The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-06-16
MONDAY, JUNE Is, 1851.

HV- The New York Herald threatens to or
ganize system for reporting in the city press
of New York, by telegraph, the debates in Con-
gress--the day after they occur.
We wish the thing could be done. The
Northern people might then sometimes read the
speeches Of Southern members of Congress, and
learn to despise the ignorance and prejudice of
Northern editors. The Herald proposes also to
execute the printing Of Congress in New York.
This is rather too obiiging. We know that
New York has great enterprise and great mod
&c but we think it would be trespassipg on
-. magnanimity too far, for Congress to i'm
con her the labor Of the public printing
rhaps the New York Herald would also be
,illing to undertake all the writing in the de-
partments here, as well as the printing. With
such a formidable corps of reporters, printers,
editors, carriers, and correspondents, as the
Herald establishment contains, the government
itself might be carried on by contract, at very
low prices, and with extraordinary velocity.
We are afraid, however, that the experiment
of reporting the debates Of Congress, by tele-
graph, in New York will not pay. The vast null
titude of chambermads, carmen, porters, hack
men, clerks, and milliners, who constitute the
great body of readers and advertisers for New
York papers, will hardly pay even the low rate
of apenny day for such dull and prosy things
as speeches of Congress- They would crowd
out of the New York press vast variety Of ar
t;olo. onJ En-, ;oo y,ucb hattor odapfad a., A.
taste of that polite and refined metropolis.
There would be no room for the Forest d.
vorce case, with its high seasoned passages of
sensuality, comprehending, according to affi-
davits, all classes of society, from musical and
literary celebrities and editors down to chamber.
maids and cooks. There 70 Id be no room for
the Willis and Webb case, which promises to
occupy the courts and papers of New York for
the next twelve months, with its revolving de-
velopments of New York social and domestic
life. And then what would become of the long
morning report of riots, fres murders, accidents,
frauds, and robberies,-what of the daily ac-
counts of new humbugs, and new isms, which |
the teeming genius of that city never fails to
produce-and the amusements, the puffs, the |
squabb,es, the Barnum's, the Linds, &C., &C. ?
In word, the New York papers could find
neither room for the debates, nor readers of |
them; and then what would be the effect on |
Congress itself, of having the speeches of mem
bers served up verbatim the next morning in |
New York to the same classes who have the
night before been excited by the theatres,
operas, concerts, and other exhibitions! Why
the very consciousness which members would
have of thus virtually addressing such an au-
ditory, would give to the debates the dramatic
and extravaganza character of the French Cham
ber Speeches are now made for Buncombe-
but Buncombe is quiet, rural, and meditative
county. Speeches for the Bowery, and the
coffee houses of New York, would be totally
inapplicable to the tastes and interests of the
great body of landed and country constituency
We beg the Herald to reconsider its project,
and not run the risk in such rash undertaking
of running at once the circulation of the New
York papers, and the classic style of congress
sional debates.