Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-06-28
1anraster> fntelhgenrer.
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TUESDAY EVENING, JUNE %. 1881.
NeWspaper Reticence.

TOESDA Gt6N1N1, y ONE Zos AoOA'
Newspaper Reticence.
The pastor and a number of the
members of St. Marks church in
Philadelphia have been annoyed re-
Gently by the receipt of indecent postal
cards and letters, and today the Phila-
delpllia newspapers all refer to the inves-
tigation which has been held into the
matter by postal detectives. We take
note Of the matter simply to remark
upon what has chiefly struck us and
that is the conduct of the respec-
tive journals, in the freedom or
reticence which they display in
communicating to the public the
facts which they have evidently re-
ceived from the parties who have pursued
the inquiry and without any special en-
terpriseo of their own. They seem to have
been told the facts of public interest with
special injunctiOns to observe secrecy as
to the identity of the guilty party, whom
those interested wished to protect from
publicity, she being respectfully connect
ed and believed to be a mOnOmaniac on
the subject. So far Is we have noted, the
newspaper editors have observed the
promise they must have given when
they obtained the information, SO far as
not to publish the name: but, inside of
this, they each give us an exhibition OF a
different shade of Interpretation of their
undertaking. From one We barely learn
that the guilty party is being traced
another says the chase has become so hot
rs to have frightened the perpetratOr
into a cessation of the annoyance, and
therefore the pursuit has been dropped
from a third we learn that well con-
nected female is suspected; again that
it is a young woman not connected with
the church while from the Press, the
most leaky of the lot, We find that it is
young woman "w who had been afflicted
for years and was the object Of the most
tender sOlicitude of her widowed
MOTHER" and that the detective found
her out through her communication to
the pastor of the church Of a number of
cards which she had received and her
exhibition, when questioned, of a
knowledge of other cards which she
would only lave had as the author of
them.
There is nothing at all remarkable in
the fact that an insane young woman
should have been guilty of these tricks,
and there was manifest propriety in
stopping the investigation when the
offense was thus traced and the natural
guardian of the irresponsible party was
put in possession of the knowledge of
her acts. The matter was hardly one for
newspaper publicity, and the newspapers
who gave it the briefest mention are ell
titled to credit for their self-tlenial. For
it certainly does require a great deal of
self-contrOl i'm 4 journalist to suppress
interesting information ut his command.
The public. which is always ready
to condemn newspapers for pub
fishing scan,lalous matter, is just
as ready to real it when pub
lislled, and there is 10 doubt that the
more free Il newspaper is in disclosing
every thing OF every kind it hears, the
greater is the stimulus it supplies to its
circulation. But there are many things
which the self-rcslecting journalist will
not publish, and just according to his
innate ,lcccncy will be his reticcnce con-
cerning them. This affair We now refer
to is not of an especially obnoxious
character, but has attracted our atten-
tion because of the notable graGation
in the freedom which the editors of the
different Journals permitted themselves
in E;irratng it.