Maumee City express. [volume] (Maumee City, Ohio) 1838-184?, 1838-10-27


thing. Considered only as the vehicle of in
telligence; with news of all nations lumber
ing through its columns, it is a very curious
thing. Not to stop to tell of its medleys and
melangcs, its contrasts and contradictions; its
strange jumblings of all things human and li-
vine, physical and metaphysical philosophical,
mental, moral and poetcal into one common
mass, and it's stranger juxtapositons of the
heterogeneous and incongruous without refer
ence to the consequent descriptions of the ideas
of the readers, or Difference for the rules of
dramatic unities, we pass on to tell Of still
stranger and more curious things still in re-
serve. 1t is OF ofpolitical newspapers that we
are to speak--those pithy and spirited dIurnals
and hebdomadaries which emanate from the
press, each one under the paternal superinten-
dence ofsome apostle of party, whose par
ticuar business it is, to whitewash the doings
and dogmas of his masters, to blacken and
blackguard those of their opponents--to seize
and appropriate to himself and his party, what
ever happens, in the changing round of public
opinion to become popular with the rabble and
to charge upon his opponents every thing that
the " vor popuH," (which with him is por
Dei) deems malignant and injurious. There
journals, while they are ruled, and by men or
setts Of men, in their turn, rule the people; or
what is, SO far as they are concerned, the same
essay / to do SO. Having tremendous
weight of responsibility hanging upon them,
their conductors are proportionate'y obstrepo-
rous and important. Like Archimedes, they
are only prevented from moving the world by
the want of a fulcrum to their lever, though no
impedlment exists to their bearing up the
globe, which they do (like Saturn upon their
heads. Stlted, unbending, with the fate of
suntold centuries and unborn generations
hanging upon their fiat, they grow enigmati-
cal as the Prophet jeremiah, and lofty as the
brazen serpent lifted up by Moses, in the will
derness. Their party is always high spirited
intelligent, incorrupt, and in the majority. Is
their party defeated? the people have been cor
rupted, through ignorance, Or frightened by
their opponents. Before election, they con-
gratulate the people upon the prospect Of gain
ing victory over themselves--after election
they exult as ifit had been achieved over a reg
iment ofragamufins, or whine as if the raga-
mullins had gained the victory over them. In
fine, the business of political newspaper is, to
drive, to cajole, to argue, to humbug, to gloss
over, to boast, to bamboos!e aud to predict 1t
is a life of fdIsquiet. of contradiction, of res
possibilities, OF pains, of labors and OF every
variety of mishaps to be its editor? Does it
not furnish matter for a philosopher to exam
inc, for moralist to weep oyer9 IL no.
is, thorough faced party
the most ridiculous of things, with
its solemn appeals, Understanding exhort4tions,
pathetic entreatics, or oracular warnings and
denunciations, full Of fire and fury
Its facts, its fancies, its statistics without
data, its interrogations without answer. and
EXPLANATIONS without point? Isn't it curious?
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