The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-26 00:00:00

AMERICAN PRESS.

In an article on "Editorial Perspective," the Nation
discusses a proposition to confine newspapers strictly
to news. It is asserted that the editors and re-
porters' functions not only differ, but are incompa-
tible. The business of the reporter or the corre-
spondent is a minute and cmfprehensive inquiry.
The editor's is the furtherance of a practical measure,
such as the extinction of slavery, the extension of
the suffrage, the acquisition of territory, the depres-
sion or the advance of shares. This practical turn
is likely to work havoc among the facts scientifi-
cally collated for his consideration by the reporter.
Suppose the latter concluded that Mariposa or
Pacific Mail was not so likely to rise as to fall for
various scuud reasons, while the editor bclieves
in either, then comes out the well-known article
beginning—" There are always some persons in every
.community ready to backbite and slander,and we are
not therefore surprised at se malignant allusic:es_
and misstatements designed to injure the financial
reputaCon of a great enterprise." The reporter talag
h;s cue from this, and thereafter paints in har-
mony Mariposa or Pacific Mail. And thus it always
is when the facts of a case become disagreeable to a°
editor, whose work must be made to accord with them,
the facts suffer. The reporter is of a sensitive
nature, editorial opinion acting on him with sudden
and irresistible power. He soon learns what todis-
close, what to hide, when to report broadly, when
hint a doubt. Separate the editorial functionwill
from the other, say many, and then there
be no conflict. . In this, however, lies no small
error. Of course the editor will Lever willing',"
surrender his double authority of distributor 01
news and public exhorter, for he is not willingly
going to yield that most delightful of human opeor'
tunities to another. But, suppose he did abdicate,
would the result be a perfect newspaper ? Far
from it. The selection of news is as difficult as any
part of the work ; and for such work, says the
Nation, we not only seem to have among us fey(
competent minds, but,worse than this, the tendency
of all newspaper training appears to be to take away
whatever natural fitness nature seems to have ori-
ginally provided. What is wanted is, in one word,
a sense of perspective. The first thing for a jour-
nalist is to be able to distinguish between the 101:
portant and unimportant, the true and false ; what
ought to be given to the world, and what to the
fire. Tne popular impression is that news comes to
newspapers as rain and sunshine do to earth, with-
out any unpleasant human exertion whatever ; the,
journalist having only to print what the bountiful
hand of Providence has sent to the office. But the
fact, as the professional reader will readily agree,
is quite otherwise. What he really does is to survey
an immense field of fact, rumour, fancy ; and 9
make a " composition" of it, throwing into rebel,
what touches, or ought to touch, the public
nearly, and keeping in the shade what is doubtful,
irrelevant, or, in its nature, private. This is Or
tirely in his power, and the journalist's right to bls
title depends on his sense of perspective, if he puts
uniteportant news in the foreground, and the impor-
tant out of sight, he has no right to exist. let this
distortion some gentlemen in the daily ptess consider
their charter of success. For instance, a column °f
telegrams from Europe is referred to as the latest
foreign intelligence, yet it formerly only contained
an unimportant extract from a Times or other leader
on French affairs; neither wise, witty, nor especially
well written. After these extracts had long UFO,.
solemnly I riuted day after day as news of the first
importance, the whole thing was one fine morning
stopped ; yet, if important, they have not noNr
ceased to ba so ; if unimportant, then why had the
confiding public been imposed upon ? A more ,
re-
markable case was the Curtis-Churchill nose-plik.
ing affray in Boston last fall. " The other daP
when Mrs. M‘Farland-Richardson was plunged l°
the deepestafilictinn by events of which everybody
had been informed through the enterprise of the
daily press, a reporter was sent to Boston to 6' her, and report for the journal with which he was
connected her condition and feelings. In this be
failed ; but not to be baffled, he set about disco-
vering whom he might interview, and his meinori,
recalled to him the name of Fisk, jun. Fisk, it
true, lives in New York, but Mrs. Fisk lives
.111
Boston, and there had been stories of matrimonial,
difficulties between the two. The reporter straight-
way rings Mrs. Fisk's bell, and proceeds to take
dmn what she may have to say on her relationg
with her husband. Next day, as usual, the publlC
is regaled with full particulars of the conversation;
But the most astounding illustration of the want 01
a sense of moral and intellectual perspective in the
e
very class whose business it is to put the events 01
the day before the public in their true relations 10
other events has been furnished within the past fell
weeks by the Cooke case. The Rev. Horace Cooke,
an obscure Methodist minister, elopes with an utteili
unknown school girl, leaving behind him a wife ao,.
family. A case can hardly be imagined in whlc'
the public have as- little interest as this, to 53.7
nothing of the exquisite cruelty to the families 10-
volved in publicity. Quite otherwise did it seernt°
the editorial eye. The story is raked out in all .
ts
disgusting details; column after column is devote::
to a discussion of the crime ; Cooke's history r
given ; the causes which led to his sin are analyse°',
and the whole country is scoured for memoires 101 i
servir. A petty scandal swells to the dimensioes.°,_
a public calamity. Cooke favours the public elm,
a card, and assaults au editor, and the reporter. 01
the Tribune interviews Mrs. Cooke—no other bell
admitted—(private and exclusive information abotlf
her feelings only to be found in the columns °
that great daily). What an odd condition the edi-
torial eye must be in when metropolitan papers have
come to this."

