The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1879-01-11
A NEWSPAPER HUMBUG AND
CATCH-PENNY.

ported to be greenback organ, and 60
the full benefit of really correct an
praiseworthy sentiment in relation to tn
currency. 1t apparently had the indorse
ment of the great and good Peter Cooper
of Now York, the financial encyclopedia o
the present age.
Peter Cooper is not subscriber to TIL
COMET. and is no kin to its editor, and oul
tribute to his financial genius and per-
sonal worth is not biased by interest or
warped by the ties of consanguinity. We
consider him as an oracle of finance, and
as pure and spotless man as ever lived to
a green old age. We are not in favor of
making President of the United States
out of him, though we have fully and
heartily indorsed many of his theories of
finance
The Advocate with the cheek chal acter-
istic of the unscrululous trickster, sought,
and, to all appearances, obtained the ben
eft of Peter Coopers favor and patronage,
This was the only "opeu sesame to re-
spectability which the Advocate had, and it
made the most of it. 1t rung all the
charges upon it. Itnever lost the oppor-
tunity of Juggling in he name of the man
who had grown gray in good work, and
stood eonspicuously bpfore the American
people as proud type of American phi
lanthrophy. 1t traded tpou the we'll forti-
fed confidence of the ptople of the United
States in Peter Cooper And the fact that
the venerable philanthrahist used its col
umns frequently for thu diffusion of his
financial views, gave somt coloring to this
claim. But, in point of fct, the Advocate
was cheat, from the START, and Peter
Cooper had nothing in ,he world to do
with it, except, perhaps, 70 buy or sub
scribe for few hundred o,pies, in order
that he might spread his grefnback philos>
ophy over the land.
None but simpleton will over imagine
thai Peter Cooper was or coull be a party
to that or any other swindl- upon the
struggling masses. His nam has been
unwarantably used in connectidl with this
so-called organ. His whole gong, and
active, and successful life hai been a
steady, steadfast and constant ,sbuke to
frauds of all kinds, to tricks IF every |
character. The very soul of inte,rity. he |
knows nothing else-has never triet to learn |
anything else-than to go Straightforward
in the line of sterling honesty aid true
benevolence. 1t is an outrage to couple
his name with mushroom eoncell that
suffered itself first to pander to the worst
element of the greenback party, than to
betray the cause, and finally to subsideinto
downright disreputability.
In the first place the attempt to prit a
large eight pago newspaper weekly {or
twelve months at 25 cents, (not half he
cost of the white paper,) was an evidene
of deliberate bad faith. Calculating me
knew from the beginning that the thin,
could not be done, and collapse was GER
tain. Then the proposition to furnish
seventy dollar sewing machines for ten doll
lars was in the same line of cold-blooded |
robbery by the wholesale.
This wonderful sheet seemed to have
taken the whole country by storm. The
servile legislation of Congress for the last {
twenty years in the interest of the bond
holders and moneyed rings, the tendency of
which has been st eadily to make the rich
richer and the poor poorer, had built up a
powerful current of dissatisfa ction and
hostility to this injustice and inequality.
And this sentiment only needed proper
guidance and moderation to become the
,uling sentiment of the land. But the
Advocate prostituted it to the base arts of
ieceit, hypocracy and robbery. 1t rallied
uch men as Dennis Kearney, of California,
md Ben Butler, of Massachusetts. 1t de-
troyed the respectability of the party and
Tiled it, and now it goes out in its own
gnominy.
However, for the tim being, it took like
lot cakes and spread like wild fire. Clubs
rom everywhere poured in upon it until its
irculation was claimed to be about SOO,-
90. 1t was the wonder of the epoch. ,
Everybody bad a curiosity to read little ,
f it to see if possible how so much paper
ould be furnished for SO little money.
he paper, of course, never had any in ,
uence except for evil. All swindles and ,
heats tend only to disaster in The long run.
Int the unsophisticated public were sorely
uzzled to find out how three dollar news
aper could be made for two bits, or I
sventy dollars, wing machine could be sold a
Or ten dollars. They looked upon the Ad- f
ocate as the harbinger of new era when n
i the literature a man could devour for
Telve months could be bought for twenty
We cents with sewing machine thrown in. i,
1t was apuzzle. 1t was huge mystery 1
ne OF those things ''that no fellah could a
yer find out" Nevertheless it was simple, o
I'd here is the solution: Taking the Ad-
ocate's own figures when it run up to sOO,- t
10 subscribers at 25 cents each, it had re- k
lived $2OO,OOO from that source, and then
suddenly dropped its list. There was b
oney in the operation. ct
When it received hundreds, perhaps
ousands of Postofice orders for cheap g
wing machines, teas, MICROSCOPES, etc, b
returned to the anxious applicants none 81
these cheap and useful articles, but
ade all this money clear. Could any RI