Beaufort Republican. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1871-1873, 1872-09-05
The Ethics Of testing.

A humorous paragraph mas oeeh So'ne
the rounds of the press lately-as mos
paragraphs of the sort do-one so exceed
lngly and surprisingly stupid that we Lave
no hesitation about attributing it to one
or another of those dreary weeklies-
Punch, Judy, or Fm--which our Eng
lish cousins are content to think funny
The paragraph reads:
GA newly married daughter asked hel
mother how long the honeymoon lasts
Until you ask your husband for money
my dear was the reply"
We have seen this weakling in all sorts
of places lately. One paper puts it in
column of News Items" Another
classes it with Happenings Here anc
There" Some If them credit it to PEI
and Scissors" and occasionally we find il
unblushingly announced as Wit ant
Humor." So long as this was confined tt
provincial dailies and rural weeklies, We
bore it with a sigh of regret that the
literary taste of our country journalist:
was 80 small and their sense Of humor sc
blunt. We now find the paragraph, how
ever, in three religious journals of the
first. class, and its presence there prompts
us to ask a question or two. Are the
editors of these religious papers aware
that Jest carries a teaching with it goot
or bad, as the case may be, as often a.
anything else does? Do they know thai
every protessedly humorous paragraph
they print finds half a dozen readers
where their labored leaders find but one
Probably this idea has never occurred tc
them, but it is true nevertheless, and the
editor who breaches good things in his
ponderous articles should look sharply
after his original or borrowed witlings
lest they undo faster than he can do. II
is small thing, perhaps, but the little
paragraph which we have taken as sam.
pie as current items of the sort, teaches
well, let us not be too harsh, but call il
softly, in the language of cool Mrs. Opie,
ca lie" It is not true, among good peO'
pie, that the harmony of a marriage is
broken as soon as the wife asks the hus
band for money. 1t is not true that wo'
men are all selfish and silly, or that men
are all idiots, which is precisely what this
little paragraph means, if it means any
thing.
And are we not, as people, trife toe
fond of testing about matrimonial mat
ters? We hardly ever read a newspaper
in which there is not an unjust fling al
wives as a class and marriage as an institu-
ton. OF course it is all meant in jest,
but it is serving to break down our rever.
ence for the most sacred of social rela-
tiOns.
Of the hundreds of papers in which we
see tests of this sort, not one would dare
utter, editorlally, the sentiment which is
finding constant expression in its most at
tractive column. Perhaps not one OF
them would wish to do so. And yet they
are constantly impressing tie sentiment
upon others, and giving it vastly more OF
vitality, as a teaching, than they could
possibly give it by direct, earnest argu-
ment.
We know successful publisher, one OF
whose standing instructions it has always
been that there shall be in his publica-
tons no testing at the expense of old
maids and no filings at the marriage rela-
ton. When the coming School of Jour
nalism shall be a reality, we hope to see
that publisher make lecture Oh tie
Ethics of Journalistic Jokes.-HearM ana
Home.