New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-11-16
THE ROMANCE or THE NEWS.

There are startling things in Hamlet" There
are wOndrous things in "The Mysteries of UdOlpho."
There are hair-raisIng deviltries IN 1.-THE Tale Of
Two Cities" or Les Mserables.' But neither in
Shakespeare in Mrs. Radcliffe, in Dickens nor in
Hugo is there anything more out OF the common
than what at intervals occurring under our eyes
and noses. The actual is the meat upon which the
romancers feed. 1t is a mere commonplace that
Truth is stranger than ictiOn"-a platitude
which we have repeated so often that We
do not really comprehend how much it
means. We wish that some philosopher
wouId explain why fictitious horrors in two vol
umes OF IN yellow covers are so much more impress
sive tran equally horrible things transpring-if
We may use that disreputable word-in our streets
or at our doors. The dark deeds of the day are
matters of course. The has been" is not so en-
gaging as the might have been" The " certain
true" as the children call it, lacks an element OF
wonder The most hardened novel reader does not
go to bed with long candle to reread astonishing
developments in the newspaper, for he read them
comfortably and by daylight over ms breakfast ats
o'clock n the morning. Yet for what is really won
derful and moving and mysterious and wemay add
genuinely pathetic, will back file of The
TRIBUNE for three six months against the whole
progeny of the Dime Press, with ali Miss Brad
dons novels thrown in. One tragedy pushes aside
ond and that 20 a third. Three fingered Jack has
actually killed his man in the BOwery Bill Sykes
was cracking an uptown house only last night,
OF will murder Nancy in BaXter-st. this
evening. The Surrogate will hear to-day the
case of a forged will, and suits for divorce are
almost as plenty the marriage notices. Sensatl0n
to borrow a lloquialism-treads upon the heels
of sensation. People say 1t is all the newspapers.
and people are partly right Newspapers make up
the record. They tell the tale, but only in rare
cases do they manufacture it. Novels may be
founded on fact" but newspapers. as rule, are
fact itself. Those which are much otherwise a
judicious public stops buying.
little reflection Will show how wonderful Is
the contemporaneous. There Is nothing more re-
markable IN American, perhaps we may say in any
history, than the story of the Cipher Dispatches
which The TRIBUNE has given to the world. When
these documents, cryptic no longer, get into his
tory as assuredly they will, the most comprehen-
sive annast Will be Obliged to give them
at least one long chapter. When they began to
appear. folk of a comparative turn Of mind
yentured upon illusions to Alr. POe'S story OF
THE Gold Bug" but the rdcule OF SO coupling
great things and small was soon apparent. Here
was really nothing less than a conspiracy TO revo-
lutionIze the Government. In the BOdleian library
they show you the lantern Of Guy Fawkes but what
is that to this mass of secret writing which has
been interpreted just surely the prophet trans
lated the handwriting on the WALT Imagine the
whole tale told in the brilliant and picturesque style
of Macaulay The Trial of the Bishops would be
nothing TO it,
But the nOyelists as well as the historians must
come to us for material. The Dickens of America,
OF shall say the Walter Scott, when either shall
have arrived. will renarrate the story of the ST.
Marks sacrege or of the Robbery of the Manhattan
Bank. The readers of the next generation, as they
peruse the narrative with wide-eyed interest. Will
ask themselves what we, then dead and gone,
thought of it. In their turn thew will wonder why
our times were exciting while theirs are so dull
Only then will the picture have found its perspec-
tive and acauiTed the mellow hue OF romance.