Alexandria advertiser and commercial intelligencer. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1800-1803, 1801-10-21

| der, and running IN deby, and running
away, and fuicide. Now, if man tap-
pies Gig or ten or twenty dozen Of thcfe
amuhns events will happen in a Jingle
year, is he not juA as wife as anothe, man
who reads fifty columns of amazing par
,iculars, and of courie trezrs thar they,
have happened' This fate has alroi one
hundred thoutand dwelling houies. 1t
would be frange if all of them N,ou.d et-
cape fire for twelve months, Yet is it
very profitable for j man TO become deep
Rudenr of all the accidents by which they
are continued He mould take good care
| of his chimney Corner, and put fender
before shc back log before he gees TO bed.
Having done this, he may let his aunt or
grandmother read by day or mediate by
night, the terrible newlpaper articles of
hres-How maid dropped aeep read
ing romance and the bed clothes took
ire-how boy, tsarchins in garnet for
hoard OF nuts, kindled icme Aax-and
how mouie, warming his tail, caught it
on fire and carried it into his hole in the
floor.
Some ofthe hooking articles in the pa
pers raife hmp,e, and very fmpIe, wonder,
fome terror, and iome horror and difguR.
Now what inarutsion is there III theie end
leis wonders? Who is the wifcr or happi-
| er for reading the accounts of them /? On
the contrary, do they not fhock tender
| minds, and addle lllallow brains. They
make a thouiand old maids ard eight or
ten ,houiand BOBBY boys afraid to go to
bed alone. Worfe than this happens.
For fome eccentric minds are turned to
mitchell by iuch accounts as they receive
of troops of incendiaries burning our cities.
The ipirit of imitation is contagious, and
! boys are found unaccountably bent to do
as men do. When the man few from the
feeple of the North Church fifty years ago,
every unlucky boy thought of nothing
but flying from a iign pof. 1t was once
| falhion to fab heretics, and Ravailac,
| who fabbed Henry the 9Th of France, the
anahin of the Duke of Guile, and of the
lDuke of Buckingham, with many Others,
lonly followed the faihion. Is it not in
the power ofnewfpapers to fpread fahions,
land by DINING burnings and murders in
fevery body's ears, to de,ain all rah and
miichievous tempers Oh fuch fabjetts long
enough to wear out the frt imprefiion of
horror, and to prepare them to act what
they 70 familiarity contemplate. Yet There
feems to be fort of rivallhip among print
T ers whe fhall have the mott wonders, and
| the itrangett and moii horrible crimes.
This tafe will multiply Prodigies. The
| luperti,ious Romans uled TO forbid reports
of new prodigies while they were per-
| forming facri6ces on fuch accounts.
| Every horrid ttory in newfpaper pro-
duces fhock, blu, after fome time this
ihock lenens. AT length, fuch ftories are
10 far from giving pain that they rather
raiie curioity, and we deire nothing 70
much as the particulars of terrible TRACE
dies. The wonder is as eafy as to fare,
and the mott vacant mind is the mott in
need of fuch relources as colt no trouble of
lcrutiny or reflection. l; is fort of food
for idle curiohty that is ready chewed and
digeaed.
| On the whole, we may Unfit that the
increaiing falhion for printing wonderful
tales of crimes and accidents is worfe than
ridiculous; as it corrupts both the public
tate and morals. 1t multiplies fables,
|! prodigious monitors and crimes, and thus
makes knocking things familiar, while it
wi,hdraws all popular attention from "a
miliar truth, becauie it is not ihocking.
Now, MeGrs. Printers, pray the whole
honorable craft, TO baniih as many murders,
and horrid accidents, and monarous births
and prodigies from their gazettes as their
readers will permit them, and by degrees
to coax them back to contemplate life and
manners, to conGder common events with
iome common ienfe, and to itudy nature
where The can be known, rather than in
thofe of her ways where Che really is or is
| ranya(ap,a5 tn ha ;oevnl;c,b1s