The New York herald., 1872-09-20
Progress OF American Journalism from
ls41 70 lsy2-How Muchs

| Progress OF American Journalism from
ls4S TO lsyS-How Muchs
In February, 1842-over thirty years ago
"Boz," otherwise Charles Dickens then the
bright particular star rising in the armament
of fiction, made his first triumphal sniree into
the United States His popularity as the nov
elist of humanity had preceded him, and from
his landing at Boston to his departure from
New York, everywhere West South
and North-he was hailed as q lion and
treated like prince. Many of our young
gallants of that day who still live. now ripened
into the mellow sobriety of old age, will re-
member the unexampled honors showered
here upon the bright young author Of Pickwick,
and especially in that never-to-be-forgotte
Dickens ball" The triumphal advent on
Broadway of Captain Tyler, the dinners to
Kossuth, the ovations to Lola Montez. Mayor
Woods fremens torchlight procession in
honor of the Prince of Wales, the whole round
of extraordinary festivities which made up our
grand carnival to the Imperial Grand Duke
Alexis. ''every inch q king" may, in the course
of time, be but dimly remembered in the ira
ditions of our sold fogies;" yea, in the lapse
of years they may cease to recall that remark
able epoch in our political history when
Horace Greeley ran as the democratic candi-
date for the Presidency; but 'while the grass
grows and the water runs our old New
Workers win delight in recalling the 'beautiful
bellies" the romantic destinations and the
glorious enthusiasm Of the Dickens ball. y
They will remember, too how the unstinted
admiration and unbounded hospitalities here
given to Dickens were repaid by the migrate
full philanthropist on his return home in that
spiteful, loose and incoherent rigmarole his
american Notes. and in that more deliber-
ate caricature of American society, American
patriotism and the American press, his story OF
Martin Chuzzlewit. His first impressions OF
the American press are grouped in the carioa-
ture given Of Martin reception by the New
York newsboys con the deck and down in the
cabins of the steamboat before she touched the
Shore" as follows: :-''Here's this mornings
| New York Se,oer!" cried one. 'Here's this
mornings New York StabberI' 'Here's the
New York Family Spy!' "Here's the New
York Priuate Listena!' ''Heres the New
York Pepper r 'Here's the New York
Pluadereri' stHere's tho New York Keyhose
Reporter!' sHere's the New York Ro,ody
Jownayr' "Here's all the New York papers
Here's full particulars Of the patriotic loco-foco
movement yesterday, in which the wings was
so chawed up, and the last Alabama gouging
case, and the interesting Arkansas dooel with
bowie knives, and all the political, commercial
and fashionable news! Here they are! Here
they are! Here's the papers Here's the
| papers!" Then follows more elaborate out
cry of the superior achievements in the dainty
scandals of the day of the 'sNew York Seaoer,
always on the lookout the leading journal of
the United States, now in its twelfth thousand
and still a-printing of. Here's the New York
| Se,cer!" And then o voice in Martins ear
tells him that sit is by such enlightened means
the bubbling passions Of our country find a
vent"
We have no space here for the patriotic
ebullitions of that model American journalist of
1912, Mr.. Jefferson Brick, nor for the lamenta-
BILE collapse of the great Southwestern ''Water-
toast Association organized to assist Daniel
O'Connell in his war upon the tyrannical Brit
ish lion, but instantly dissolved in state of in
conceivable wrath with the astounding infor-
nation that this ''public man Of Ireland was
IAN advocate of nigger emancipation - Says
Dickens in this connection eff anything
beneath the sky be real those Sons of Freedom
would have pistolled, stabbed-in some way
slain-the man by coward hands and murder
GUS violence if he had stood among them at
! that time" Nor, in view of the apology of
Dickens at the New York press dinner Of 1868
for these opinions and observations of his of
1912, do We reproduce them now in judgment
against him. That account was settled in the
a7neude honorable of 1868, as was that of our
wrath against England's peculiar neutrality
with the honest apology given in the Joint
High Commission. Our simple object in these
extracts from Dickens is to present the con-
trast between the American press of 1S42, as
he portrays it, and the American press as we
find it to-day.
| Nor are the American carcatures of Dickens
| so very wide of the mark as prima facie they
appear. In 1912 the population Of the United
States was about eighteen millions, and the
population of New York city was not above
three hundred and twenty-five thousand.
We had very few railroads at that day and no
telegraphs, our first experimental electrical
wire being that of 1874 between Washington
| and Baltimore. From the absence of ready
means of intercommunication our people were
clannish and sectional, and there was then a
meaning and vital power in the Southern
dogmas of State sovereignty which the railway
and the telegraph have since extnguished.
In 1S42 the institution Of Southern slavery was
the supreme power behind our State Legis-
latures, the President Congress and the
| q, ,reme Court The Southern oliuarchv