The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-07-24

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esteem and strongest affection personally
for Mr.. Blotton, that he had only meant
to call him an ass and a scoundrel in the
Pickwickian sense. Mr.. Blotton, not to
be outdone in magnanimity, arose and
declared that if there was one person
who walked the face of clay for whom he
felt stronger love and attachment th6n
another his name was Pickwck, and
thereupon Pickwick and Blotton shook
hands, embraced and exchanged pictures
amid the boisterous applause of the club.
The following extract from the valedic-
tory of the late editor and proprietor of
the Montpelier lVdtchnsaR reads very
much as if the writer seriously entertain
ed Pickwickian philosophy of journal
ism:
We have often crossed swords with
Mr.. Atkins. but it has never interfered
with our interchange of personal courte-
sizes. We have found in Mr.. Oviatt
vigorous opponent-an editor whose pen
sometimes dips in the gall in the ink bot
tie, to be sure. but withal a bright writer.
Whatever The Wdtchmon may have said
which might be regarded as rejecting
upon the character of either of these gen.
tlemen may be set down as to be under
stood in Pickwickian sense. All this
we say because we barber no bitterness
toward any, and because we desire to put
ourselves in proper light in our rela-
tiOns to our brethren of the press before
laying aside the editorial quill.
The Argus has not hesitated to describe
the late editor and proprietor of the
IVatctman as lara pious fraud, wheth-
err the subject was the size of his sub
scription list or other matters absolutely
personal. The ITdtchmdn has retorted in
kind, sparing neither the managing or
writing editor of the argus whether in
their public or private character. and now
the late editor of the JIdtchmdn takes off
his hat and says that he has the highest
esteem for everybody and that whenever
he has said anything that seemed to con-
flict with the popular impression that the
A'yuS staff was composed of wingless fat
angels he was only playing Pickwick in
the press; he personally admires and es-
teens the argus staff, and in plain Eng
fish he wishes it to be understood that
whenever he has called them, by direct
assertion or inuendo, frauds and liars;
whenever he has painted their personal
character in dark colors. he has been w.
ing himself, in the Pickwickian sense of
course we mean. Truly this is a manly
philosophy of iournalism-to avow that
it is decent and defensible to exhaust the
dictionary for vile names to describe men
for whom he privately enteriains the
highest respect and esteem Truly this
theory-that journalism is nodhng but
vast Pickwick club, where tie airi filled
with colliding epithets of Char fraud"
ETC.. etc, only to be cleared by the Pick
wicks and Blottons of tfre press em5rac-
ing and exchanging Pictures. with the
explanation that the enemy is a iollv
good fellow, liar and fraud only in
the Pickwickian sense-is calculated to
inspire the public with very high idea
of this sort of Journalism. which in effect
says: "In private we greet each other
as gentlemen; but in Journalism we meet
as blackguards." To our mind a man
who will take oil his hat and offer his
hand to anybody in private who has
stigmatized his personal character as
base and contemplate in the public
press, is probably worthy of all the abuse
he has received his picture Is fairly tax
en-. He is worthy of about as much pop
ular respect and admiration. as a man
who poses for admiration as IN exponent
of the doctrine of Christian forgiveness
by blinking glasses with nan who has
made him cuckold. The world reasons
that so mean spirit probf .bly deserved
all the dishonor he sutlere d. The satan
ic press is bad enough, but it is manliness
compared with the PickS gick press, that
kicks and curses its rival and then kisses
it, calling it all good Joke" 1t is this
kind of Joke that makes a journalist con-
temptible; man who prints his neigh
Dor as corrupt and CO ntemptible. or is
himself described as corrupt and con-
temptlble, is probab' " both corrupt and
contemplate when he tells the public
that all that he has said of his neighbor
or suffered at his lands is nothing but
the revival OF the inane philosophy of
the Plckwlck ell Id by that great mora
engine, the Press