The emigrant aid journal of Minnesota. [volume] (Nininger City, Minn. Terr. [i.e. Minn.]) 1856-1858, 1857-10-10
Itch for Scandal.


ternally diseased The prurient curiosity and passion
for scandal and bloody news prevalent in day are
serious morbid symptoms. They testify to deep
sttutona maades in the body polite and ecclesastc.
They show that mental attention is diverted from the
centre to the surface The love of the startling the hor
rble and the criminal is immensely stimulated by the
daily and weekly press. Society begins, like the old
lady, to its scrupes and relish its murders
Magazine literature has stock in trade which is fun,
another stock in trade which is blood and between the
two the public interest oscillates. When it cannot
breakfast accident it calls for joke When it is
denied pun it clamors for shipwreck riot. The
truth is, we are victims of gossip. News has caught
and disgusting publicity is carried into the sanctities
of home and the prvacies of daily life. The Athenan
passion for has passed beyond the bounds of a
single city, and has become the morbid appetite of the
civilized world -, ~
Let us concede that it is we'll to know the great facts
of society Grant that learning the natural his
tory of man when we record his acts of every day,
good ILL., exhibited the scale of cities and
continents The elopement, the murder, the mob the
accident significant hints of the sort of creature
that calls himself lord of this lower world. But what
demonstrate against morbid and demoralizng is,
the custom common Of going into all the vile details,
and daguerreotypng to the life the wound, blood lust,
villany Give the facts of the trial. but let the thou
sand disgusting particulars go. Some things too
bad to be published, and that not too bad
too abominably foolish to be entitled to that honor.
Record if you please the MURDER the riot the explosion
the forgery but let not the journalist nfame corrupt
Ia hundred thousand minds by putting in every word,
image nuendo oath, with which they may be garn-
ished We shall begin to think that stenography is
amenable at the bar of public morals. What for
ample could those said Scots have been thinking Of
when they poured all that more than French CORE
spondence of Madeline Smith lately tried for numbering
her lover in Glasgow, to the inspection of the world
Trial rht hotfor hsvo
is the cue, only select audience of spectators. ~
We seriously object to the publication of weekly
list of failures For it pampers the lust of scandal
1t gives opportunity for hate and malice to wound with
blow that cannot be healed It is not unfrcquently
proved defective or premature; and while it may have
plausible excuses, practised here and in Eng
land, it has substantial and fatal objections
But the worst Of all is what Addison calls Gospel
gossip Here the tongue is an unruly evil, full of
deadly poison How many of the difficulties Of par
shes, the frequent changes in the ministry, and the
small earthquakes in choir and church. arc due to ears
join in the unholy aance The cases Of church dsci
plipe, socaled, are frequently nothing than in
of the sacrifice of character and reputation At the
shrine of gossipry. So 4f2
We have general rule in publication. Proclaim
the good and let evil die We do wish to rake over
the kennel stir the fetid pool. We would not bring
tainted joints of meat and rotten vegetables to din
ner tables, and ought just little up to our
readers all the oathsome wicked and pestenal matter
with which journaldom reeks We do not require to
be told every morning that is weak is vile, that
ciety is out Of joint but concedng all that, and writ
ing the world base and corrupt you please, let
give the hopeful uad sde for there is one By the
present custom evil begets evil murder suggests
DER suicide multipes suicide especially when the in
fammatory details all given in the vivid COL
ors Be not overcome Of evil but overcome evil with
good.'-[Christian Inquirer. @'79@f
Tho alablt0 Of the Seal.