The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-09 00:00:00

JONATHAN JOURNALS.

Do our readers know what is meant by a Jonathan-
ism ? We guess they de. It i, an inconceivable ex-
aggeration—a l iughable impossiblty—a step beyond
the sublime. It is naountin4 a ladder to shave one's
self—having a nose so long as ti require two steps for-
ward to take a pinch of snuff—m- being so tall as to be
unable to stand in the open am! Jonathanisms usually
appear in this country as tid-bits from the American
newspapers; and,indepcndenily of their risible properties,
are not without value as illustrating the peculiar idiosyn-
crasy of our Yankee brethren.
No extract, however, from the American newspapers
can convey the slightest notion of many of the newt-
papers themselves. EJeb, with a few exceptions, is in
itself a Jonathanism, as marvellous at any expressed in
its letter-press. It is something huge, hyperbolical,
monstrous! It is a tall ;-cloth, a counterpane, a car-
pet ! Like the ladies of some eastern countries, these
journals pride themselves of ly on the hugeness of their
dimensions. The title of one is—
" The Yankee Nation,
The largest paper in all creation I"
But " The Jonathan" beats " The Nation" to smash,
while " The World" is still larger than " The Jonathan."
'lhen there is " The Boston Notion, the Mammoth
Sheet of the World! !" There they are, stretchel
out before us! They must be measured, not by a foot-

rul, but by stridci. Any one of them would supply a
lady with papillots for a twelvemonth. How valuable
to a dressmaker for cutting shapes! What treasures
to a schoolboy in the season of paper kites ! What
ducks of drop-scenes for boarding-school theatricals!
Nothing in this country is comparable to them unless it
be the West Pennard Cheese, which measures three
feet in diameter, and weighs ten and a half hundred
weight ! It would seem as if the vast river?, the wide-
stretching forests, and interminable prairies of the " far
west," magnified Yankee conceptions, and whetted the
public appetite for the marvellous !
In this out-heroding of Herod, in the matter of
public Journals, we confess we cannot well see any
object. The breadth of Brcther Jonathan's leghoriz is
a protection against the sun, the width of his nankeens
is valuable for ventilation, and the hugeness of his jokes
is a provocative to laughter, but it would be difficult to
discover an argument for these mammoth prints. Toe
arms of their readers do not lengthen along with them
—neither have t'• ey necks like swans, or constructed
on the eliding principle of the tel The object of
newspapers, moreover, is to diffuse light, not to cast
shadows, and one of these at a window would darken a
whole room. While, too, respectable old gentlemen wcie
engaged in their perusal, what flirtations might not be
carried on behind! A good screen is, in many cases, a
sore temptation. Such of the young as have crusty
old guardians to watch over them, will, doubtless, en-
courage the system ; for what liberty to them can equal
the liberty of the press ? Teen fancy them bound to-
gether—the newspapers we mean—into volumes! Why,
they would dwarf the folios of old time into pocket-com-
panions ! The opeaing of them would be like the
throwing wide of folding doors. To be read, they would
require to be elevated on a stand, after the manner of
the Herschel telescope, with a screw seat like a piano-
stool, the reader mounting it at its full stretch, and
wheeling Jim Clow now and then, until by degrees he
reached the bottom of a column ! Or fancy a single
copy posted on a wall—why it would require a suspen-
sion scat, similar to that used by plasterers in fronts of
houses, for the industrious reader to hoist himself up and
down at will ?

No doubt it will be a marvel to many how the enor-
mous broadsheets to which we refer are filled, with
what description of matter, and by what amount of
libour. The let'er-press, however, is fabricated eery
much like the paper on which it is printed—only, in-
stead of rags, we have pl iys, magazines, and novels,
I.ctures, essays, and sandrics, tumbled in higgledepig-
gledy, and coming out broad, fresh, and smooth, as
iron► a mangle ! In place of reviewing a book, their
custam is to insert it entire. Accordingly in one cor-

ner is to be seen a play in five mortal acts—in an-
other a couple of veritable sermons, followed, perhaps,
by some dozen chapters of " Charles O'Malley,"
or " Humphrey's Clock," together with wood-cuts,
patches of music, rhymes scattered here and
there as from a pouncet-box—not mere poet-corner
effusions, but cantos of six or seven hundred lines—
tales, essays, and comic,lties innumerabi'. As for the
purely editorial matter, it comprises generally a com-
pound of political and theatrical gossip, dissertations
on loco-fucoism, and on the length of Fanny Elisler's
petticoat ! Such scraps of news as they contain are
set down in a st)le studiously ecceetric. The editor
usually stands out in person, and labours to convince
the public that he is a right comical Yankee. He courts
familiarity with his readers—curries favour with the
young la,lies—entreats subscribers just to look up to
his office and examine his blank receipts—and says
sharp things of his brethren of the broad sheet. It is
not often he sum-dies a grave and earnest commentary
on passing events, and any idea of forming an en-
lightened public opinion seems rarely to cross his brain.
He reeks to astonish, not by the magnitude of his
views or the el issic brilliancy of his composition, but by
his clever use of Yankee slang—and, above Si, by the
exaggerated dimensions of his particular organ. This
is not a wholesome condition of the public press. It
is pandering to national follies, and fostering a diseased
nationality. How much better than a dozen such
rapers, to establish a single Journal presenting, like
same of those in London, a concentration of talent, and
tending to instruct, to improve, to dignify the national
character!