The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-22
aPxnxr OF THn PRESS.
Ra,,ov,aI Opinions Of the Leading JsHrnals
upon Current Topics-Compiled Every
nav for the Evening Telegraph.
INTERVIEWING .''


E,ou me " Y. Tfibune
Unless an end is made of this impudent
business, strangers of celebrity will avoid
visiting America as surely as If, Carlyles
stio,na were indeed valid-as if we were in
sober truth an aggregate of thirty million
bores single bore is visitation sufficiently
appalling. Men flee from him as Tam
OShanter fled from the Warlocks, or Orestes
from the Fures. But how escape the onset
of n legion? What refuge can one seek when
they swarm about him lin multitudes like
which the populous North poured never from
her frozen loins?" If any one thinks the OK
perience a light one, let him go and get cele-
brated and try it; we predict that he will lose
flesh by the operation.
He will 90 to his inn, seeking there to take
his ease and will find bore in his bedroom.
Emerping therefrom in wrath and dismay, he
will find a bouquet of bores in his drawing
room: seeking to flee, he will find all his ave
nues Of escape blocked up by bores of such
solid. immovable composure, that he will
have TO spring from the window or precipitate
himself over some friendly balustrade.
Cbould he chance, however, to emerge upon
tbe omen air without confusion or dislocation
he will find himself the target upon which
casual bores from every point of the compass
continually impinge. He will be in
tercepted upon the tI0ttotr by some
moist and shining bore, not exempt from
the enlivening influence of beer, who, note
book in hand, will solicit his opinion upon
difficult and embarrassing subjects. He will,
perhaps, be bearded in the omnibus or
cornered upon the Exchange, and solicited to
drop few observations. All his outgOings
and incomings will be attended by troops and
retinues of bores and his casual utterances
will be printed at length for the perusal of
snch bores as are not able to get at him If,
after these experiences, he does not regard
renown itself as bore, and pine for the sweet
neglect which he knew in the days of his
obscurity. he must be person of exceptional
toughness of five and thickness of cuticle
While we commiserate in some degree the
helpless and abiect Indebtedness of the bored,
our hveliest concern is for the borers. Do
they rightly appreciate the attitude which
thev sustain before gods and men? We do
not exclusively refer to the small subordinate
bore who, pencil in hand, invades the bed
room: nor to the large authoritative bore who
compels the smaller one as Jupiter compels
his satellites. Neither chief nor subaltern
have other motive than TO procure and print
such particulars concerning celebrated per-
sons as they think their subscribers would
like to read. They assume, and perhaps
with some intelligence that the majority
of the American people exist. in a state
of prurient and writhing curiosity concern
ing every human creature whom circum-
stances have lifted into casual notice They
should know the taste and temper Of their
own readers at least. How far does this
prying and indecent curiosity which the
smart and pushing editor strives to satiate
extend? Is ii a national attribute? ? Are we
indeed not only o nation of bores, as the
Chelsea Thersites pronounces us, but nation
of meddlesome, intruding gossips as well
The spectacle OF q great commonwealth
stupidly agog, its people for thirty degrees of
Longitude standing with their principal aper-
lures aiar waiting for the morning paper to
see what the latest distinguished foreigner"
or the latest lion Of home growth, has to say
for himself, is not in the least sublime. On
the contrary, it is inexpressibly ridiculous
and absurd. Webster told the assembled
heees of Rochester, that no people who, like
them, had waterfall sixty feet high ever
lost their liberties, and we venture to init
mate to a wider audience that no community
which, on light preteXts, adopts this atti-
tude of open-mouthed, goggling curiosity,
ever preserved its dignity or the respect OF
mankind.
Poor Father Hyacinthe would never have
come to America for the sake OF peace if he
had known the habits of the typical New York
reporter. The spies Of the French police are
not more perseyering and ubiquitous than the
day afternoon. Every step, every motion,
every casual expression, everything that he
has eaten and drunk, everything that he
has read, every person whom he has seen, is
set forth every morning in some of our city
journals, for the qualification of an imperti-
nent curiosity. But now new terror has been
added to his situation, and new misery to
human life The reporters of the World have
undertaken to tell Father Hyacinthe all about
religion, and philosophy, and things, and the
HOi6 has undertaken to print their very
valuable remarks. On Tuesday, for instance,
one Of the many eminent dlvines en-
ployed by our contemporary IN the
reporting line instructed the distin-
guished Carmelite in the history and
condition of religion in America, analyzed the
character of the late Archbishop Hughes,
kindly explained the meaning of Positivsm
and its relation to natural science, and in.
formed the reverend father that there were
only five religious sects in New York, namely,
branches of the English and Dutch churches.
Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians.
Then he rebuked Father Hyacinthe for in
consistency, wanted to know what he meant
by such conduct, and politely remarked that
''it was TO stultify oneself to say that abuses
and infallibility can exist side by side Ol
course we don't object to having this kind o.
thing 1t is very precious, we know, and
not to be got for the asking; but since Fathel
Hyacinthe seems to have taken no part in the
conversation, why should not the reporte
hereafter kindly spare that gentleman tn,
bother of an interview, and the next timt
he has anything to say iast say it to the bed
post
THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA.
R,o91 he Y VideS