The day book. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1857-1867, 1857-10-27


were discounting nearly all the reliable
paper offered. Money market dull.
The Ohio State prison, at Columbus,
was damaged by fire, on Friday, to the
amount of $4,000.
Rsg- The gates of oracular nonsense
and pompous foolishncss are finally
thrown open, and an inundation of "vain
philosophy shallow counseling, and flip
pant sciolism is roling,n muddy tide, ov-
er the whole territory of journalism. 1t
it is indeed portentous freshet, and may
the good angels bring lis deliverance from
its threatened consequences. Motley and
grotesque are the monsters swimming in
this flood, and odd enough, in all consci-
ence, the vermin which take wing from
its darksome surface and fill the air with
their dissonant buzzing
To adventure fence with the heavy
and long-winded knights of the goose fea-
Their, who have SO laboriously essayed of
late, in the publication of their remarka-
bic intuitioas to broaden and deepen the
current Of American thought We're ter
Tying function for an ''ornary indiwidu-
all to take upon himself. Neither is there
the ground of mere common sense to stand
upon in such "wager of battel;' for
these aerial-minded people have assembled,
1iatthoir grand and gay balloons, so near
To'the misty metropolis Of cloul-land, that
the earth lies far beneath them, and is no
nlofs any bigger to their seeming than
the narrow concave of a cup, or that
Swinging ball"whereto FARLEY writer of
the hornbook of geography, compareth
this same sphere they have forsakcn.
1t is not altogether the guild of editors
who have gone up to practice the interes-
ting vocation of amateur castle architects.
Out of the forgotten realm of defunct old
fogyism, from the region of dead theories
and entombcd systems Of political economy
and social ethics, sundry venerable gray
boards are issuing, with ancient pens that
saw hard service in the last century clutch
ed in their tremulous, bony fingers, and
claiming, in Difference to their respccta-
bility and age that the projections Of their
well-kept wisdom shall be spread before
the degenerate newspa per-readcrs of this
too fast and needless time. So these rever-
end representatives Of the past are courte-
ously allowed to have their say. Going
out to
''shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they RISE"
they make a sufficiently quaint cunning
party threaten considerable execution after
their own fashion, and with their clumsy
queen'sarms and blunderbusses. Unfortu-
nately, however, there is, now and then, a
Mr.. WADDLE, in this group of marksmcn,
who is chiefly formidable because nobody
can tell what heis going to do next. AL
though little innocent diversion is the os-
tensible intent with the whole party every
body in their vicinity is in some danger
from an awkward aim, an untimcly pull
ling of the trigger, an accidental shot, or
spent ball.
Now we are afraid that these antigua
ted newspaper sportsmen have already
done some casual mischief, in their ran
dom shooting. To say nothing of their
mistaken premises, and the preposterous
fallacies they have built upon them, in
their more ambitious didactic efforts
many Of their suggestions and bits of adj
vice thrown out incidentally to the pub
lie are extremely absurd and misohievous.