Journalistio Amenities.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3133, 4 March 1879, Page 1

Journalistio Amenities.

When Dickens set the roading^ world laughing drer the Vagaries of "■ the riral editors of Eatanswill, he rendered good serrice to the press, by awaking it to a sense of the folly and unprofitableness of mutual recrimination. It is true there are still newspaper writers, „. Skilled by a touch to deepen scandal's tints With all the kind mendacity of hints, who lire by inventing libellous' stories and disseminating tittle-tattle about their betters; but such writer* usually leare the gentlemen of the press unmolested, wisely preferring to pander to the tastes or supposed tastes of their readers by bespattering public characters—calculating too surely upon escaping their deserts by some poor apoloiy, ; should they be; e«Ued to account.

Newspapers of tlte Eattniwill type still flourish in i^ibeniiMi^wlie^e no. isprit de corps restrains the r gentlemen of the press from indulging their propensity for unpleasant personalities at the expense of their fellows. It ii So much easier to befool and be-rogue a writer than to reply to his arguments. Neither reason, wit, nor humor is required to ; caU an opponent a journeyman grammar-smasher; to say of him that " his nasty little sont is not large enough to fill the socket of a mosquito's eye;" or to describe him as "a berry tatterdemalion/* " a grit factotum," and epithets of a similar nature. Charging a riraV writer , with drunkenness is a farorite method of abuse. Commenting upon an article in the Virginia Enterprise, the Nerada Tribune speaks of it as haying, been "written! no, doubt, under the iriflueuce of a sort of regret fora misspent life. It is on temperance. Our virtuous and abstemious friend goes on in true teetotal style; and really writes a most excellent temperance sermon. We feel happy to know that our esteemed friend of the Enterprise his seen the error of his half-century life, and has determined to keep others from falling." Practised' as they are at this sort of thing, the journalists of the States might take a hint fronrtheir Canadian neigh* bors. When a politician 'named Glass was rather roughly handled by Mr Abra« ham of the Montreal Gaeet^e, a :'noted-;"for'"liis '-'lore -W - wnTiTiaUiyr :=tlie Montreal Transcript expressed its sentiments in the'cbupleii...

Strange, such a> thing should come to pats, That Abraham »hould dislike a, glass : !Bnt.'. ! 'Jack! asl gw>d,--«i^lwf ' '$$?* '• next mornings Gazette replied: ■..,.:, >

■ ■:-. The maion that it oomes to past) f v Is rthatitisanempty<:gknU jli I tj' Not that American journalisti we unequal to insulting by implication; fiiw understand the art better. A Galitornian editor invested in a mule, and the fact was chronicled under the heading, "Bemarkable instance r~of"lelf-posseision." Said one: Milwattkie • editor of another: °!He is ond 'ofthb'o^ journalists who can put anything in his month without fear of it st«aliifg^aflyihinK V- 1 and wHen a western editor wrote, " We cannot tell a lie (% was cold- yesterday;" hie rival quoted the remark witb the addition, ; "The 1 latter statement is incontrbteftible; but the fdrmeirP*' "R^flt-a'! . -n^;VP > Said an Idaho 'journal: <' The weather Hlg*be"ett hot again for the last few days; the flftly relief we got was to lie down on tn« P«ctlwd Hetfcld and eo?ec our^Wes with tke Portland Bulletin—there is a Hreat «ooln€S9 between them." This kind of coolness often brings about aaamusiug 'interchange of in^U^f!^* '^„P^ n io^tflalist deeUn^iniusjpw^th^ aeertarn eJ'^M mMm oflSwH"? 4 S?nrf«s^ ..**teineat «a unwarranted, /noid, of truthi and a and its author as a^ offending gentlescoundrel to.hpot.. The „" ,-i-haff to be man tepUed that; he%er *w^^^ understood; (^at ill^eVsereir T ,j Urn in one foot; and . the •dugusted: >„; , ( of the "sell," appealing to his reader^,' asked: "Are ithcse subjects which onght to be discussed in organ• whose duty it is to mould public opinion P'* An* notlier worthy, of whom an enemy affirmed that ho had just made tho strange diteorery that he could wag the his left ear, did not condescend to impeach the truth of the statement, but made matters even by declaring the man who gare it currency hid both bis au^ral appendages under such cohtroL as to be. able to fan himself'with them in hot weather.'

An American newspaper writer is only too pleased to.catch a brother tripping. - When 'one journal talked in ita leading article "battered thunder," a contemporary desired' to know if that had any affinity to "greased lightning"; forcing the explanation that'by a typographical error "muttered thunder" was what the article intended. , ,

When a Western editor wrote, •' We are living at this moment under a despotism," his opponent kindly explained: " Our .contemporary means to say he has lately got married." When a Southern paper asked": " What is editorial courtesy P" a Northern journal replied : " Why, it is when a Southern editor' is caught stealing chickens at midnight; and his brother editors kindly allude to the matter as a strange freak of somnambulism." An editor asserts that his ancestors had been in the^ habit of living a hundred years; to which another responds: " That must hare been beforo the introduction of capital punishment." The proprietor of a Western journal announced his intention of spending fifty dollars on a "new head" for it. "Don t do it," advised a riral sheet j "better keep the money, and buy a new head for the editor," that gentleman being en* dently, in his opinion,' "a young, man of frugal mental capacity/! as ah, Oregon journalist delicately termed another., So long as newspaper writers; .practice only on their own kind, they merely' run the risk of being paid back in Jheir own coin | but when, as is'the wont of. American journalists, they' throw mud at outsiders, retaliation is, likely to .take a very

different shape. Taking pattern from* an English, actress, a Mrs Thompson, offended by some remarks made by the Denver News anent her appearance at a balli went to the office of that journal and admonished her critic with a cowhide. Then, accompanied by her friends, the, angry dame proceeded to the office of the Deneyer Tribune, to insure that journal reporting the affair correctly. The sudden' appearance, however, of a large excited female in the doorway with a cowhide in her hand, Was too much for the weak nerves of the Tribune folk. The following effect was produced, as reported afterwards by one of the fair lady's assistants:—", Ward jumped behind his table and, fortified himself with one of Webster's/ uhabridged; while Dawson turned'6ff the 5 gas and disappeared under a pile of exchanges, after the manner in which a prairie-dog drops into his hole. This sudden, action of the editors, who were hurriedly thinking, over their own sins" of commission, so bewildered the lady ' with the cowhide, that by the time she found voice to tell them to come out and speak>to; her,! Mr ' Beckwith, the proprietor,; appeared in the rear and inquired.-: 'Madam, which one of the boys do you want to whip?' She explained that her visit'was not. a belligerentVone. Then Dawson appeared, note-book in hand, pretending that he had been looking for it under the table. Ward jumped from his perch, explaining that he, had got up there to straighten the brooks;, upon which Dawson observed that he didn't see why he needed to knock over the inkstand to make things snug; and Ward'retorted he never before saw anybody turn off the gas to hunt for a note-book." After telling her story, the lady,remarked, as Bhe>took her leave, that .there were. several i: other fellows in town she intended to serve in the same way; and now all the boys, who have been-a kittle too handy with their tongues are' Ordering /jackets of sheepskin tanned, with the wool on. — Chambers' . Journal. ,■■■ , •.,..-■. t...... -..-. -