New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1884-06-29
AMERICAN-ENGLISH.
A SOFT ANSWER TO A WRATHFUL ENG
IISHMAN

rrrrpr y CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRTBUNE.l
LONDON, June IL.
In his Echoes of the Week" ending June T. MI
George Augustus Saa entreated the forbearance OF
his readers while in a few paragraphs lie enGeavored
to give fits to an imperfectly informed person
writing over the signature of CIV. 5 IN The NEW
YORK DAILY TRIBUNE" This mperfectly informed
person. it appears. had devoted a whole column to
the presumptuous task of trying to disprove what
Mr. George Augustus Sala had stated with refer
ence to the words mal-route" p" frock,' gown,
and "dress' After himself deyoting whole
column to an incousderable part of this grave sub
iect, Mr.. Sala discovered that although what had
to say was mainly leather and prunela. he had not
space that week to delnolish me in detail" and
so post poned the grateful task until next week"
Need say in what misery of agonzing expecta-
ton have lived during these seven daysf Damo-
clos had q merry life of it compared with mine.
Over him the sword was suspended but by hair.
vet the hair might not break; while in my case
week was tie utmost | could hope for before the
dread instrument which we know on Lord Lyttoh
authority to be mighter than the mere sword
should transtix me. What sleepless nights have
not spent-last night above all, when hour by hour
endured the slow torture which Slapped the soul oil
that condemned one of whose last days Victor Hugo
has drawn Dantean picture. This morning-t Is
ftlv a Friday. the day when Saas echoes are leu
loose on the wOrld-the paper came clutched inc
sheet tore it open. scanned the page Not
word on G.. W. S. Nothing about frock or gown.
For moment breathed freely Life for that brlet
space again seemed tolerabe and even precious.
was not demolished" | was to be allowed to drag
on nv miserable existence Pity. cOntemptuous' no
doubt but still pity, had filled the executloners
heart In another moment it flashed upon me that
this Is not freedom it is only respite. Had 1t been
mercy which stayed his hand, surely he would have
senited as much He would have devoted. not per
haps a whole column but line, to the announce
ment that sentence RENTED. There Is not a
line and know only too well that by refinement
of cruelty which | really do not think have de-
served my punishment is merely put of for another
week Whether Mr. Sala found his rack rusty ana
his thumb-screws out of order don't know POSI-
bly, he discovered that the fabric he was so ready 10
demolish is more solid than he thought Possibly
the dynamite was duly laid in the area but the
clockwork stopped. Be the cause of his hesitation
what it may. have but slender hope OF escaping
IN the end the doom so solemnly foretOld. knowing
n TO be certain believing it to be near, VIII use
the few last gasps of falling breath as best may.
For il is only fair to confess to you that, on one
point OF perhaps two in fact demolished last
week and not only demolished but so demora'zed
that then made effort to protest. Thought II
better to let Mr. Sala forge and launch the whole OF
his tbunderbots Il hope ne does not claim monop-
OIS III lnlNcu iuttdpuoIs OcAOLN PANN'"AAON- 80
efficacy of my new private patent applied for
lightning rod. But now that he holds his last
batch suspended in mid-air seize the opportunity
to say a word.
Mr. Sala declared that the English language
knows no such term mail-route. ventured 10
point out that liz to be found in the Imperial
Dictionary. Mr.. Saa meets this by giving a.list Oh
dictionaries in which it is not to be found, ana
enthusiastically repeats that 1t is not English
This is a Joe Miller of the most venerable antiquity
An unimpeachable witness swears he saw the ac-
cused commit the act. Counsel for the prisoner
thereupon puts three witnesses on the stand tins
phrase. NV dear Mr. Sala, is Americana who swear
they did not see him. But this ingenious procedure
does not always secure acquittaL MI SaIas
learning is perhaps more coplous than accurate lie
argues in substance that the word Is recent IN
uovation and that its presence IN the Imperial DC
tonarv is due to the competition q modern COM
pliers forced to initiate" their works IN order 70
Keen mace with rival photographers. He admits,
therefore with smiling candor that maIl-route
does make it's appearance in the 1880 edition OF
Webster. edited by Goodrich, Porter and MAIN, and
two years afterward ma-rOute found its way into
Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary edited by Annandale'
Would il surprise Mr. Sala to hear that the edition
of Webster TO which he refers was published IN
1861
eMr. Sala saws mail-route is wholly super1uons be-
cause Her Maiestys inland mails were formerly con-
veyed by road but are now conveyed by rail-. Ihs
argument would prove at most not that mal-route
had never been English but that 1t had ceased 10 De
a term of current lspeech. The English language
e,isted before railways had been made, and even
before Mr. Sala and The Daily Telegraph had taught
the world how it should not be written But
wouId il surprise him to be told THAT many OF Her
Naiestv's mails are still conveyed by rOadI Would
MT - a very small amount of reflection suffice to
convince an intelligent person that there are hun
dreds of post-oces in Great Britain where there Is
no railwav7 Does Mr.. sala suppose that people
living in towns approached by no railway are Will
ont benefit of post Office and never receive letters,
or newspapers or Echoes And might not route
bv which letters were carried to these places Dc
| - leoitimately" called a mail-routeY But not to
press the point let it suffice TO say that Websters
Dictionary with the added authority Of DR.. Good
rinb President Porter and DR.. Mahn and the In
pcrial Dictionary say mail-route is an Enghsh
word. Mr. Sala says it is not The public IS at per-
feet liberty to choose between them.
The word dress y Is TO be dealt with fully by MT
Sala | suppose, when he fufs his promise OF DE-
molishing me. He INDUCED himself. however III
parenthetical exegesis of it last week. had SAID
that twenty wears ago dress, in the sense OF gown,
would have been likely TO stamp the person using IL
q. an American. " Dress an Americanism! Blame
NV cats cries Mr. Sala. ana proceeds 10 quote HAL
q dozen examples of its use in books relating 10
fashion published somewhere from 1913 to 1873.
He forgets that the whole Of this momentous con
troversv turns on the collOquial use of English.
When suggest that dress waslnot colloquial Eng
sb twenty years ago. it is not to the point to reply
that il occurs in books and in books printed sixty
years before that time.
And now, my dear sala pardon me if employ in
print the familiarity you permit in private inter-
counsel, having disposed for the moment OF these
pathological problems. let us come 10 another mat
ter quoted in the beginning OF TINS letter olo "a