The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-20 00:00:00

Purification of the Press.

(From the Lancet of May 20th)

The moral force of public opinion is adequate in
this country to effect changes more extensive and
more important than those which the most powerful
despotism can permanently or safely develope. All
history has shown that the press cannot be safely
moulded to the will of any central authority ; that
it has never been placed under censorship without
causing, even to imperial and autocratic censors,
the most infinite pains and mortification, not the
least being that of seeing all that is most noble in it
languish and wither. But out of its own freedom
arises a power which controls and guides it.
That wide promulgation of facts, that free discus-
sion of opinions, and intelligent deduction of prin-
ciples, which are essential to the existence of a free
periodical literature, culminate in conclusions so
forcible and so widespread, that they, have greater
weight than any declarations pronounced arbitrarily,
or of which the bases might not have been so plainly
and strongly laid down.

This process may be traced in the gradual purifi-
cation of the press from those immoral pseudo-
medical advertisements which till lately defiled the
columns of a very large number even of the most
respectable journals of this country. It is perhaps
hardly necessary now, and here, to reiterate that
which is known to all our readers—that the large
gang of medical pretenders carrying on this shame-
ful traffic have found in public advertising the means
of attracting thousands of persons of all classes,
whom they systematically deceive and plunder, while
they morally debase and physically injure them. The
trade is well known to be regularly organised. It is a
widespread conspiracy against health and morality ;
and the nefarious but most profitable traffic has been
conducted mainly, in the first instance, by a few
families, of which the numerous members traded
under different names, by the aid of the enor-
mous publicity purchased for their obscene pamph-
lets in the advertisement sheets of the press. It
has been shown that one firm alone has spent up-
wards of £40,000 a year in this way, and that one
single paper has profited by this means to the ex-
tent of many thousands a year. This paper is, we
regret to say, one of the very few influential jour-
nals which have not yet ceased to soil their treasury
with profits which are justly stigmatised as even
more infamous than those derived from the slave.
trade. It would be difficult to find any enterprise
more unpromising than the attempt to persuade a
large number of proprietors of any commercial un-
dertaking voluntarily to forego, from purely moral
considerations, and without any compensation,
large annual profits—profits indeed which, in many
instances, form apparently a most essential
item in the success of the undertaking. This, how-
ever, is what has marred in this instance. The
public exPosure of what has long been perfectly
known to many, although never so completely
proved before the world, has produced a strong and
general conviction of the extreme impropriety of
allowing this traffic to be carried on through the
columns of respectable journals. Many of the most
powerful and intelligent organs of public opinion
had always been alive to the enormity of this evil,
and had regularly excluded such advertisements ;
but they formed a very small, although very dis-
tinguished, and influential minority, Their in-
fluence and example have greatly aided the pro-
gress of this purification, towards which we have
lately earnestly laboured. Anxious to ascertain how
far this important movement had extended, and
what great organs of the press were still undecided
to give their aid to a measure so desirable for the
public health and morality, we took measures re-
cently with the view of obtaining that information.
Those who have the public welfare seriously at heart
will be gratified at the, very long list, which we are
authorised to publish, of journals which exclude im-
pure and objectionable medical advertisements. We
have not thought it right to draw distinctions here
between journals which have always excluded such
advertisements and those which have adopted that
resolution more recently, or are in the act of carrying
it out as is the case with many in this list. Those j ournals
which have always done this will have the gratifica-
tion of being able to point out in their own columns,
in referring to this matter, the honourable position
which they occupy as leaders. Many of the journals
which have recently adopted this resolution have
done so, we are aware, at great loss ; in one case
this amounted to little less than three thousand a
year. The sacrifice made by journals of lesser cir-
culation, although smaller in amount, has been some-
times greater in degree, for in such cases th subsidy,
to the extent of two or three hundred a year, was
a matter of prime consideration in the annual re-
venue account. The list is, one, 'therefore, of great
public interest ; it is one, too, which reflects no
small honour on the press of this country, as it
speaks of great pecuniary sacrifice voluntarily in-
curred from a sense of propriety and duty, and of a
just subordination of the commercial spirit to a sense
of right. It is painful to know that there are still
many exceptions. There are journals in numbers
which, with one excuse or another, present still
to their readers columns polluted with the
abominable suggestions of Private Friends, the
indecent frauds of Guides to Manhood, the
shameless confidences of pseudo-philanthropists,
whose alias is hardly a disguise. In London, it
will be observed from our list, they are few, al-
though one or two largely circulated daily and
weekly papers in the metropolis are conspicuous by
their absence from the list. In the country the
number is greater, and in several counties it will be
that influential and highly priced journals are yet
open to this reproach. Their columns still afford
the means to the unworthy fraternity of retaining
a certain hold upon the weak and unwary ; and we
have before us many newspapers 'of which the
advertising sheets are so defiled as to be ut-
terly unfit for admission into respectable families.
We look forward, however, with some confidence to
the entire extinction of this public nuisance ; and in
reiterating this appeal to the proprietors of those j our -
nals, whether in town or country, we would express
the conviction that while, on the one hand, a further
examination of this question will induce them to
enter more fully into the reasons for ceasing to aid
in the execrable traffic which now lives mainly
through the purchase of their assistance, on the other
hand, the growing force of general condemnation,
and the multiplication of the examples of purity
amongst all classes of journals, will render it dan-
gerous and undesirable, even in a pecuniary sense,
to continue to lend a helping
hand to this worst
kind of quackery.

We are glad to be able to subjoin the following
list of journals, including 185 of the most influen-
tial country papers and 61 metropolitan papers,
ic exclude objectionable medical advertisements.
whh