COURSE OF EXCHANGE.

Amsterdam Short ... 11 171 ... 11 181
Do
Rotterdam
... 12 1 ... 12 1
Antwerp
... 25 3i ... 25 421
Brussels
... 25 35 ... 25 42
Hamburgh — ... 13 10 ... 13 10i
Paris
Ditto
Marseilles
Frankfort-on-the-Main
... 1201 ..• 1201
Vienna
... 12 70 ... 12 76,
Trieste — ... 12 70 ... 12 70
Petersburg
... 281 ... 281
Copenhagen — ..). 9 21 ... 9 24
Berlin
Madrid..
Cadiz — ... 49 ... 491
Leghorn
Milan — ... 26 40 .., 26 45
Genoa — ... 26 40 .., 26 45
Naples
Palermo —. ... 26 90 - ... 26 45
Messina
... 26 90 ... 26 45
Lisbon — •... 51} ~ 521
Oporto — ... 52 ... 52}
Rio Janeiro — ••• ... --
New York ........
..,

The armoured iron frigate Hercules, Captain
Lord Gilford, arrived at Spithead Thursday after'
noon from Lisbon, and on anchoring exchanged
salutes with the flag-ship of Vice-Admiral Sit
James Hope, K.C.8., Port Admiral and Na'l
Commander-in-Chief. The Hercules will go into
Portsmouth harbour from Spithead, and while
lying alongside the dockyard will land her dis-
abled 18-ton Woolwich-built gun, and receive On
board the one forwarded there from Woolwich to
replace it.
LAD vEzaisxlfENT. j—Avoid Medicines they always aggro,rito
chronic complaints: but Du Barry's delicious health-restoring
Revalenta Arabic., Food, which yields three times the nourio'.
mentof the best meat, saves 50 times its cost in other remedn
and invariably restores perfect digestion, trong nerves, soon
lungs, healthy liver, pure blood, refreshing sleep, functional r'"
gularity, amt energy to the most disordered or enfeebled. We es
tract a few out of the 68,000 cures :—" The Pope's health restored'
:
by Du Barry's Food. Cure No. 68,413.—"R0me, July 21, 186
—The health of the Holy Father is excellent, especially sine„, ;
abandoning all other remedies, he has confined himself entirely
to Du Barry's Revalenta Arabica Food, of which he eonsuine°
a plateful at every meal. It has produced a surprisingly belle,
tidal effect on his health, and his Holiness cannot praisethis ea_t°
lent food too highly. From the "Gazette du Midi, July 25 Ow
No. 58,216, of the Marchioness de Brehan, of seven years' live
complaint, wasting away, debility, nervousness, with a nevi
ralpitation all over, bad digestion, constant sleeplessness, and
the most intolerable nervous agitation.." Cure No. 1,771; LOir.ie
Stuart de Decies, Lord Lieutenant of Waterford, of many Yea ,
dyspepsia. No 49,832: " Fifty years' indescribable agory fro
'"
dyspepsia, nervousness, asthma, cough, constipation, flatulen4
spasms, sickness, and vomiting.—Maria Jo] —Cure
46,270: Mr. James Roberts, of Frimley, Surrey, of 30 yea_ta
diseased lungs, spitting of blood, liver derangement, an
partial deafrlitis. Important Caution.—Beware of the 1133°1
unsavoury and more than sloppy imitations to which, withol
authority, Baron Liebiefs name is most audaciously attached'
In tins, at is iid; Ilb 2s 9d; 2 lb is 6d; 5 lb 115; 12 lb 22e.;
24 lbs 4 s.—Also I PARDY's RUNALENTA A RADICACHOOOLAT'
POWDER is packed in tin canisters: for 1.? cups at 2s, for 24 nal;.!
at Is 6d, for •,8 cups at 6s, for 283 cups at 30s, for 576 cups at 5'
—being about one penny per cup. The 30s and n5B tins are sell
free of carriage in England on receipt of Post Office Orderl
ARRY De* BARRY and Co., No. 77, Regent-street, London; a°
all Grocers and Chemists.

BIRT BS.
Inns—On the 23d inst.,. at The Grove, Hillingdon, the
Hon. Mrs. Augustus Irby, of a daughter.
LAMBERT—On the 25th inst., at Balhana, the wife of
E. Lambert, Et,q., of a daughter.

MARMA GM.
BLISS-13LooK—On the 24th inst., at Bighburv, 31r. Edwi°
Bliss, of Sun-street, Fin& ury, to Sarah Elizabeth, tl!!
fourth daughter of A. J. Brook, Esq., of 36, Arundel
-
square, Finsbury.
Coo( —JEwELL—On the 24th inst., at St. Gabriel's, War-
hick-square, James L. Cock, of 20, Cork-street, Burl
lington-gardens, to Emma (Ellice). eldest daughter 0
the late Robert. J. Jewell, cf Newport, I.W.

DEA7'IIB.

14XKING—On the 24th iust., at Streatham-common, JOll/1
Ranking, Esq., aged 74.
&VIM— On the 23d lnsL, at Stamford-hill, Sylvanus Sioe°'
• aged 34,

London : Printed and Published by WILLIAM AND E,.
Lof No. 12, Strand, Printer, at THE SUN Office, DO. 112, Stran''
in the Precinct of tho Savoy, in the County of Middiese%"
aturday, February 26, 1810.