St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-04-24

meat that is fresh and savory is put away
without any especial care. I come to tn
conclusion that the people of that city
love tainted meat. You know very wei
that if the great mass of people in thi
country get hold of newspaper and there
are in it no runaway matches, no broken
.,.p families, no defamation of men in high
9 position, they pronounce the paper in
sSieid. They say, sit is shockingly dull
tonight" I believe it is one of the trials
of the newspaper press, that the people of
this country demand moral slush instead
of healthy, intellectual food Now, you
are respectable man, an intelligent man,
and paper comes into your hand. You
| open it, and there are three coll
umns of splendidly written edi-
toriaI, recommending some moral
sentiment, or evolving some scientific
| theory. In the next column there is a mis-
cradle, contemplate divorce case. Which
do you read first? You dip into the edi-
torial long enough to say. "Well, that's
very ably written" and you read the
divorce case from the ''long primer" type
at the top, to the 'nonpareil" type at the
bottom, and then you ask your wife if she
has read it! o. it is only case of supply
and demand. Newspaper men are no fools
They know what you want, and they give
it to you.
Another temptation of the newspaper
profession is the great allurement that
surrounds them. Every occupation and
profession has temptations peculiar to
itself, and the newspaper profession is not
know, is on the nervous forces, and the
brain is racked. The laundering political
speech must read we'll for the sake of the
party, and so the reporter, or the editor,
has to make it read well, although every
sentence was a catastrophe to the English
language. The reporter must hear all to 1T
an inaudible speaker, who thinks it is vul.
gar to speak out. says; and it must be
right the next morning or the next night
in the papers, though the night before the
whole audience sat with its hand behind
it's ear in vain trying to catch it. This
man must go through killing nj ght- W ork.
He must go into heated assemblages, and
into unventilated audience rooms that are
enough to take the life out of him. He
must visit court-rooms which are almost
always disgusting with rum and tobacco.
He must expose himself at the fire. He
must write in fetid alley ways, Added
to all that he must have hastv
mastication and irregular habits. To
bear up under this tremendous nerv-
GUS strain they are tempted to arti.
fetal stimulus, and how many thousands
have gone down under that pressure God
only knows. They must have something
to counterfeit the wet, they must have
something to keep out the chill, and after
scant nights sleep they must have some-
thing to revive them for the mornings
work. That is what made Horace Greeley
such a stout temperance man.
Another trial of this profession is the
fact that no one seems to care for their
souls. They feel bitterly about it, though
they laugh. People sometimes laugh the
loudest when they feel the worst. They
are expected to gather up religious pro-
ceedings and to discuss religious doctrines
in the editorial columns, but who expects
them to be saved by the sermons they pho
nograph, or by the doctrines they discuss
in the editorial columns? The world looks
upon them as professional. Who breaches
to reporters and editors? Some of them
came from religious homes, and when they
left the paternal rool, whoever regarded or
they come off with a fathers
and mothers prayer. They
never think of those good old times, but
tears come into their eyes, and they move
around this great, roaring metropolis
homesick. o, if they only knew what
helpful thing 1t is for a man to put his
weary head down on the bosom of sym.
pathetic Christ! He knows how nervous
and tired you are. He has heart large
enough to take in all your interests in this
world and the next. o, men of the news
paper press, you sometimes get sick of this |
world, 1t seems so hollow and unsatisfying.
II there are any people in all the earth that |
need God, you are the men, and you shall |
have Him if only this day you implore His
mercy.
Let me ask all men connected with the |
printing press that they help US more and |
more in the effort to make the world bet. |
Ter. charge you in the name of God, be. |
lore whom you must account for the tre- |
nendous influence you hold in this |
to consecrate yourselves to |
higher endeavors. You are the men to |
light back this invasion of corrupt lit |
'rature. Lift up your right hand and |
swear new allegiance to the cause of phil |
and religion. And when, at
asst, standing on the plains of judgment |
you look out upon the unnumbered throngs
over whom you have had influence, may
It be found that you were among the
nightiest energies that lifted men upon
he exalted pathway that leads to the re-
lown of Heaven. Better than to have sat
n editorial chair, from which, with the
niger of type, you decided the destinies
II empires, but decided them wrong, that
'ou had been some dungeoned exile, who,
" the light of window iron-grated, or
Grams of a New Testament laaf nickad LII, |