The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-10-27

all well-regulated newspaper Offices he
is the guiding star and highest inspira-
ton, and is as potent and as inevitably
present in the dimly- lighted diminutive
Office of the crossroads organ as
in the brilliant and blazing sanctum
of the metropolitan journal. Between
the lines of lofty sentiment written
for the instruction or edification of an
apparent public, lie couched the keen
and poignant thrusts that his unerring
and discriminating intellect shall dis
Germ and justly appropriate. Not a
scientific fact of terrorizing magnitude,
nor a observation-disclosures foreign
foreign phrase of grand and overwhelm-
ing profundity, but is sped in the wake
of the editorial pen, with the glancing
intent to reach and humiliate the loath-
ONE contemporary. Though his opin-
ion is abhorred, yet it is solicited and
held In awesOme respect; for his use and
behoof columns dwindle or expand. and
from his detestable similitude of pros
perity spring nimbleness and vigor to
the armament of his foe. In the tenn
perate regions his existence is, in the
main, protected and ~uneventful. His
accidental discontinue occasionally ex-
poses him to the ghoulish and ~gibbering
glee of his opponents, and from the mad
stabbing of pens into his hated form he
sometimes energies gasping and drip
ping with CORY eloquence and ink; burt
he usually survives such visitations not
much the worse for wear, and resumes
business at the old stand with discour-
aging and exasperating equanimity. In
warmer portions of the journalistic
world, however, this detested being
leads an agitated and sensational life.
He frequently horse-whips or is horse
whipped, as the case may be; or fees
madly through Southern morasses in a
wild and reckless attempt to involve
himself and his journalistic foe in a
lawless and bloody duel, from which he
shall be conspicuously absent. Neces-
sarily the abOminable construction and
misdemeanors of the loathsome contem-
porary involve all that belong to him.
His kith and kin are pursued by the IN
relenting enmity that pursues him; his
wife and the other editors wife criticise
each others clothes unkindly, and the
small boys of their respective house,
holds exchange warlike chances and
Jumps of mud Of an unfriendly charac-
ter across the public highway.
Notwithstanding all these adverse
characteristics, the loathsome contem-
porary is not a bad sort of fellow. He
has no ideas on most subjects, and a
villainous absence of sense and style in
his method of expressing them. He is
totally deranged on tariff, and utterly
without the best order of principle in
all his consideration of public affairs.
Nevertheless, as a stimulus to COM
petitive production, as the inspiration of
much that is spirited and entertaining
in the crossing of linguistic. swords, as
the %enlivener of a world of common
place ideas, as a fOeman worthy of the
steel which alternately scoops and is
scooped, he is unequaled and indispensa-
BILE. 1t will be, for writer and for
| reader, for editor and publisher, man.
ager and newsbOy, a sad day in the an
nails of newspaper life when, by some
h~uctuating modification of newspaper
standards, the stamp of general disap-
| prevail shall have banished to eternal
silence the clarion voice and the war
like challenge of the lOathsome contem-
nnrory