Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-11-13
The world wi,hou, New.papers.

Nme w ORD VIII NeWHpuperNs
world without newspapers is to us az this
date almost as inconceYabe as world without
clothes was to Carlyle, whereof he writes that
Inauguration will not forward with tue picture.
The nearest actual approach we can have TO II,
as we trust is realized in Chicago, where every
one of the eighty newspapers puDlshed III Inc
city was blotted out by the great disaster: The
few journals which have partially resumed oper-
aiGns are overwhelmed with business. "AdYer-
Using" correspondent writes lis essential to
the reorganization Of the city. Never was the
necessity that the newspaper has become to civil
lied society, so wildly illustrated rs during the
last three weeks in Chicago.
Without newspapers the world would crowd
again in plazas or markct-places, as the Alhe-
mans used to, eager TO hear or tell some new
thing. Every man should be again his own re-
porter chasing the busy rum0r up and down
with flying feet. II should be next to imp0s-
sible to learn exactly where, when or how any
thing happened, and the anxious inquirer should
bitterly repent him of the days when he SAID
mOckngly, at must be true, for read it IN the
newspaper" For the newspaper is to current
rumOr, what history is to tradition. 1t
is life eptomized; talk abbreviated; events
dagucrreOtyped in the very act of hap
pening; it is everybody and his wife
dropping in to tea or to breakfast and
telling You in GOOD English all they have seen
and been doing, without disturbing your quei
or household economy. BEGINNING with bule-
ms from KING ) courts anu ulSlbltito nun
seats of war or councils of state, the newspaper
has by insenSible degrees enlarged its rtpOrtoria
function, until il covers with its inSatiate tenta-
cula quite the whole held of public and private
transactions, and what it does not tell, is not
worth knowing. The Yankee is no longer IN
quisitiye; whatever he wants 10 know he can
fluid out in his daily paper. Take it away from
him and he would be Il lost man. Ii IS his di-
rcctory, his railroad guide, his business or finan-
cial correspondent, his familiar gossip, his mes
SAGE from home. Ii is the Vanity Fair, where
YOU can find what you will, whether business or
pleasure. The maid opens the damp sheet to
glance at the marriage column; the mniden
aunt at the obituaries; brother Tom to sean the
tally of the last national game" and in this
Indispensable ephemeron cyerybody's world is
represented
The world without newspapers would be at a
sudden loss for its ready made ideas. Its wits
would 90 ragged at least for season. The
manufacture of public opinion, or the different
approved varieties, has become an industry of
enormous proportions. Che We-bred and we'll
fed Englishman, has no opinion they say, on the
latest event, till he has read the London Times,
and every man has his printed oracle which he
cOnSultS when too busy, or too lazy to do his
own thinking DlOnysius and other mOnarchs
used to keep philosopher or two in the house
to supply them with ideas, or keep their minds
in motion; now similar luxury is open TO the
poorest, who may secure fora trife tbeday or
IL
really have time to think of everything as ii hap
pens, and they love to have some kindred mind,
OF the same sect or school, dish up the news for
them with appropriate notes and comments, that
they may say "luSt what | think about it,, as
very like it is, if they had time and art to get at
their own thought and get it out into words.
The writers for the London Times are said to
make its success not by attempting to shape, but
simply to express the thought on current topics
of the average EngliShman, The last leading
editorial of great newspaper is at least foil
for thought and provocative Of intellectual ac
tivity in all circles. In the discussions of cars
and stages YOU recognize the familiar voice of
Times and Tribune. The literary and religious
weekies are echoed and reflected in large circles
OF admring readers; the sparks struck out of
their editorial anVils scintate all over the
land.
The world without newspapers, even if every
duOdecimo and quartO and folio were spared,
would fall INTO comparatively zimmerman
darkness. knowledge is really not published
for the masses until it gets out of books into the
convenient and cheap and quickly read newspa-
per. Many mind is started upon inquiry and in
Yestigation by some scrap Ofscientfic or curious
information which 81 read in a newspaper" As
it is said that the New Testament might almost
be reproduced from quotations in the writings of
the early Fathers, so quite a fair representation
of modern literature and science might be gath
cred up by excerpts from newspapers, whi;h are
read one day and burned the next. A good
newspaper for a year is small circulating
library Newspapers are the missionaries
of knowledge, which are fairly blown
into the faces of the ignorant, like the
winged seeds which propagate vegetation at
points no other agency could have reached.
They fill the atmosphere with advanced think
ng and illuminating ideas, so that they cannot
be kept out by any ban, for everybody reads
newspapers The two thousand or more jour
mails of the country play as indispensable a part