The Sunday herald. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1866-1887, 1885-08-02
DOM prArT
On the Pail Mall Gazette ana fts POL.
luted Revelations.


that Is stirring the civilized world, from a
London journal, is not so remarkable for III
expose of autocratic vice as its presentation
Of new phase in European journalism.
The difference between the American press
and that Of the British Is marked in man,
respects. While the one is emuently re-
spectacle, IL is dull-the other, highly en-
tertaining, is-weli, not to mince matters,
rather indecent
An American, picking up an English paper
iinds that Bacon's essays or bits of Josephus
are far more entertaining, while John
Bull reads ours as Pistol ate his leak, grum.
bling. Charles Read, the novelist, put 1t
neatly when he said looking into an Ameri-
can newspaper was like looking out of a
window into dirty street. One look in all
the sights, good and bad and all, the foul
smells also.
For many years the English press has
sneered at American journalism as some.
thing extremely indecent and demoralizng.
The lofty stand held by papers in Great
Britain in this respect has been of sort Ia
make. us ashamed. The worst part of il
was in the truth. Compared to the press Of
England, while more brilliant and enter
tanning, we are positively indecent. The
freedom of publication with us means the
right possessor Of printing press has 10
spread ont the foulest rot in the way of
news and TO recognize no right private
citizen has that an editor Is bound to respect.
The lower the tone the wider the circnla.
ton is a fact worked on, for we know, only
too we'll, that the few only have culture,
aud to limit the aim TO please in that direc-
ton we shut out the emolument that comes
from the many.
Our English cousins of the pen.driving
profession have recognized the fact, and
have looked with longing eyes upon the
profit that comes Of catering to the depraved
tastes of the multitude. They have seen
Labouchere and Edmund Yates realizing for
tunes through their cautious imitation OF
American journalism. Aud now one of the
most reputable English journals suddenly
throws over all restraint and issues numbers
that would startle even, were such proposed
to It, Police Gazette or Days Doiags.
There ia no man possessed of the smallest
quantity of brain who believes that the edi-
tor who writes and the surging crowds that
seize the paper are animated by any excess
of zeal in behalf of virtue, or, TO put It more
London has been, like all great commercial
centres the earth over, sink of iniquitous
misery from the earliest records of the hun
CRY generations that crowd each other down.
And 1t has been regarded with the calmest
Indifference. What is there in the air to
stir mp such spasm Of virtueG
The Pail Mall Gazette. has the advantage
over such publications with us in the fact
that in the United States such publicity in
the press generally means blackmail as we'll
as a larger circulation. The Pail Mall is.not
open to this charge. 1t was only seeking
the notoriety that fetches readers.
We learn from this, and herein lies the
revelation, that the English press has been
held to its decency, not by any sense of right
and propriety in itself, but by public opinion
the public opinion held and controlled by the
privileged few. For man in England 10 be
a reformer in any line heretofore has been
to take upon himself the faint of being q
aisreputable fellow, aud that is fatal to an
Englishman. There was no wrong, however
oppressive or even absurd, that could not
be maintained, provided it was respectable.
or late this iron rule of caste seems to
have weakened. We see radical party in
England led by Lords, some of whom openly
avow communism of property that hut a
short time since would have brought its ad-
vocate to close acquaintance with hand
cuffs and prison bars.
And now one Of the most reputable Jour
nails, q pet of clubs, patronized hy the no
bility, suddenly throws off all restraint and
publishes mass of ohscenity that would
make our st. Anthony (Comstock) howl.
And this obscenity attacks the gentry, no.
bility, and even royalty.
Was 1t for any other purpose than the one
we claim
Writing some years since from personal
in my note book:
THE SOCIAL EVIL.
London has greatly changed in the last
twenty years in one respect. The growth
of prostitution has kept pace with that of
pauperism, and both are something amaz-
ing. There was tins when the proper
treatment of the social evil was considered
TO he the driving of il from public view.
The beadles of respectable world crowd
ed the unfortnnates into back alleys aud
down into cellars or up into garrets, and
then looked solemnly innocent, as If to say:
There, now, it don't exist" Bnt the pol.
luton has welled up and flowed over, until
the beadles can no longer control it, and so
give mp.
Everything is limited in London save pros
titntion. There may be places upon which
this evil does not encroach, but We have not
heard of them. There is popular belief
that from the nobility comes the larger por.
tion of the sOiled doves and no end of sensa-
tiOnal novelists have added to this belief.
This is exaggerated, of course; bnt exclu.
sive as the best society may be, 1t cannot
exclude this pollution. Not only does one
encounter 1t in streets and alleys in such
n m ora hat IL q hut; a,
were, in this country, az II is in our free land,
the fact wonld become patent while that, a
man may be lifted by wealth and station
above temptation to cheat or steel, he is yet,
so far as women are concerned, sad fellow.
The fact Is, however, that the increase Is
owing in great measure to the growing pow
eriy of the people. The laboring classes
cannot get work, and while horrible priva-
tiOn Is common, deaths from starvation no
longer startle the public. Now one will do
much to save ones self from such priyation
aud death. Prostitution is less than suicide
indeed, while regarded by the masses as
shame, it Is not considered by them crime.
And the philosophical students of human ma.
turs will find that in all olfsnsss where the
offender IL the greater, II not the only suf-
ferer. 1t is ditficnlt to make the common mind
consider II crime, or even o sin.
VhotoVot ~ may DC, ~ ID 6ttTyWu6T6.
When nigh: falls on London one suddenly
finds the streets, alleys, and parks thronged
with these unfortunate creatnres while In
the Strand and HRymarkst entire possession
is given up to the handsomsst, noisiest, and
loudest-dressed women of London. What a
sickening whirl and war of pollution centers
about these localities, and stretching ont on
all sides into the darker London Is popu-
lation of prostitutes large enough to make
one of our first class cities. II IL horrible
fact, and yet more the other fact, that while
the duration of life Is that of the peniten-
tiary, averaging only five years, the number
of unfortunates is not only kept up, but
fsarfully increased.
The Church and State have 10th aban-
doned all attempts at a remedy. Indeed, It
is rather doubtful whether the church ever
made an attempt. This is the one sin the
clergyman says belongs to the Almighty,
and II would not only be an impertinence
but improper to interfere. Did not Christ
himself pardon the woman for the olisnse
punishable with death His disciple of
o,day considers II the proper thing to leave
the woman with Christ, or IL he does any
thing, he cries out, "Throw all your bnnl-
ders, my brethren, and come up to prayers"