The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1857-04-22
What q First-class New England
Newspaper may do for New Eng
land

w -
Newspaper may do for New Eng
land.
New York has long taken tho lead in
the journalism Of the country. The big
daily newspapers first originated in that
quarter. For several years, these papers,
from their immense scope, frequent is.
sue and liberal outlay to Editors and
Correspondents have contributed more,
we venture to say, to the formation Of
opinions, political literary and moral
than all other agencies combined They
have penetrated every nook and hamlet
in the country they have come up into
the cars and steamboats,, into Libraries,
and reading rooms. aud public places like
the frogs Of Egypt They address them
selves with success to persons who read
nothing else, and to whom it is enough
that their paper endorses doctrine or a
dogma. For many, the newspaper does
all the thinking that is done. A aippnnt.
plausible article ffectually disposes of a
subject, and from this disposition there
is no appeal. The country paper, it is
true, is taken for local purposes, but its
very nearness and the familiarity of its
topics tend to divest it of influence. The
standard Of opinion must be set up afar
off for to Yankee more truly than to
all others, it is distance which lends en-.
cbantment 10 the views.
The consequences of all this has been,
that the peculiar ideas of New England
have been gradually losing their distinc'
tive character, even il New England -
The intellectual activities Of the section,
which have Dot been exercised iu money
making. have shot off into metropolitan
channels and have run into New York
noulds. There is hardly a boy in the
country who is not familiar with all pcs.
sible manifestations of New York rascal
ity. Some fue morning q double sheet
Of the Tribune announces, for instance,
the extinction of the Wing party; and
and to four fifths Of its readers, the ex.
tiuction is thereafter a fact. A blatant
lender converts whole communities to the
abolition of capital punishment, and
shakes the settled belief on the subject
of women's rights. or the more important
doctrine Of the marriage relation. One
after another the great topics of reform
come under view, until at last NJ sub
jet of human responsibility remains IN.
touched. Every thing is brought to the
STANDARD of human philosophy, as under
stood by the Tribune, tho Times or the
Herald, and is there approved or condem.
ned. The country papers often take the
cue and fall into the same channels Of
thought Even religious journals capt.
waited by schemes of fancied improvement,
join in the cry, until public sentiment
becomes at last revolutionized. The re-
suit is too obvious to require comment.
The once cocl.bloodod, calculating Van.
kce, forgetful Of his ancient landmarks,
and carried away in this or that direction
iseIposed on every side to a worse than
ultra southern fanaticism. Not as Of yore
does he take counsel of his judgmcnt t
and of the laws of God, but of his feel.
i~gs and of his newspaper.
1t is in view of those considerations
that We are grati6ed to fud Newspaper
which we may hope will be dawn in the
East, The Traveller comes to us this
week from Boston on large double sheet
and in such appearance as to warrant the
hope that il may be a successful repre-
sensitive of a genuine old fashioned New
England sentiment. II it proves true to
itself and to its section, we may hope for
a return of opinion into its old channels
and for re inauguration Of New England
thought. If such be the course it pro.
poses to ITSELF we hope soon to see it
taking the place of more questionable
newspaper literature, aud bid it God
speed as messenger and harbingei Of
light.
If, on the other hand, it proposes only
to initiate the papers of other sections,
and furnish merely diluted reproduce
ton of their, or like material, we sincere.
ly hope il may come to an untimeiy end
We do not believe the Traveller will
content itself with such a position. We