The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-25
sP1Rxx OF TEE PRESS.
RdItorinl Opinions Of the Leading Journals
Upon Current Topics Compiled Everv
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
THE PRESS ON THE PRINCE.

From the NJ 7. World q.
The Tribune has amused itself and,us lately
by fierce vindcations of the dignity of the
press, and loud denunciadon of those journals
which detailed the movements of public men.
The too oredulous readers of that journal ao-
cepted this as the real reason why the Tribune
was 80 far behind its neighbors upon these
matters. But the wiser mind knew full well
that il was not voluntary abstention, but an
involuntary incapabiity, which hindered these
things from being related in those columns,
and that beyond the domain of jenkins, in
the realm of politics and of things in general,
it refrained from giving the news of the day
with quite as serene an Indifference as that
with which it turned its austere gaze away
from the down-sittings and the up-risings Of
famous sojourners
When Prince Arthur came, however, the
Tribune had an inspiration Of enterprise come
upon it, and it determined to report him.
But here it acknowledged divided duty. 1t
yearned to reconcile its duty to the public
with its duty to its own consistency. If it
told the news, it would not be beaten, to be
sure, but its enemies would revile it, saying,
GO to, now, how is this Tribune fallen into
the snare which it hath privily digged for
another" If it did not give the news, it
would not be bought. Here was dilemma.
But the ingenuity of the Tribune was equal
to the occasion, and it took the British Bull
by both horns De Quincy tells of
certain peripatetic philosopher, walking
Stewart by title, who spent half century
in ''metaphysicizing against metaphysics.
Similarly the Tribune has been devoting its
vast powers to Jenkinsizing Jenkins. Its
method is peculiar and funny. What things
concerning the coming of the Prince it
deemed ''dignifed" to relate were related as
by its own reporter, speaking as one having
authority, and not as the scribes of other
journals. But there remained q residuum of
things which the 7aT5une considered were
necessary to be told, and which could not be
told by the Tribune with dignity" Com
munid proprfe deere was acknowledged to be
one of the chief difficulties of composition
by Horatio Flaccus; but it presents no diff
Guilty at oil to Horatius Greeley. After the
regular reporter has had his say, he erects a
hypothetical reporter of another and anony-
nous journal upon his ruins, and lets him
tell the rest. ga young person." we are
told, ''who was said to represent provin-
cial paper, button-holed the pro-
prietor, who listened impatently to his ques
tionings," and so indirectly impaired in
answer thereto the information for which
the readers of the Tribune were supposed to
be furnishing, but which the Tribune itself
would rather perish than supply. Out of the
mouth of this hypothetical babe and sucking
the Princes praises and the Princes privacies
could be innocuously sung, and thereby the
Tribune save its credit and its cake
This is an interesting procedure, and not
least SO in that it gives us the Iri6une's
notion of what is and what is not beftting
the dignity of journalism. "Do you know"
said the bland and confiding Pecksnif, in
that hour of his shame and his intoxication
when unavailing efforts were repeatedly made
to put him to bed, but when he persis-
ted in bouncing out of that receptacle
and indulging oratorical flights over the
balustrade-''do you know I would really
like to see Mrs. Todgers' notion of o wooden
leg, if perfectly agreeable to herself" That
spectacle has never been vouchsafed to man
kind. But it is scarcely less interesting TO
contemplate the Iri6uneS notion of wooden
head when that intellectual treat is offered
not only agreeably but even1 unconsciously,
to the journal exhibiting it. 1t is, it seems,
quite proper for the 1ri6une's reporter to
relate that the Prince broke fast on ''raw
oysters, cold chops, and hot coffee" But
that his raiment should be described in the
same detail as his diet is thing "most tole-
rable and not to be endured" When it comes
to this a Tribune reporter draws the veil of
decency, and rests in the safe generality of
ga plain, unpretending travelling suit" A
Tribune reporter may, without derogation of
his dignity" inform us that ''the large win
dows in the car he occupied furnished ample
facility for seeing his whole figure as he sat,
seemingly deeply engrossed in his book,
his face partially averted, though not suffi-
cient (S:c) to screen it," But no Tribune
reporter can in his own person descend to
the degrading drudgery of enumeratine
his luggage. At this point enter John
Doe, that the trunks and boxes may
seem to be vicariously counted. This jour.
nalistic fiction, like the legal fiction of the
same name, is a most convenient scapegoat
To him, and not by any means to the Irjbuo
reporter, are we indebted for the soothing
consciousness that there were 'three blacl
tin boxes, and a bundle of silk umbrellas Will
paragon frames, shat boxes of every size anC
shape;" that John Doe, and not on any ac
count the Tribune reporter, "did not fail t
note the splendid material of the sole-leathe
trunks; and that there was (and here tn
rural readers of the Tribune are expected t.
bate their breath) an actual ''ffty dolla
Valise."
This is really too bad "If we like sherr,
wine" said the honest deacon to whom tn
dishonest ditto made hygienic and hypocritics
excuses for partaking that beverage, 'let u
drink sherry wine. But let us not lie abou
it." If the Tribune likes to do Jenkins let
do him. If it likes to denounce Jenkins, le
it denounce him. But let it not invent a
ostensibly extraneous Jenkins to tell what wa
seen by the eyes of its own Jenkins Let
not doubly humiliate that functionary by fir
setting him to do what it considers dirty worl
and then pretending to wash its hands of hi
work and him.
But the 1aS6Unes nonsense is harmlei
compared With the San. OF course, this la
ter paper does not pretend to decency. 81
the glaring indecency of its conduct in tn
i i.