Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1875-04-16
8ellows falls Timss,
Our Newspapers.

Pldctu US uuuSi many VbAiSueiohs, hiiSH
we are bound in honor to confess, have
received little practical acknowledgment
We have endeavored, it is true, to profit
by all wise suggestions, and tried to show
our gratitude by making our monthly
offering more aud more valuable to Its
great host of readers but we have had
too much the feeling of junior, or a
protege, to presume to make any return
in kind. Shall we be pardoned if, for
once, we break out of this very pleasant
position of a recipient, and try to realize
to ourselves how much more blessed it is
to give than to receiver
AS newspapers, simply, those of Am
erica are the best in the world. The en-
tire globe is raked, and raked clean,
every day, of incident, movement, and
event, to be blazoned upon their teeming
pages. Science, religion, politics, society,
commerce, agriculture, mechanics, all
things of human concern, find place for
every fact and phase in their columns
The lightnings are their messengers, win
moving the midnight world with their
wings, and bearing in their beaks from
the harvest-felds of thought and action
every precious seed that has ripened and
dropped during the day. No cost OF
toll or gold dismays them. Their ser
wants are on every battlefield, in the
thick of every mob, in the forests and
the deserts, on the mountains and on the
seas. watching kings, watching parlia-
ments, sitting beside the astronomer in
his vigils, recording the message of the
preacher, counting the steps of scientific
progress, and bearing the product of all
this enormous enterprise and industry,
morning by morning, to the homes of the
nation. The outcome of this world
wide inquisition and exposition rises al
most into the realm of miracle We
have no words to express our admiration
of it-no phrases by which we can mea-
sure the height and depth and length
and breadth of the largess it contains
and influence it exerts.
Thus much we can say with entire
truthfulness thus much we do say with
thorough heartiness To preside over a
great American newspaper is to hold and
exercise one of the most dignifed offices
in the world. Now, let us open the news
paper, and see how it looks. Freighted
with the worlds great affairs, loaded
down with the hopes, struggles, misfor-
tunes, crimes, triumphs, and achievements
OF humanity, we expect to find it earn
est, dignified, and catholic. The first
thing we see is half column of sensa-
tional headings, addressed, perhaps, to
the prurient curiosity of the basest men
We open Western paper, and find over
an item of intelligence, or of falsehood,
concerning grievous scandal, the word
HE'LL! in as large letters as can be
squeezed into column. This is followed
by minor heads, every one of which is
intended to produce sensation. We 90
on through the paper, and it is all sensa-
tion. Oftentimes the headings mislead
as to the real character of the intelli-
gence to which they are the preface. All
the news chronicled is wrought up into
its most startling forms. To pique curl
osity, to raise feeling, to attract atten-
ton, to appeal to the sense of the mar
vellous, to be stunning rather than SIM
pie and true, are the apparent motives
of the conductor.
Is this an extreme case ? We can
furnish papers by the hundred that stead
lily pursue this course as matter of pol
icy. 1t is not enough that we have party
presses in religion and politics that give
party shape to everything that comes
to them. 1t is not enough that we have
presses that rejoice in scandal and crime
and take greater delight in them, and
greater pains with their details, than are
excited by those affairs which mark the
advance of the world in goodness and
wisdom. 1t is not enough that there are
papers which mold all things that they
touch to the personal purposes and pref
udices of their conductors. If thing
is tame it must be whipped into start
ling appearance. If it is sad-inex-
pressibly sad from its badness-its bad
ness must yield the requisite sensation.
Great and good names are TESTED with.
Topics which involve the most precious
interests of the human race are tossed
flippantly about, like the balls of a Jug.
Ter, TO attract the eyes of the gaping
multitude. Subjects of which children
can never know too little are laid before
the family eye as familiqrly as if they
were not stepped in shame To receive
the worlds news, in the spirit and shape
In which it is presented to millions of
readers every day, is to suppose that all
the worlds momentaus events are con-
ceiyed in fever and brought forth in hys-
terics.
If anything were really gained by this
course there might be poor apology for