New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-08-20
STANLEY'S EXPLORATIONS.

The New York Heralds commissioner
has again been heard from, and the re-
joicing Of young Bennett knows no
bounds. 1t would seem that bloody bat
ties and hair-breadth escapes are still as
highly appreciated by the marvel-loving
as they were in the days of Jack the
Giant Killer, or of Guy, Earl of War
wick. Now Stanley is Benefits Guy.
He sends him off into the wilds of Africa,
with as broad free.lance commission
and as traditional an excavation of the
cost as the veriest Don Quixote could de-
sire, while he himself goes about yacht
ing, and junketing, and playing polo, and
engaging himself to princesses, as if
journalism was all play and no work; as
if it belonged to the first instead of the
fourth estate, and embraced within itself
all the sources and resources of SOW
ereignty.
We have had some slight connection
with journalism, but, so far as our expe-
rience goes, found it far more of work
than play. After thinking the matter
calmly over, we have arrived at the
solemn conclusion that explorations in
the interior of Africa do not lie within the
domain of legitimate journalism, and are
only resorted by pretenders for the pur-
poses of sensational display. what"
some one may ask, "do you pretend 20
doubt the legitimacy of young BENEFITS
journalistic repute?" Yea, verify. The
Herald was running itself when he found
it, and all that he has done is to spend
with lavish hand its surplus revenues.
Did he permit his ambition to take some
other form; such, for instance, as the
building up of an institution for broken
down journalists and printers, his efforts
and expenditures might be appreciated;
but to send Stanley into Africa with q
revenue Of beads and retinue of subsi-
died natives, to conquer knowledge at
the revolver's mouth, and kill all who
questioned his commission or crossed his
path, is little too imperial to suit our
notions of journalistic propriety:
What is Africa to Bennett, or he to AZ
RIGA. that he should send Stanley Ku-
among the natives, and thereon
claim credit for enterprise and magma
nimity? After the more humble and self
sacrificing efforts of Livingstone and the
rest, the world is not so hungry as to the
geological and typographical features of
Africa as to warrant explorations in their
quest which are at once hazardous and
nurderous.
In SANKEY'S first African expedition
here was something on which popular
could legitimately centre, to
Wit: the discovery and rescue Of Living
stone. But when he is sent again to grasp
he laurels which Livingstone's concilia-
DRY course and unselfsh enterprise rem
Tered possible, humanitarian encourage
nent ceases, and the tricks of the sensa-
ional adventurer are exposed.
What business, we ask, has the HeralTs
to 60 ilibustering through
africa with one hundred and sixty armed |
blowers, traducing and slaughtering the |
barbarian inhabitants of that country? |
other explorers have borne testimony to
he generous disposition of the natives,
wherever their confidence had been Sc
ured; but Stanley declares that one of |
he most generous and sweet-tempered of |
be chiefs did not offer him of his abun-
lance single drop of milk, and if he
lad done SO, his own people would have
torn him limb from limb" How differ
mt this from the sympathetic song sung
0 an explorer in the same region by an
lfrican maiden, one stanza of which,
translated into English verse, runs as
blows:
he sat him down beneath the tree,
For weary. cad and faint was he;
Alas! no wife or mothers care
For him the corn and milk prepare"
1t is possible that the price Of milk has