New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-04-06
RNRRLE AND SQUEAR.

Our grandmOtherS, OF culinary lame, uSeu W
rejoice the souls Of favored guests with del-
icacy yclept Bubble and Squeak, having, If VIC
remember rightly some kind of greasy founda-
ton, with a superstructure of sour porter and
whipped eggs. Our palates have grown dam
terri this generation. The fashionable woman
hears with disgust how Queen Annes maids
of honor caught the blood of the dying pig
and royal hands mOistened the hurst with 1t.
Nor do fine gentlemen any longer whip pigs
to death to give them the flavor of wild boar.
We eat and drink, not only by the rules OF
delicacy but science can tell just how Tar the
supply of phOSphates or albumen should go IN
a breakfast, and give reason for feeding tho
journalist on shad and celery and the laborer
on mutton. Men and women have sternly set
their faces toward the accomplishment OF clean
and strong stomachs for themselves and their
children.
But mentally, frothincss and foulness are
not yet distasteful to us. Decent Martha
Washington or Dolly Madison would have shud-
dered at the black draught of gossip which their
descendants gulp down every morning with
out q wry face. 1t is not of the actual vice
which we complain now, however, but the dis
relish among all half-educated Americans for
moderation, composure, and practical strength
In manners, Oratory, literature, or religion. 1t
is the preachers who play occasionally the part
of piOus mOuntebanks whose audiences are
numbered by the thousand; the subscription
lists of flashy sensational newspapers out
number those of the best class OF magazines
twenty fold the books provided for our
children, even by respectable publishers, are
aflame with fiery adventures, rank growths or
passion and tawdry puerile sentiment. 1t Is
all Bubble and Squeak; greasy sediment at
bottom and unclean frOth atop. Nor is this
exaggeration confined to what are called the
vulgar. uncultured classes; the habit OF over
statement, of gross coloring, taints more or
less every expression of our social life. The
American girl, at heart pure and modest, per-
baps, with her loud dressing and pro-
nounced manner is a matter of note from
Rotten Row to the Campagna; her father,
with his swagger and parade OF
wealth, has corrupted every market in
Europe In the daily journals the lives and
homes OF private men and modest women are
ungutted for the public simply to satisfy this
prurient, morbid appetite; or If literary
caterer has public man as his material, he
feels himself bound cOnscientlously to his
readers to furnish mess of either fulsome
adulation or indecent gossip. Take recent
account of the dying Throes" OF the last
Congress aud see how easily plain facts can
be frothed into Bubble and Squeak. There Is
q gallery for cOOred people in the house; it
becomes Gan inky cloud" carved inky
cloud too, "carved in tints," from creamy
"rose to starles5 night" Il cloud with tassels
-Apglo-Saxon tassels. Then we are pre-
scented to a well-known woman "a writer who
never penned II foul or frothy line), and told
that although we may think her the ugliest
woman in the country, her "face en- light up
"like the Pleiades when tho virtuOus moon Is
"devourcd by an eclipse" Another lady's
"face is amiable as when first culled from the
"New- England tree" Oh, virtuous moon!
Oh, trees of New England! GLOW hard il is"
quoth the Western editor, "to write goodW
A cruel dog of war comes next to the front
az "a geni (sic) patent as in the Arabian
Nights, who when he lifts his head Of the
"purest Saxon type, pierces legion of ladies'
"hearts." Southern member is well known
as a dyspeptic; but here appears as ian ex-
"piring flame in its socket. q snow palace
"melting away under an arctic sun, a living
"sword suspended by spiders web. Behind
chin stands the sbadowSof the Inexorable.'
Next "marc&es on the American gladiator,
"Ben Butler" Whatever may be our private
opinion of this representative, we are hardly
prepared to hear that he is not only q gladi-
ator, but lion-a lion eating an OK; also
GOliah, and tomb, godlike in its sensibilties,
but resembling Satan at the same time; and
not only is he this very unsual sort of tomb.
but mountain of knowledge aud an ocean
Of tact, and also warning thunderbot.
Women, we are told, "avOid him as too large
"fOr their mental tapc-lines" This is prob
able. We never thought Butler was q nice
domestic animal. His claims to notice. how
ever, pale before the next startling statement
concerning Gov. Shepherd, who has stood
"for centuries in the Vatican ut Rome, and
Stands firm "a the imperishable marble
ION the magnificent capital which he has
"giyen to the Western Empire" Speaker
Blaine comes in for his touch of the brush,
aud appears with "a cOuntenance typiiying
"the race of the Caesars in pure Greek out
lines" His voice might very properly be set
down as pleasant and genuine sort of voice,
but here it becomes "a flute-like harmony,
floating on u sea of tears
Now when will there be an end of this sort