Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1864-06-08
DELINQUENT SALES TOMORROW
:" WHATS THE NEWS P"

The people of every nation, civilized nan
civilized and barbarous, have their Pecuual
phrase of salutation; from the " nave you
eaten rice :" of the Chiuaman, TO the hello,
Cam" of the polished miner Of the Sierras;
but there is a supplementary interrogatory
which is the distinctive phrase Of the free
born American, no matter from what section
oft Great Republic he may hail. That
question is inevitable it is, Whats the
news?" II one should meet at the gate OF
Siug-Sing or San Quentin an unfortunate
friend who had been immured within those
walls term of years, it is 4 good bet of ten
TO one the convict would be asked, Whats
the news :" The improbability of the inter-
rogated party being in the possession Of late
and important intelligence, seems not to
enter into the calculations Of the questioner.
There seems to be a craving anxiety to know
exactly what is going on at the present mo-
ment, or has recently tranSpired, no matter
where, or concerning what or whom, so long
as it is the news" At time and in such
4 state of affairs as We are living in, it is
natural that this desire to be fully posted
upon all things sublunary, should manifest
itself in an unusual degree. The question is
propounded more frequently, more eagerly,
and with an apparently stronger expectation
of its being answered. News, or rather
rumors as TO the news, are constantly flying
about in every possible shape and variety, a
grand conglomerate of truth, exaggeration,
and absolute absurdity and the inquisitive
mind of the public is ever upon the
strain to segregate from out the mass
what really is the news. Every
individual who has been out Of ones sight
an hour, is supposed to have in the mean
time picked up some item Of iDtelli-
gence, and the salutation on meeting him is
to 4 dead certainty, whats the news
Above all other men, the man that makes
the newspapers is supposed to know 1t all;
and to him the grand question is put almost
in the shape of demand. He may have
Just emerged, yawning from his blankets
and be making a straight wake for his matu-
final " eye-opener;" but he is supposed to
have in the first illumination OF his optic,
taken a comprehensive view of the present
condition Of mundane affairs; summed up
the events of the world, transpired during
his brief S,umber; became intuitively endow-
ed, and the stalking embodiment Of "news"
foreign and domestic. For one to pass an
editor or reporter knowing him to be such
without asking whats the news :" would
be circumstance to be recorded in the book
Of marvels. To such an one the question is
propounded peremptorily as who should say
upon :he highway "stand and deliver" or
show far is il to the next house" He Of
the press-Eang is expected to come out in
ssanter. To profess to be unpossessed Of
ANYTHING late and important in the way Of
intelligence is to be suspected of subterfuge
and intolerable reticence Of criminally con-
eealing, for unworthy purposes, news" that
the public ought to know and have right to
know. The editorial statement that "the
wires are down." or the reporters stereotyped
assertion that Items are scarce are re-
eeived with shrugs and winks demonstrative
of the profoundest incredulity. The news
paper maker is not regarded by the popular
eve as the compiler Of "news," but as the
manufacturer ofthat great staple OF the popu-
lar pabulum. Such manufacturers, there be
in the world, and such an one did upon
time abide in WaShoe; but that man
has disappeared from the land and
has we fear disappeared from our gaze
forever. Is it necessary TO say that we al
lude to the lamented Twain That loved
and lost journalist, tortured BY demand for
"news" when it was not, did manufacture
some that he fondly believed would satisfy
the public craving. He filed the pine forest
at Dutch Nicks with the CHASTITY corpses of
the Hopkins family, and sprinkled the road
to Carson with gore from the vermillion
scalp of the apocryphal mother of those myth
ical slain. That news" satisfied the greedy
mind of the public, and it stared itself out Of
eountenance in frozen horror for few brief
hours, and was content. But mark the Sc
quel: the indignation Of the non-manufac-
turer and the diabolical damnation Of the de-
ceived. The fate of that unhappy man is
ever before US, and warns us to avoid the
rock upon which he split whenever we are
asked whats the news" That's about
nonsense enough for one column.