The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-06-17
SPREADING SCANDAL.

From the grand Tilton scandal case there
:. one little lesson that, it may be hoped, all
Who may read the odoriferous details IN
vbole or in part, may learn and remember.
r. ;s that vicious folly should hide itself;
that those who by accident or some hasty
lapse. or some loosening Of the moral hold,
or bv some outbreaking Of inward and intrin-
ic cussedness," make blunders Of which
decent people should be most profoundly
n named. should for the sake Of decency con
oeal the abomination with all the art they can
command.
Where there is no tale-bearer, the strife
oeaseth. Where there are none to blazon,
chronicle, magnify and echo the story OF
mingled crime and folly, the transient vii
lainy passes away from memory. Delicacy is
mot shocked childhood's curiosity is made
10 nourish no pernicious seeds the imagtna.
lions of the young are not corrupted the
blioht Of censure falls not upon the inno-
csnt no noisome exhalations becloud the
XIV to obscure the home, the village. or the
CITY: Concealment is. not wrong when de-
oency requires it.
Causes of scandal are innumerable. The
sun in his daily course looks down upon no
city where all the inhabitants are free from
deeds prompted by the ''blood and baseness"
of human nature, not balanced by reason.
nor restrained by law, human or divine. But
except one case in q thousand these shames
are hidden or the knowledge is limited to q
small circle. Names are silently omitted
from the catalogues of the worthy. Stigmas
are silently affixed which survive for genera
tiona A ban is decreed without word. The
cuiprits are branded on the cheek and brow,
and the moral lepers are Stunned. But, for
tunately for thslpurity of the young and the
peace Of families, mouths are closed and gos-
sip Ia hushed. When q man or woman falls,
It is we'll that the fact should be known to all
concerned, that the culprit may be shunned.
Society protects itself, however, without using
tho newspapers, and local scandals are, as
they should be, limited to narrow fields OF
conversation.
The dominant feeling of decent men and
women of the thinking classes is indignation
at the publicity which has been given to the
Low actions of few low people. Daily for
three or four months flood of nastiness has
boiled up in Brooklyn and spread over the
whole land. Every day the papers Of the
large Atlantic and Western cities have been
loaded with details of most extraordinary
Libel suit, and with minute REPETITION Of most
disgusting recitals. All the boys and girls of
fourteen years of age, who can get newspa-
psrs to read, have become familiar with the
putrescent and libidinous particulars of .
filthy history.
For gain there are sometimes printed id
secret and sold by stealth books intended to
minister to the putrid curiosity Of very mean
class Of boys; but this beastly scum Of litera-
ture is by far less injurious thsn the details Of
abomination presented in choice and gingerly
phrase in all the great journals of the North.
Women and children have been taught by
this diffusion of moral slime to talk freely OF
matters once deemed unfit to be mentioned in
mixed company. All the indecent tableaux.
shows, pantomimes, burlesques and travesties
of the past fifty years have done less damage
to American morals than the publication Of
the Beecher scandal trial
Next to this indignation is the humiliating
sense that we are obliged to suffer the mean
and foul words, acts and writings of half .
dozen men and women to take up SO much Of
our attention. They are exposed in deformed
moral nudity and nastiness before our eyes
from day to day. We are compelled to see,
in spite of our disgust, and to hear in spite
Of our aversion. The Shiny mess is poured
over as until we are saturated. The literary
atmosphere of the North is tainted with It.
Al a nuisance it is worse than the Rocky