The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-04

any state which has even partially MADE ltS
way out of it, would be the height of folly
and wick edness. Congress may be fairly de-
fed to make society at the South either sober,
orderly, industrious, or law-abiding. 1t may
pass what acts it pleases, and things will re-
main as they are till the individuals of which
Southern society is composed are improved;
and the work of improving them does not fall
either to General Terry or the Reconstruc-
ton Committees. Providence has reserved
that for laws whose operation began with the
creation of man, and will only cease with his
extinction.
THE SATURDAY REVIEW" ON INTER
VIEWING.
From the NJ =. World
The Saturday Reyio1C, in common with the
press of New York, has been struck with
wonder at the enterprise displayed by this
journal, which it mildly calls famous
newspaper, in the matter of Father Hyacinthe.
AS Mr.. Weller observed upon his erotic per-
secutiors, we 'don't take no pride out on it.
1t is by no means a difficult thing to astonish
and awe-strike your English journalist with a
stroke of newspaper enterprise, nor do we
enjoy monopoly of producing that sensa-
tion in his insular and figuratively as well as
literally hide-bound bosom. Even the 1rS-
6une, which prints such very stale news for
New York, is prodigy of enterprise in Lon
don, as it is a literary and political prodigy at
home. But the SdtUrd0y Reg5D1c, in its won
der over the feats which, we beg to assure
it, mere mortal men can attain to do by
the use of merely natural means, goes SO
far as to attribute to us superhuman powers
and supernatural agencies. 1t is not, per-
haps, surprising that an unenlightened and
superstitious iS0tuyrldy RecieD should take
this view of an achievement SO impossible to
the faculties of its compatriotic journals.
Even as the credulous German populations
were wont to ascrlbe an intimacy with the
Internal powers to the mythical Faust be-
cause he was equal to feats of intelligence
which baffied them or as the authorities of
Paris prosecuted the historical Faust on q
charge of ''magic" for inventing that art of
printing which the IfO7Jd has only utilized
and extended SO immeasurably beyond its
original scope as to make of it in effect a
new creation, do the scoffers of the S1turClay
ReCgeD now charge upon us the sorceries and
conjurations which its prototypes charged
upon ours. But time has shown how ridicu-
lous the chorge was III their cases. and pos
sibly the British journal of 1863 will have
advanced so far beyond the British journal of
the present period that Englishmen and
Saturday Reviewers of that rer4ote epoch can
appreciate ard explain, without resortng to
the theory of supernatural interposition, the
deeds done in the Wo'd of 1869.
The specific allegation of the SHtWIday Re
0iel0 is that this journal would, if it had an
opportunity, 'interview the devil Doubt
less it would, and glory in the chance of con-
futing that potentate out of his own mouth.
The only Englishman whom tradition assures
us to have had the favor of an interview with
him is st. Dunstan, who, with the same blind
ness OF what possesses human interest that
characterizes his successor-the British jour
nalist of to-day-allowed his visitor to return
without even taking notes of the conversa-
ton for the benefit of his ''home organ" the
Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey. The Ger
mans are not reputed lively journalists, but
Martin Luther certainly showed more appre-
citation of the availability of the devil than
St. Dunstan. Whereas the canonized Eng
lishman let him go unreported the excom-
municated Protestant, as vulgar persons
would put it, 'slung ink" at him like man
and reporter. In this particular, we avow
ourselves imitators rather of the German
than the English model
But, though we thus maintain the propriety
of interviewing the Devil, by way of making
known his views to our great constituency,
the members of which are total strangers to
him, we do not see that it would result ia any
practical advantage. We would then have
him at first hand, it is true, but we are
not without utterances plainly inspired by
him, and authentic contemporaneous exposi-
tions of his opinions We read, and occa-
sionally quote, the SATURDAY Re0teD. We
have actually interviewed and reported the
incarnate Henry Ward Beecher. And daily
we receive and read and refute the messages
which the parsonage in question daily de-
livers upon the fourth page of the Tribune.
Thus it will be seen that we do virtually Gin.
terview the Devil, as the Sdturd0y Recielt
Justly AYERS that we stand ready to do. Those
little personal details Of horns and hoofs and
tail, which alone would be supplied by such
an interview as that periodical suggests
would be interesting, no doubt, but they
ledge. The natural curiosity which the
Saturday Reviewers feel about these, his in
cidental appendages, must be postponed, We
fear, until they do their own personal an(
posthumous interviewing with him.
To show the absurd Interpretation of ''in
| terviewing" in the British mind, we may oh
serve that the SdtUTdGy RCCielo proposes t.
import it into the British realms. This i
well enough. But TO what end? TO let thu
British public know the opinion of the Queer
and the Archbishop of Canterbury upon tn
| WOlliS account of the slumS of London, o
| some such subject of transcendent moment
TO give to the British public An easy and col
| loquial expression of the views of thei
statesmen, philosophers, divines, and trades
men upon the uppermost questions of policy
religion, and finance? Not at all. Having
got this benign and instructive custom natu
rallied, the Saturday Re0ie,o would prosti
tute it to the scurvy purpose of drawing on
''Mr. Ayrton." just Heavens! Who is AyI
ton, that public journals should be cumbere
with him? Thus does "the eye see in any
thing what it has the means of seeing, an