The Placer herald., 1859-03-05
A Frenchman on the American Press.


A Philadelphia correspondent of the Paris
journal L'Avenir, gives in letter to that
journal, his impressions of the American
press:
IF there is anything progressive in Amer
ica-and by America we proudly mean here
the United States-it is certainly the period
ica press Of every kind. You can hardly
imag on the other side of the Atlantic,
the formidable quantity of papers transport
ed by the mails or sold in the streets. There
is not little city or town, or village, that
has not the pretenson to tell to the uni
verse, through its journal, the decisions of its
Squire, and the arrests made by its police
man, when he does make any-a vary rare
thing. Everything is made public. Every
lawyer or doctor that wants to get business,
every sectarian that invents new method
of adorng God and of robbing his proselytes,
every charlatan that feels the need of produ-
cling his humbugs and exhibiting his clap
trap, has his paper Barnum has two of
them. The officially is not in getting a
thing inserted in newspaper, but getting
readers for it; the creating position for it
in this general melee. L: is, then that the
Yankee Imagination breaks out in sublime
fashion: so that it is the classic land of puff
inc. 1t assumes all forms-the most vulgar
as well as the most eccentric. 1t must
attract attention, and be read This peo
pie of traffickers care little for politics.
1t requires advertisements, and so these COW
er nineteenth part Of the newspapers
Each advertiser strives to give prominence to
his own announcement to the medley Of
publication recolect at the time of the
Crimean war; whilst the aspirations Of the
Yankees were for Russia, neither logical nor
honorable for them, as l think-advertise-
men,s generally commenced thus: 'Sebasto-
pol taken.' or 'Sebastopol not takeni' You
skipped over score of lines to get quickly
at the stirring news and found that even if
Sebastopol was not taken, Mr.. Goodyear
nevertheless, continued to sell vulcanized In
da rubber suspenders, calculated to remove
after some months wear, by the effect of the
electricity, the largest and the most annoying
protuberances.
To the American journalist every thing is
good to fill up their columns; the most pro-
voking scandals, the most improbable stories,
the most repugnant private relations. That
is particularly true Of the newspaper press.
Fennimore Cooper and Charles Dickens
have each attacked the discreditable black
mailing system exercised by those sheets
that exist in the lower depths Of the newspa-
per world. The newpaper is the life of the
United States citizen. 1t serves him for
everything is good for everything stands
him in lieu of everything. In it be writes
to his wife, to his friends and to his mistress
In it he gives an account of his money af-
fairs as we'll as of his love affairs, under a
veil more or less transparent. Be sure that
if two Yankees plant their wigwams in
gorge of the Rocky Mountains, the one will
be the journalist Of the other, who in his turn
will become the others banker, because
the bankers swarms as much as the journal
ist, and the daguerreotypist as much as both
together. l have no better amusement on
Sunday, the day when you are most prey
to emu; in all Protestant countries, than
reading these curious communications, for
which the newspaper acts as complaisant
colporteur. am collecting large number
that have copied, or rather cut out, accord
ing to the established custom here-a thing
which gives to the newspapers, perforated
by thousands of openings, the appearance OF
the house Of that good Counsellor Crerpel
spoken Of in Hoffman's book 'The Cremona
Violin"
Why LADIES SHOULD ROUGE. ETC.-It is