The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1869-03-10


blackened the character of your wife or
daughter, and made your home wretched,
and You attacked him on equal terms, in ac-
curdance with what Is called "the code"
the probability Is he would have killed you
in addition to libelling you IT. on the other
hand, you prosecuted him, what with new
trials and appeals and disagreements Of
juries, the result would have been that your
name would have been kept before the pub
lie for two or three years besmirched with
the Pollard filth, the fellow himself enjoying
the notoriety the affair had brought him and
his paper, and ehuckling over your misery
and modification, and you would have at
last retired from the contest worsted and out
of pocket II, therefore, it can ever be al
lowed to take the life of fellow-creature,
hold that in sucha case as this it Is allowable;
and if allowable at all, it Is ridiculous TO ask
the injured man TO risk his own life in doing
it. The crowd in Richmond who cheered
Grant felt all this.
/ am not so sure either that the Northern
press is above the Cassagnac level There is
no doubt that the editorial columns of the
Northern newspapers have greatly improved
within twenty years The editors themsel-
yes have made great advances, socially and
every other way. From being paragraph
lists " and collectors of items" attached to
job-printing offices, they have risen into the
structors. They take their stand in the
money market beside the most successful
brokers, and they have fairly ousted the cler-
gymen and lawyers as leaders in politics.
Therefore, having social position to uphold
the chiefs, with one or two exceptions, rare
ly allow dirty gossip and scurrility to appear
in their editorial articles. But they manage,
nevertheless, 10 pander to the tastes of those
who Ike such things just us effectually as
owe nv fbafr Of AtQ0rrt1cnnnlQngQ y
They have in their pay parcel OF scamps in
various cities, signing themselves "Rhada-
manthus," or "Cerberus,n or "Quintius
Curtius," or some such name, who compose
letters in which they heap abuse on decent
men, throw out odious insinuations against
them, tell disgraceful stories of them with
the utmost dbdssdoN, and these the editor
prints in any quantity. II one of these crea-
lures make you his victim, and you call at
the editorial rooms to demonstrate, the editor
receives your complaint as If he had never
heard of "Rhadamanthus =" before, or, If he
had heard of him, as If he was person for
whose performances he was no more respon-
sibie than for those of Leotard or the Hanlon
Brothers. When you point out the libel, he
expresses regret and sympathy, but with
much the same air as if what had happened
you was wetting from the rain, or q sun
stroke, or some other visitation of Provi-
dence, which, as u fellowman, he was bound
TO deplore, but for which you could hardly
oe SO ridiculous as to hold him accountable,
and he probably offers to print I" a reply from
your pen"-that is, to make the attack on you
more public than ever, widen and deepen
the raw on your moral hide, and delight
Rhadamanthus by showing him that he
made a decent man vince. You may make
il clear as the sun at noon that the cores
pendent is an INSCRIPTIONS scoundrel whose
statements cannot be depended on, and that
as man nobody respects him or heeds him,
and you may imagine that as soon Us the
editor hears of it he win dismiss him. Bless
your innocent heart he will probably raise
the beasts pay the minute your back is turn
cd, ON finding how "spicy" he is and he
will meet you that very evening, serene and
smiling and respectable, although he has
actually been paying "Rhadamanthus for
Safeguarding you and lying about you, has
borne the expense of printing his ISLANDERS,
and has made money by selling them.
You have alluded to this matter once or
twice in your paper, but ii has not been pro-
perly ventilated. The increased purity of the
editorial columns of the Northern press is
mere cleaning of the outside of the platter,
as long as the theory prevails that the editor
is not responsible, morally, for what appears
in the department of correspondence. That
such theory should prevail msy seem mon
strous, but it does, nevertheless, and there
are only few of the great daily papers in
the country which are not conducted on 1t.
Let me add that do not look on the pub
lie indifference to these libels, or perhaps
should rather say the enjoyment of them by
all who are not affected by them, with the
complacency with which you have once or
twice protested to regard it. think that at
the bottom of all such callousness and such
sport, there is spice of the devilish spirit
which once made the cOmbats of men and
beasts in the amphitheatre delightful, and
think, too that morality cannot be in a very
sound condition in any community in which
few care anything about either their own
reputation or other peoples.
Yours respectfully, TERTULLIAN.
Baltimore, Dec. 3, 1865
From The Nation, Dec. 10, 1868