the nation is stirred and trembles, the blood beats more freely and fitfully,” and so on. And after this we get to a confused mass of jottings from Lempriere, metaphors, and comparisons which defy comprehension ; wo have “ triremes,” “ flying pennons,” purple sens,” “ the Isle of Sirens,” and the “Land of Eldorado,” the I “ghastly phantasmagoria of the White Land,” “ whirlpools,” “vortexes,” “tailed men,”' and the “ Golden Eleeoo,” “Thessalian waters,” the “spectre ship," the “Seven Hills,” and “the Sphinx." Even Panurge and the Ancient Mariner are dragged in, oddly matched companions though they are ; and we are assured that when they return “the men will inspire even in our prosaic age something of tho awe

with which the women of Verona regarded Dante, discovering in his dark face the features of one who had seen hell.” As for the letter of the special correspondent, it is difficult to convey any idea of its bathos and had taste. It is always easy to spin out by describing what some particular tiling is not, previous to describing what it is, so we have first the Black Watch exhumed thus : “ If the cheering that greeted the Black Watch, as the gallant regiment tramped through the town which was to convey it (?) to the swamps of Eanteeland and the hot fighting of Amoaful and Coomassie, found but a mournful echo in the sad foreboding hearts, whose tenderest fibres were mangled by the parting, it was with pomp aud circumstances ; . . . _ ■ but no pageant infused au adventitious thrill into the departure of the day.” Of course there is the “ aged mother with her stalwart sou the “ buriy seamau with his little wife hanging on his arm, clearly with but little between her and a burst of sobbing;” another, also a little woman, “ suddenly breaks down aud sobbingly sinks,” “ and one has a working in her throat which is not due to laughter.” The sailors strive to “ keep a stiff upper lip it is hardly necessary to say that with their frionds-they did not shake hands—they “ exchanged a handgrip.” “ There was one seeming misanthrope, a dry saturnine man, who took no heed of stray children, clasped no friendly hand in a hearty farewell, but sat grimly and companionless smoking a solitary pipe.” Of him we should have thought even “ a special ” could make nothing, and that over him there could be no gushing. Not at all. “Yet who knows?” he proceeds, “ The seeming misanthrope may have had a heart too full for intercommunion with his kind ; and as he sat thus isolated and apparently self-centred, may have been mentally recalling with exceeding wistfulness the last look from out loving eyes, the last caress, the touch of which he seems to feel upon Mm still.” Then a “ husband and wife stroll a little apart out of sight, and presently the man would come back alone, not inclined to be very free of speech just yet awhile, and with a telltale quiver about the mouth,” only to be confronted, alas ! by the special correspondent, who stands with inquisitive stare, notebook iu hand, ready to record, in his impertinent fashion, the result of his prying into feelings which should have been sacred from intrusion. Those who are not our wellwishers on the Continent will be reminded of the only prayer which Yoltaire was ever heard to offer up : “ Mon Dieu, rendez nos eunemis Men ridicules, mats Men ridicules.”