New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-05-11
OUR ANNNdL SCOLDING.

Tho time of tho Anniversaries il upon us,
and ence moro Mr.. Wendell Phillips comes
down witt, his bunGlc of epgrams to play at
reform i'm his last speech he announced as
thc fruit OF bis recent ponderings that among
the evils of the day were newspapers, ana ac-
counted for their number by the fact that
there are mora men who can write than VINO
con think. This is smart, for Mr.. Philips
never says anything which 10 not smart. 1t is
so much easier to talk than it il to think that
PERHAPS it would be unfair to expect an ease
loving rhctorician 10 give himself the trouble
to think before he speaks. If Mr.. Philips
ever pays to his audiences the compliment OF
preliminary thought of his Grafton, 1t Is &c
voted not to what.ho is going to say, but 10 no"
he is going TO say (which is rs much easier as
il ia easier TO dress y child than to rear one
BIT he is not TO blame if his audiences like
what he gives them. They are gently startled,
but never shocked, 10y the sheet-iTGn Thunder
md rosin lightning Of his cloqnence, ana thcy
30 away charmed with their evenings enter
tainmcnt, and thinking no roro about tho
marrow Of tic subject discussed than b,r
Philips does. Then the newspapers report The
best things he said and the public reads ana
smiles. and an audience il ready for the next
time. If The journals ceased to notice kim he
would soen be left IA lonely as st. Simeon OF
the Pillar. And yet he speaks i'll of the bridge
tbat has carried him ovcr-he msinuatos that
il is a roas as,fJrum. We pardon and odver-
tisc him. IA Of old. lie really does very little
ham; he gives his hearers a good evenings
amusement and a better lesson in oratoiy
than they could ever get FROM That myth OF
recent invention, Dcl5arle.
There is no speaker before the public who
has go comfortable a sense OF irresponsiDllity
He cares no more for what he said yesterday
than The IJai!y B!aterSkite. lie is man OF
purity and integrity he could not he fright
encd or brbcd by any possible threats or
promises but he cannot resist an epigram, and
he yields moro readily than weaker men to The
temptation of a metaphor He values facts
only in proportion to their picturesqueness, aud
when they fail he makes better ones for HIM
self. The Lincoln whose loss he yesterday
dcplored, when living he in turn denounced az
q slave hound or ptied as an imbcclc, as suited
the graceful balance of lis phrase. Some time
ago. in abusing The American mob, he con-
tlasfed it with Paris held in the iron grasp Of
an invinciblo despotism. But aftcrward, when
of France, he substituted the Duke of Yelling
ton for Napoleon and Birmingham for Paris,
and the speech was just good as ever.
He appears III these later years to be pep
peling his entrees rather more than of old. lie
is pretty good peace man and humanitarian
in general way, but just now he wants the
New York mob to hang him millionaire or
tWo and Gen. Grant to make a crimson com
ment on the Ku-Kiux bill in the South His
suggestions ~ to the proper way to carry out
this salutary law are, as might be expeoted,
very original and dramatic. He wishes the
President to hang, not the obscure scoundres
who have committed Outrages, bnt a few
wealthy and respectable citizens who have
not. arguing, very justly, that, this. would
make a great sensation Dr. Holmes inf0rns
US Of certain creatures "Wh2 FEED on 2ti ton
Mr.. Philips has stood so long in cOntempla-
ton before tie moral beauty of Gen, Buffers
lie and conversation that he has been III
spirod with the rash ambition to appropriate
his style