The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-01
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
Editorial OptniOns Of the Leading Journnls
UpOn Current TOpics-Compiled Every
Day for the Evening TELEGRAPH.
TNTERyTEWERS

lNlEltN lie W EitS
Eron the " Y Times.
II is rather dismal TO think that there is,
after all, nothing new under the sun, but it
Us greatly to be feared that it is true. When
President Lincoln was informed by an inter
viewer of the period that one of his Generals
took too much whisky, he archly expressed
She wish that somebody would send a barrel
of the same sort to divers other of the COM
manders. We all hoped that the witticism
was original. But, alas, Charles III had said
something very like it before. Dryden tells
us, apropos of his indecent play of Eg6niRg
Lore the plot of which he took from Calde-
ron, that some one accused him to the King
of plagiarism, but that the monarch "only
desired that they who accused me of theft
would always steal him plays like mine" We
fear too, that the 'interviewers have been
heard of before and that, like many words
and phrases branded by some of our English
cousins as 'Americanisms, but which are
TO be found even in such well-known pages
as those Of Shakespeare and Chaucer, inter-
viewing is no thing of modern growth, but
claims the reverence due to antiquity.
Whan we say that two of our late Presi-
dents were killed by interviewers, we are apt
to think that great men were never before
slain by such cause, and that the cases of
Harrison and Taylor are unique in history.
But probably Alexander the Great saw his
convivial interviewers too often, and there is
not the least doubt that the interview of l..
q. Flaminius with the King of Bithynia was
the immediate occasion of the death of Han
nibsl The universal practice of interviewing
at Rome furnished plausible opportunity for
the assassination of Julius Caesar; and, to
come down to more modern times, it is be-
yond peradventure that the interviews of Sir
Hudson Lowe hastened the death of the
Great Napoleon. The truth is that history
and tradition are packed with instances of the
Of ncrht hv
that from the days when that luckless
mari sage of Menelaus went to Crete,
leaving his Helen to the passionate assaults
of Paris, down to our modern era, when
the same thing happens every day and
is chronicled in the newspapers, interviewing
has existed as an art more or less fine, and
probably will do so until the end of the chap
ter. There are, however, periods of action
and reaction, of rise and Decline in this as in
other arts, which are brought about by
various accidental or providential circum-
stances. Thus, after the interview of Mar
syas with Apollo, or that of the eager day
god with the lovely Acantha, we can readily
understand how interviewing went out of
fashion for time among the Greeks. A
later instance was that of poor Willis-who
perhaps deserves to be styled the first great
American NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. experience was
almost as discouraging for disciples in the
art The memory of catastrophes like these
dies out, however, in time; the beauties and
ioys of interviewing again loom up to dazzle
the imagination, and an era comes, as among
ourselves to-day, when the delightful old GUS
tom blossoms like the rose.
The cardinal principle of interviewing is,
of course that no man has right to his own
time. He may have right to his own coat,
dinner, or horse, which take time to earn, but
these are clearly very different things. 1t is
plain that idle or imprudent curiosity, or q
for ant at ia
of others, warrants any species of intrusion
at all hours and places, and that only absurd
fastidiousness will object to it. The ridi-
culous old custom of sending up cards-im-
plying the right of accepting or declining
visit on the part of the recipient-is, of
sourse, exploded by the triumph of this prin-
eiple There are other coterminous prin-
sples-but this is the basic and immutable
pne. It's sense and significance can be abun-
dantly illustrated. None can dispute that
it is of more consequence that public men
should devote their hours to defining their
position to half-drunken reporters, to
the end of satisfying prurient inquisitive-
ness than that those hours should be devoted
to the public service. Equally manifest is it
to compare great things with small-that
authors and artists and their agents should
consume without introduction the moments
of the Journalist who criticizes their work.
Their own opinions of the latter are obvi'
ously of so much more consequence than
those of dstinterested observer, and it is
of so much greater moment for public in
formation that the former views should be
promulgated than the latter, that the delicacy
and propriety of this custom cannot for an
instant be questioned. These instances are
fairly typical of host of others So long as
morbid curiosity or short-sighted selfshnes
can be gratifed in a flee country it would be
ungraceful as well as inconvenient to attemp
opposition.
Besides, opposition brings its punishment
It is true that the mud thrown by the inter
viewers brushes Off easily when dry Blu
who likes to be pelted for all that? More
over we should remember that although tn
interyiewers collect much dirt, they occs
sionally gather in something bright and pre-
cious as we'll They go about, indeed, lik
the suite of the first Russian Ambassado
painted by Macaulay, who says they swep
through the London balloons dropping
pearls and lice. Let us take the good and tn
bad together, since it is not given to on
generation to enjoy them apart and, so Ion
as omnipotent public opinion tc,erates tn
interyiewers and their mediums, let us hav
patience and endure.
LIBERTY ACCORDING TO THE GUII
L0TINE.
From the N: Y. Tribune
One of the political phenomena of the tin
was the grand banquet in Paris to celebra
= L. As1x~ Is To-,