The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1867-02-04

The United States were never remar-
lkable for moderation. When we do
anything here we push it to extremes.
We often make a thing good in itself
almost bad by the excess to which we
carry it. Nothing illustrates this pc
culiarity more than the telegraph, as
managed at present, and as it has been
for several years past. 1t was a great
and invaluable discovery, no doubt; IL
was moreover of American paternity
and we Immediately set to work TO use
1t SO freely that grave doubts must
often have arisen, in the minds of jour-
na,ists. Mt least, whether it has proved
an advantage after all. Our newspa-
pers are daily flooded with dispatches
from every quarter of the country, de-
failing occurrences that are of httle con-
sequence. and to which few journalists
would give space if they came by regu-
lar course of mail. The original pur-
pose of the telegraph, to expedite the
transmission of important news, has
been singularly perverted. 1t has long
been employed to give trifiing matters
significance, to prevent them from pas
sing into deserved oblivion. 1t is to
Journalism what gossip is to private
life, without it's piquancy or interest.
As it is, we are compelled to wade
through columns of dispatches to learn
that there is really no news. We must
take time and tax patience to be in
formed that some one of whom we have
never heard, in o rustic village, is dead,
with the manner and diagnosis of his
disease, the name and the school Of his
physician, the state of his circumstan-
ces, and the exact degree of sensibility
manifested by his surviving relatives.
Or we are entertained with an account
of the killing of a laborer by the caving
in of an embankment; the burning OF
James Smith OF John Browns grocery
in Kansas or Wisconsin, OF the thrilling
fact that Peter Piper was robbed OF his
pocket book with nothing in it, or that
his aunt's dwelling was entered by
burglars, and the old lady so seriously
alarmed that apprehensions respecting
her nervous condition are widely enter
tanned.
Speculations, too, of the profoundest
character ore bounteously ~vOuchsafed
to as by the philosophers of the wires,
such as it is reputed that Hon. William
Virgins is supposed secretly to believe
that if the President really thought
that he would be impeached, he (the
President) would think the impeach-
mcnt unjust; that, in the event Of aI
great and sudden contraction of the
currency, the money market will be
somewhat affected, and the banks less
likely to loan what they have not. We
have also a vast variety of such salts
factory phrases as sit is whispered pri-
~vately;" sit is said upon what processes
to be authority" sit is believed in well
informed circles (they certainly cannot
be telegraphie circles),' that something
| we do not care about may happen, II
something else We do not care about
does happen to prevent.
Remove such rare and frlicitous in
formation from the electric current, and
we should have very little in the dis
patches to weary or worry us Ill our
morning and evening papers. The mat
ter is bad enough; but the manner is. II
possible. far worse. One does not object
to being bored SO much, if he can be
bored i'll tolerable English-just as a
good-mannered nobody is preferable to
u boorish simplcton. But when
must be afflicted with the most de-
praved rhetoric, the most rheumatic
syntaX, the most painful and virulent
philology, altogether contagious and
dangerous withal, it is too great a bur-
den for humanity tn bear.
Give us, if it be the result of uncon-
trollable destiny. such tedious triiies as
we have named; but put II mark upon
them, that they may be known and
avoided; and, particularly, let us be
spared the accompaniment of such en-
pressions as "burglarized," 'katorical,'
.!incendiarizcd," KNITTED" "pistoled,"
and the like. Either bcstow upon us
nonsense in acceptable English, or facts
of note in vicious diction. Both at once
are beyond bearing.
So much for journalistic suffering. In
the way of private grievances there IS
much to be mOurned, and much to be
forgiven likewise. But we must leave
individuals to redress their own wrongs.
We modestly submit, however, when
the prices of t~elegraphing are taken in
to account, that the public merit n GER
tain reasonable avoidance of blunders
and apparently inexcusahle delays, rem
dering the transmission of intelligence
worse than useless.
So with public news. When it is real
ly interesting, We get by the wires all
but the interesting part, being obliged
to wait for the mails to obtain any sat
~isfactory idea Of what has occurred.
The woes of the press and the public
are so many that some new Homer is
needed to sing them. But IL people
are a patient people; and if proof were
needed, we should point 10 the tele-
graphic management, or mismanage-
ment, of the country TO show that we
go largely beyond the point where EN-
durance ceases to be q virtue.-.Ner
York Erening Gasette.
The Passrama or New York City
Exhibits at Martinsville this after
noon and evening at 3 and s o'clock.