The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1851-06-07
French Travellers I'm the United States
French and Ame rlcan JournaIIsn.

French Travellers I'm the United States
French and American Journalism.
Ofate, number Of travellers aud tourists OF the
genus Trolope, have coudescenled to visit tbs
United States, with the express purpose, enc is iu-
duced to think, of showing 20 the world their own
shallow-patedness, concet, folly, and mbecihty IL
is really amusing to witness ho~ when they
cut loose from the leadug-strings Of society in
Europe and visit the United States each carrying
with him his own standard of what this country
ought to be-these tourists founder and get lost in
the deep sea which they launched their tiny
canoes, and the ri iculous, absurd, and nonsensica
blunders into which they fall. 1t would appear
never to have occurred to them that to be capable
ofjudgng OF foreign country, its Institutions So
cial and political, and of properly understanding
and appreciating the people among whom he goes,
the traveller, who is DESTROYS of receiving informa
tion and Of imparting it to others, must possess
large and extended ideas, comprehensive intel
lect, and in feelings and affections be eosmopo-
lite, free from prejudices and preconceived notions
of every description. Such maa, to very great
degree was De Toequeyille, whose work, Demo
cracy in America is of the best, If not the best,
on America and its institutions, ever published,
and which will frd place in every valuable Ii
brary, while the hasty productions Of Tr,lloppe,
Marryatt, Dickens, al ii omne genus, speedily find
theirway back to the paper mills.
Such a tourist as the latter stamp, is Mr.. y
Mariner, who has recently written two volumes Of
"Lettres sur LAmerique," and who, We are
gravely informed, is French gentleman who has
devoted his life to travelling in foreign lands, but
who in our opinion has done to very little pur-
pose In quoting from the work of Nj Mariner,
BlackwoodS Aagaetn publishes, among other ex-
tracts the following statement of his concerning
the newspaper press of the United states, which is
the only point in these so-called letters which We
have either the leisure the inclination to refer to-
Here il isl
AS to the two thousand four hundred newspapers Of
which United States boast sign of the diffusion
Of enlightenment, it is impossible until has held
them in hand and read them with ones own eyes
to form idea Of such mass Of personal d'atrioes,
coarse chronicles puerile such confused
medley Of political and commercial notices mingled with
shopkeepers pus in and verse aud smothered In
of advertisements. Nothing that you see in
France give you idea Of these advertisements
They are daily inventory OF all Imaginable merchan'
giser Of all the inventions possible and OF every con
.yable trade. With the exception of
the New Orleans Bee aud of the Courier Of the United
States doth published in the French language do not
American paper-not evenkthe best OF all thai
of a distinguished poet Mr., Bryant-which can be com
pared for the order Of its contents and general getting
up the most unpreendng OF our provincial newspa-
pers As every considerable city publishes at least
dozen papers every little three the
sequence that attain sufficient circulation TO af
ford fair remuneration TO body Of able writer's Some
sustained by the funds of party men, whose organs
they and the majority exist only by the proceeds of
their advertisements.
This simple extract will convince our readers ofthe
general character of this French tourists book,
letters from America, and Of the mans cabre
The idea Of quoting the New Orleans Bee, (half
French,) and the Courier Of the United States
wholly French,) the best newspapers in the
countryside one not known beyond the locality
where it is published, and the other a wishy-washy
rehashed translation Of what appears in the daily
journals Of New York-is supremacy ridiculous.
Lest however, intelligent people in Europe should
be deceived by the ignorant representations of this
tourist, we shall bring few figures to bear upon
his assertions and by nstituting few comparisons,
prove satisfactorily that so far from American
journals being inferior to the provincial newspapers
Of France, one of them, at least, the Ne,1 York
Herald, a sample Of the two thousand, is infinitely
superior in every respect to the four leading papers
of France. We alude to the Journal des lDebats
LIE Constitutional, L. Sitce and Ia Patrie, all Of
which are published in Paris, and possess each a
large circulation. One Of our practical printers has
directed few hours to the task Of forming n compa
rison between the quantity of al kinds of matter in
the H1ad, single sheet and double sheet, and the
papers referred to, and here is the result
QUAsrrrY or Matter TYRE SER UP ~ Ems
CONSTITUTIONAL, MAY 8, 1851.