American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-03-01
American Newspapers in Austria.

Us. Commissioner Van Buren, makes
the awful proposition to send copies of all
the newspapers published in America,
to the Vienna Exposition, as an exhibit
ton of American civilization. The hui
| man mind is utterly incapable of imagin-
ing the effect which perusal of the bare
titles of newspapers with which ROwell's
newspaper directory is bestrewn will
produce upon the mind of the European
board of Judges. Let lis family and affair
off fancy an Austrian bishop confronted
| with the Iolra EagIe Of the Vest, or a
French senator with the Tuba City SITTER
Banner, or a German Gelehrtc with the
Wiscasset Seaside Oracle, or an Italian
Secretary with the .SusanriIle Sage6a7,sh.
| Such an encounter could have but one
result. The man would perish in an apo
plexy of astonishment, and the American
| newspaper-rOOm would become charnel-
house. As we have no national interest
in the preservation of these mnions of
despotism we need not care if our meat
| should turn out to be their poison. But
| our object, if we have any, is to cxtort
| terror and respect and awe-stricken praise
from the European mind by these eyi-
dences of our intelligence and our civili-
| cation. And if the men whose duty it is
| to examine our newspapers die in the at
| tempt to do their duty and read them, it
| is out of the question that we shall get
| any praise. With the frightful examples
of official readers before them, no unoffic.
ial readers will presume to grapple with
the periodical literature of the you. g Re-
public. Our newspapers will remain a
dark and inscrutablc mystery, unpraised,
unhonOred and unread. They will be left
| in Vienna a terror to all men, and the rats
Will gnaw our files until some merchant,
hardened against the fear of pestilence.
shall venture to export them to the rag
markets of the East and disseminate them
among the harmless populations of Ara
bia and Egypt.
In brief we send our newspapers to
Vienna that by being read they may cause
us to be respected. And nobody will
read them. We send them with seme-
thing of the pride of Lafayette Kettle
when he contemplated the condition Of
Queen Victoria after the perusal of the
Water Toast Gazette, and exclaimed
swell, sir, | tell you this-there amt
engine with its biler bust in God AL
mighty's free limited States so fixed and
nipped and friZZled to most e-tarnal
smash as that young critter in her luxur-
rious location in the Tower of London
will be when she reads the next double
extra Water Toast Gazette" Queen Vic
terra is no longer a ''yOung critter," it is
true; but Queen Victoria has not learned
wisdom with her years. and still abstains
from reading the Vate7. Toast Gazette.
But that will not deter the Lafayette ket-
tie of our time from sending her and her
fellow-tyrants the Water Toast Go=ette,
nor from finding compatriots to congrat-
ulate him upon it. For as Lafayette ket-
tie finds his successor in Van Buren,, Gen
eral Choke survives in Chandler, who is
quite capable of declaring to Van Buren,,
in the language of Choke to Kettle: sin
the name of this company, sir, and in the
name of our common country, and in the
name of that righteous cause OF holy
sympathy in which We are engaged. l
thank you. L thsnk you, sir, In the name
of the Water Toast sympathizers. and
| thank you, sir, in the name of the Water
Toast Gazette, and | thank you, sir, in the
name of the star-spangled banner of the
Great U-nited States, for your eloquent
and categorical exposition. And if |
might venture to conclude with senti-
ment, would say, sir, may the British
lion have his talons cradicated by the no.
BILE bill of the American eagle, and be
taught to play upon the Irish harp and
the Scotch fiddle the music which is
b:eathed in every empty shell that lies up
on the shores of green Columbia. "-Ne,o
YORK. Hot.yH