Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-09-01
Amnricnn pnnor.-An EnaIish Wow.


CasselPs Magazine for July has al article on
the pecularities of journalism in America. The
writer says!
Gan American paper Is never slow, though 1t
may have hundred other imperiectiOns. You
cannot go to sleep over it. 1t almost poetizes
its quotations of stocks and it turns its advertise
ments into cOnundruns, lest matter should want
the charm of manner. 1t does not believe IN
simple, natural form of statement which allows
facts to speaks for themselves. Its sub-editors
toll through their columns of copy, and break
them up into dainty, if indigestible morsels, by
printing every striking, startling phrase in line
of its own. Its descriptive articles are pretaced
by halfa column of index in the largest type, in
which the whole force and spirit of what Is TO
follow are presented to the eye at glance.
Read its headlines alone, and in five minutes
you make yourself master of its contents. II is
cminenty the journal of a nation of bushes
men, who are willing to be amused, but do not
care to be instructed, and who want to travel
through even their amusements at railroad
speed"
"The sub-hcadings of the correspondence from
the battle fields read like the anticipatory an
nouncemcnts in an English pantOmime bill.
'Gross-HcrZOg Mecklenburg says he has won
Victory near Pithiyiers, is the New York
Worlds way of summarizing a German dis
patch. England Asked by Prussia to Behave
Better she says she Won't is the same jour
na's announcement of the substance of the late
diplomatic notes. A single weeks issue would
furnish abundant examples of the same strange
iocularity or hippancy of tone, in reference to
every event In journals lying before us, and
taken from n pile at random, Confucius is called
'Thc Great Coolie.' The marriage of Miss Mot
ley 'to Briton' is termed her fathers Most
Important Diplomatic Negotiation Bismarck,
the Ben Butler of Europe, heads column of
diplomatic gossip, while Won der Tam sent
Whrling Out of Orleans is a summary title for
piece of military news. A report of speech
by one of the leading statesmen of the country
is headed Summers Salve-Lecture by the
Great Panjandrum of Peace at Steinway Hall"
The following speak for themselves: England
Uneasy she thinks Won Bismarck only Smiles
to Borrow Money king William forms an
Alliance with the GhoSts'-that is to say, has
interviews with the spritualst Home"
"rhc most astounding thing is that the men
bear no sort of PERSONAL identity with their
work. You would imagine them TO be revolver
to act as recklessly as they write wildly; but in
truth they are like other educated Americans
and they are educated Amercans-very polished,
amiable and mild, and of quite seductive cour-
teousness. Their literary manner is with them
an artificial one; they regard their labors from
a purely professional point of view, as legal adj
vOcates are taught to do. A certain style of
speaking gains causes-that style is cultivated;
a certain style of writing gains partiSans-that
style is cultivated too. The American public
will not be bored with pubi3 topic; its news
paper writers, therefore, never dare to be dull,
whatever other liberties they may allow them
selves. The key TO the production of all we
have read will be found, not in contempt for the
canCns of good taste among journalists, but in
the ignorance OF the supposed duty Of writers
to please"