The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-10-21
urnour INDEPENDENT JOURNALS

WITHOUT INDEPENDENT JOURNALS.
i,ecuIiarities or the Laws Regulating
Newspapers in the Russian Empire.
brooklyn Eagle.l
In the first place, if we except The
Moscow Gazette, there is not such
thing as an independent newspaper III
the whole Russian empire. Supernclal
scOffers at Russia may cap this by say
ing that there has never been an lnde-
pendent newspaper in Russia, and that
where a writer really claims freedom of
views he has to resort to the channels
of foreign Journals for the expression OF
opinions which would never be toler-
ated at home. This, however, Is mis-
conception, readily arising from lgnor-
ance of the censor arrangements OF
Russia. In that country newspapers
are divided into two catagOrIes-thoSe
that are scanned by the censor anterior
10 publication, and those that are
aoA scanned until they have actually
appeared. All the prominent papers
belong to the first category, ana most
of those published in St Petersburg ana
Moscow to the latter
When the censor has to pass every line
Of print before it can publicly appear 1t
is 0. vious that there can be no genuine
expression of thought, and thus, with
the exception of The Tifiis Obzor, there
has never been an Independent provin-
cial newspaper in Russia. But the case
is different with the dailies of the two
capitals. Providing a man has the
courage, or is backed up by minister.
me can readily express what he thinks,
;Deeanse it is not until his newspaper IS
already in the hands of the public that
the censor is aware of its contents. At
the present moment nobody has the
courage to express his opinions except
fsetkoff Of The Moscow Gazette, but
decade ago the case was very different.
The Golos, for instance. was motor iouS
for the independence of its views. The
Russki Courier, of Moscow, was an
other thoroughly Independent paper
In those days one really read in The
GOlOs what its brilliant staff of writers
thought, but such freedom of criticism
was incOnvenient to the government.
While the emperor was away in Turkey
The GOlOs and several other papers OF
its class acquired a license of expression
that had to be checked on his return
home.
The Golos had always, from the out
set of its career, been in hot water, but
after the Turkish war the warnings,
fines, introduction of street sales and
;suppressions followed each other with
such rapidity that the paper no sooner
.expiated one Offense than it was in for
another At last, tired of the conflict,
the government hit upon very effect
i've mode of silencing its antagonist.
new law passed providing that any
paper suppressed should not be allowed
to reappear without passing into the
category of the inferior press, and sub
uniting to censorship anterior to publ
cation. The kraevsky tried to evade
by dropping the title of GOlos at the
close OF the period of suppression. and
through a second party MOdestoff, one
of the sub editors, issuing new daily,
got up exactly the same as before, but
with different title. But this maneu
yer was too obvious to deceive the state,
a;ad directly the new paper began to
speak its mind the government summa-
fily suppressed it without resOrtlng to
the usual preliminary three warnings
Nowadays the various departments of
state use the press as .puppet, and
nearly every day send through the
censor circulars to the editors ordering
them to support such and such views,
and to avoid comment on this or the
other topic. Scores of instances might
be given of this mode of manipulating
the press. Sometime ago an accident
occurred on the Moscow railway, already
attributable to carelessness on the part
of the railway officialg. The Moscow
railway is not state property, but the
minister of railways considered his
amour propre sufficiently interested III
the accident to send round d circular to
the editors ordering them TO refrain
from any comment on it.
One can readily understand the de-
graded condition to which such a
course OF treatment has reduced the
Russian press. Practically speaking,
all comments worthy of the name have
disappeared from its columns. The
newspapers are Of the same size as they
ased to be and comprise about the
same amount of printed matter; but
when one comes to examine what that
matter is lac finds that it consists of
opaque padding from beginning to end.
Without exaggeratiOn 3 single average
American daily paper publishes more
snatter ia the real sense of the term
than all the newspapers OF the Russian
empire printed during twenty-four
hours would yield if their contents
were boiled down" There is q serious
.oeaning in the words often used by
ssussians, that foreigners know more
about what is going on in Russia than
the Russians themselves.
Thought himself PIaGiarist.
Temple BUrI