The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-21 00:00:00

SLASHER AND GUSHER.

The London Review comments thus whimsically
o out of Sensation,
thea ti orno, on hasiog been
of
th
et the u
upon what it calls—that peculiar style which has
proved so successful of late, that Leader, by Penny-
a-li
favourite
tthoron
which it began ever since. prouebilici'us
and made
For the composition of such articles are necessary
the following ingredients :—A perverte
taste, an ear assailable by no amount of cacophony,
a contempt for the pure well of English undefiled,
a partiality for mud, a tendency to snivelling, and
a very strong stomach. Add to these a knowledge
ghly d
of slang, a power of invective, tant-soit-peu ac•
quaintance with the notabilities or flash characters
of the day, and a sensation-leader writer's stock-in
trade is complete. Complete, that is to say, if
he be a slasher. But if he be a gusher, he must add
a small store of Biblical knowledge, for quotation
Magdalene, starved paupers, or
painful subjects or occasions as
purposes, and an aptitude for "piling up the agony,"
edsepaetchibaelldys,ucpoonnt
ground-down agriculturists. It is by no means an
exaggeration to say that the lamented death of the
Prince Consort has done more for the promulgation
of the gusher's plaintive platitudes than any event
since the establishment of penny journalism. 1-
...11
the Gusher's declarations that he would not intrude
upon the sorrows of bereaved royalty, and his sup.
positions pictures (which he could ;not
refrain
from drawing) of royalty in its bereavement, he
rsintechm
brought into play all his longest words, his choicest
_
quotations, his deepest aspirations, his
' •
mate acquaintance with Cruden's Cone most intl.
Concordance.
mere fact that all flesh isThe
grass
to him to make hay while the was a hint
a Standpunkt whence he sun shone, and
deduced
of moralizing, in a manner columns
tenderly respectful to the occupants which, while
Castle, was yet highly consolatory of Windsor
of Yingsland, and the prim- to the denizens
Town. Fortune has primitive settlers in De Beau-
voirthe Gusher in lately been very kind to
affording
The arrival of the him a plenitude of subjects.
of the Prince fPrincess Alexandra; the marriage
o Wales; Prince
Malta; the death Alfred's fever at
of Lord Cl
in the yde ; the Queen's return
to duty
Memo-
rial; fin ll inauguration of the Aberdeen
as' 1 the 6(
great divorce scandal," have
afforded him magnificent opportunities—of all of
which he has duly availed himself—for the display
of his loyalty,
and
his
y, his patriotism, his virtuous indigna-
tion,crocodile tears.
The Slasher
is a writer of a different type. He is
a would-be roysterer ; a light free-lance, kept down
to gravity by his over-weening sense of what is
due to public decorum. Satire is his natural
vein, but in his duty to the publio it must be tem-
pered with scorn. The cynicism of Diogenes must
be mingled with the ringing philippics of Demos-
thenes, and the playful satire of Thackeray must
find vent in the blunt outspokenness of Carlyle.
The slasher is nothing if not natural it is his
favourite boast that he calls a spade a spade. Like
the cock in the fable, he delights in dunghill-raking,
and many are the gems which he there finds, and
to which he calls the attention of the world. Far.
fetched as are his themes, it is his boast that by his
skilful treatment they are brought home to vulgar
Mi
a comprehension, and welcomed with d -
ratien b
the ordinary British tax-payer. y