The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-03-29

columns of advertiser euts. In eyentysix
columns OF advertisements there is wonder
fully accumulated picture OF the daily life and
thought Of the people. Write down every
mans want and his aspiration, his project.
his necessity aud his 'little game" and one
would have strange record, an imperishable
picture OF the great and little operations OF
the human mind, and al, that record is writ
ten by the people themselves in the seventy
six columns of advertisements that have
their place In Sunday HERALD. Dionysus
is reported to have had cell constructed in the
prison of Syracuse on the pr ncple of TIE
human ear, into which the sound was con-
vcyed from tho dungeon beiow, 80 that every
whisper, every prayer, every curse, every pro-
iected plot came to him above as if whispered
only for his hearing. If we should fancy the
device contrived not merely for a prison,
but for the palaces as well, for tho
cosey freside and the shopkeeper's corner,
for the home of the lonely one out of employ
ment or the noisy fellow astir with the spirit
Of speculation for all the manifestations Of
modern activity, and conceive it applied to
whole CITY, we should find this fancy realized
and actually operated IN the HERALD of today.
Here, however, the whisper Of our city weird
does not merely address itself to the listening
ear of one eager to catch it, and so pass away
forever, but by the marvellous perfection of
machinery peculiar to our time it writes itself
as if automatically into permanent record Of
what was thought by SO many individuals in
certain city on given day. All the bricks
and tablets dug from dusty Nineveh will never
give so full and satisfying a picture Of the
life of the people that swarmed in that
human ant-hill as this single copy Of
the HERALD will furnish to future time
of the life, manners, thoughts morals
and plans of our people. If out Of
the cities of Shinap out of Babylonian OF
Assyrian ruins, out of Persepolis or Sarlis,
or out Of any city Of the Pharaohs, or out Of
Carthage or even Rome some miracle of dis
covery should furnish us as full record Of O
single days thought and life as this HERALD
furnishes of the thought and life of our people,
the student of the ancient world, who finds
in history it stands only enough to excite
curiosity, could gloat over feast of knowL
edge greater than all the records together
have ever yet given, or ever will give.
Neither is this merely because Of the ruin
into which the world Of ancient cities has
crumbled away, for such picture never was
drawn, and We doubt if it could be drawn ex.
cept as it is actually done, by each person
contributing his line. No literary art or in
dustry would be equal to it. Neither Defos
nor Richardson, nor any other Of
the patient geniuses who have drawn
with minute fidelity pictures Of certain
phases of popular life would have been COM
petent to make the universal picture as the
people unconsciously make it themselves.
From the thin vapor OF human breath foatin,
through the room on cold night the frost
contrives on the panes inimitable pictures to
which the tracery of the lacemakers is coarse
and clumsy. Any one part OF such pic
ture the copyist might reproduce; but in the
next night comes picture that. identical 10
principle, is utterly different in detail, and no
two nights ever saw the frost. picture tins
, same. And it is the variety that is the most
essential characteristic of that airy splendor.
| A like variety in life might well fill with
| despair whoever should endeavor to write
down the record OF human needs and hopes,
unless the people in great city had pre-
viously themselves supplied the model.
With our columns of local reports, CORE.
spondence, editorial observations, slip news
and ordinary telegraphic intelligence in addi-
ton to the household words of the adver-
Using columns, we venture to believe copy
of the Sunday HERALD is without parallel in
Journalism for entertainment and interest, and
this appears from the result to be the public
opinion. People who live in cities where the
papers are published every day but Sunday
know the priyation of that one day loss, and
experience sense Of lonesomeness Tor want
OF tho news that the double supply Of Monday
does not compensate for. Even III vast city
like London, where none of the great
dailies have Sunday editions, this loss is
feel it. Some journals seem to have
thought it necessary to touch what they
suppose is middle point between paper
and no paper for their Sunday edition. They
publish sort Of paper that is not news
paper, but made up Of scraps from exchanges
and aimanacs, cuttings from magazines and
general feeble miscellany, of no account to
any one in particular and especially, we fancy,
of tolerably small account to themselves
Bot our plan is to publish tie news, which we
believe to be what the people principally
want and through the fact TO which we refer
it comes about that the HERALD is the only
newspaper published in this city on Sunday,
and 80 is the paper that every one is COM
| PEELED TO get and, of course, has seventy
six columns of advertisements