The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1878-05-03
POST MoaTEM PANEayRIcs.
FRANK PIxLEY ON NEWSPAPER oBITU-
ARIES.
From the Argonaut, April 20.

| r. y i
| Eulogies to the dead are among the most
absurd things of newspaper literature.
Panegyric and fulsome praise has come to
be the popular idea, and friends and ac-
qnaintances demand that the puff shall be
slab and thick. For the man who has been
rich, or in office, or prominent, OF notorious,
surviving relatives demand the most un-
stinted eulogy. In view of the parent s
estimate of wonderful children, it is some.
| times asked why there are SO few wonder
full men? more proper inquiry might
arise in view of the mean and miserable
men who in life disgrace and dishenos
themselves who, in all their relations to
society are infdel to duty aud everything
else. What becomes Of them? We have
known lawyers who, during their lives,
were distinguished only for successful en-
bracery, whose practice was that of black
mail, who had no idea of the obligation of
professional duty. We have known priests
and doctors whose only career was one of
pretense and ignorance whose priestiy
robes covered i'll deeds, whose practices ac-
corded sadly with their professions of skill;
politicians, whose lives were long and sell
fish intrigoes, and whose only claim to con-
sideration was larty craft and political
cunning, supplemented with cautious dem
agogism business men, whose sole success
resulted from dishonesty and dishonorable
overreaching; misers greedy for gold; usur-
ers sweating coin, and squeezing the eagle
till he would shrek; merchants and traders
whose sole idea Of commerce was to buy
an article for less than its value and sell it
for more; statesmen whose craft was cum
ming, and whose whole career was con-
spiracy, and whose whole aim was plumber,
Our community is full of such. They
swarm every avenue of society. We know
and mark them. Yet when their breath
leaves their bodies we are appealed to, to
speak kindly of the dead. The press be-
comes a sort of metaphorical pocket-hand-
kerehief-to mop the eyes and noses Of our
snnf1ing sensibilities. We go about the
streets trying to look sorry because some
scurvy fellow has shuffled ofhis coil Of NOR
tality and go ne TO test himselfin the puri-
flying crucible of a hell we are confident he
deserves. We wear Grape aud turn out in
long procession to honor his dead remains,
which we despised SO long as they eoutain-
ed the vital spark that animated all his
contemplate deeds while fivipg. We are
80 we'll convinced that this is all wrong
aid all dem oralizing, that we have deter
mint d to set theseEample that shall lead to
thorough reformation in this respect.
We are saving up the facts. for biogiaphi-
cal notices of several Of our eminent citi-
zens. We are treasuring ii our memories
the generous acts they do not do the good
hey do not seek to accomplish the splen
lid charities they do not seek to endow. |
Whether we shall have the nerve to
print, we doubt. If we gain confidence by
writing fearlessly of the living, it is posi- |
ole we may gain confidence to speak truth |
'ully of the dead, and that by and by our
leaders will come to expect true and faith |
III OUltudileS VI oul uiStii < ulnHou duo noeo
'ious men. IF this should occur it would |
De hard on the undertakers, because there
IRE many men in this community vino
would not have the courage to die in the
,oHntry. They would emigrate SO that they
night be without the reach of this spear,
more piercing than IthuriePs. 1t is unjust
n our opinion, to the honorable living to
peak we'll of the dishonorable dead.