The Portland daily press., 1877-11-06
TERMS $500 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE.

pointment are never mentioned at all, every
commission that is two-tbirds Democratic is
perfectly sure every time to find the best OBJ
JeetS OF patronage 10 its own organization. l
wish 1t were otherwise. 1 hope some day it
will be. But do not think Millennium Of
this sort will originate in New York, or at any
Fate in its Municipal service. Perhaps when
the federal government has set the example
and demons strated the wisdom of such policy
it may bs initiated even here. But meanwhile
the people of the city must fain get along the
best way they can until they attain higher
capacity for managing their own affairs.
AS to the need Of large addition Of recep-
tacles Tor those whom poverty or crime have
made charge upon the public care, thers is
complete accord between the two commissions,
The corporation has entirely outgrown its in
stitutions. The frightful drain made upon the
exchequer by the thefts of the "Riug" has
compelled the practice of the most rigid econo-
my of municipal expenditure during the past
six years, and for that reason great many
exigent Improvements have been deferred.
The consequences of this unfortunate delay and
neglect are set forth in the memorial Of the
State Board of Charities, a paper which
would fill three columns of the PRESS, and
which an imaginative reporter, without
ever having read it, has so perverted
and distorted from its meaning and pur-
pose that the sentence into which he summa-
rized it is as much falsehood as if he had
manufactured it outright. His peers in this work
of misrepresentationE-w unintsntion-
al very likely. but none the less reprehensible
hou AZ.
with great variety of garniture, but always
in that most odious form of mendacity, the
suppressio veri. Occasionally the deduction
drawn betrays the carelessness with which the
item-gatherer glanced at the little fragments Of
the report which the New York dailies pub
lished for the misinformation of their readers.
The Boston Globe is furnished with few lines
of which the following sentence will serve as
sample: "The lunatic asylums are referred to
as extravagantly managed;" the fact being that
the lunatic asylums are the principal theme Of
| the memorial, and it is set forth therein with
great particularly that they are much too
penuriously managed; one can get tolerably
correct idea of the worthlessness of the whole
despatch by reading these nine words of it.
do not suppose that there was any malice
in the pervtrsion of truth upon which have
animadverted. l saw but two persons at the
conference whom 1 knew or supposed to be
connected with the press; one was the reporter
| OF the lines and the other of the World.
Both these papers contained fair though BY no
means full accounts tof what took place. A
Herald reporter came in after the meeting ad.
| journed, and proceeded to gather from conver-
| sation with those who had not yet left the
Mayors Office, materials for an article. He had
one next day, curious wool, in which fact and
fancy were so confusingly blended as to show
clearly that he had wholly misunderstood the
driftcf the discussion. The other journals, morn
ing and evening, had something to say about the
matter, but there was nothing 10 any of them
which indicated their possession of an intelli.
gent acquaintance with the theme whereof
they discoursed. There was time when such
mistatsments concerning things about which
| the facts might have been ascsrtaned by proper
| inquiry, would have occasioned me good deal
| of annoyance. But they have become so COM
mon that l have grown to Iregsrd them as q
| matter of course. Conductors of NEWSPAPERS
| seem to consider themselves absolved ffom an
| obligation to guard against an infracion Of the
ninth commandment. Their heedlessness in
this particular has SO seriously impaired their
| influence that their censorship has ceased to
be of any appreciable Importance. Isno longer
follows because man is traduced in their col
umns that he is any the less worthy of popular
respect and confidence. That all depends upon
whether what they say of him is true or false,
and it is extremely unsafe to accept their testi-
mony unless it is reliably substantiated. All
which points the obvious moral, that the place
| 1u "n1Cn reIurm ~ mosU neeueu at THIS 1nncture
is in the journalistic literature of our country.
| YARMOUTH.