The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1891-01-29
ALL Is VANITY.
Editor Williams Does not Believe that
Glass Beads Can Re Made Pearls.
From the Greenville News. I

We are often asked why it is that a
newspaper with so much enterprise as
the Greenville News, and with such
Eswell developed habit Of being among
zhe first in progress, should persistent
" neglect the Society" department
which is now such an important part
in most of the leading newspapers.
We understand very we'll the value
for the time at least-of the variety OF
space filler alluded to. People instinct
lively enjoy knowing about each other.
The poorest and most remote newspa-
per readers appear to fairly gloat over
the gorgeous descriptions sometimes
given Of social gatherings and enter
talnments among the rich and high.
Newspaper personal gossip is balm, a
solace, a delightful stimulant and in
exhaustableio Joy to vast numbers of men
and women. If the statisticians could
learn and tell the number Of persons
who read to find that kind Of stuff and
care for nothing else in the daily and
weekly prints we would all be aston
ished.
Nevertheless, we do not regard $50
ciety news rs good taste or good news
or its adoption as feature as good or
safe journalism. 1t appears to us that
cultivation Of the habit of publicity
changes the whole theory of principle
OF social life for the worse. We are
supposed to visit our friends and to ask
them to visit us because we enjoy their
company. Social gatherings are sup
posed to be for the purpose of getting
congenial people together to have mu-
tual pleasure in the kind Of entertain
ment provided. That is how social life
should be. 1t should be pleasure and
happiness, the means ef attracting
people of like tastes and tendencies to
each other and relief from the bur-
dens and cares and unpleasant things
of life.
When the newspaper comes in as
part of every social performance the
theory and practice are reversed. Con-
geniality and pleasure are ruthlessly
slaughtered as sacrifices to the vanity
of display. The question of entertain
ment is no longer one Of how to make
the guests enjoy themselves, but how
make a bigger and grander appearance
than anybody else in the newspapers.
The dance, or ball, or dinner, or high
tea, or low tea, or candy pulling, or
whatever it may be, is not given for the
| benefit of the invited company, which
is only an incident. It is given to the
general public-the big, wide reaching,
remorseless, greedy public, including
everything in the semblance of hu
manity for the social king and queen to
| the creatures of both sexes who loaf
and draggle about the most obscure of
city rum mills. 1t is the public that is
really invited to the great and much
pulled social demonstrations where the
''society news" column and the insig-
nificant tiend who usually performs
feeble idiocy and ungrammatic bosh in
it do ravage.
'Society news" is never news, be-
cause it never tells the truth. Every
body understands that. 1t is the re-
porter's business to earn his supper or
whatever else he may get and to secure
the good will of his host for the paper
to avoid the truth as carefully as posi-
bic. Nuns yelling is changed to silk
or satin, glass beads become pearls, the
most shameless Rhine-stones are made
old family diamonds. Every body is
described as wearing a fortune in
clothes and everybody is handsome,
brilliant, and a centre Of admiration.
All Of us know that everybody isn't:
and that even at the exhibitions where
everything in the way Of apparel and
decoration is as real and expensive as it
can possibly be, every woman is not
beiutifulIor bellies and every man is not
Il perfect dancer or an ideal hero of
romance, or an ideal gentleman either.
When the 'society news" is begun
there is no end to it. Nothing is pri-
vate. The newspapers strive to sur
pass each other. From giving US
deaths, engagements, marriages, births
and other incidents Of life quickly after
they lave happened, they soon pro-
coed to inform the world of the deaths,
engagements, marriages and births ex-
pected to happen in the future. In the
North low they are not satisfied to tell
the public who attended Browns bail
or Jones dinner party. They announce
hefore the ball or dinner is given who
has been invited, so that accidents and
destinations are provided against and
Jones and Brown have the pleasure of
parading their guests as we'll as their
gastrOnOmic arrangements and house
hold matters, before Tom, Dick and
Harry, Moil, Jane and Bet, whether
! they are guests or not. There is no
/ drawing the line If the Blanks, being
an unquestionable social eminence and
with long lists Of distinguished friends
| have their affairs written I'D, neWSpa-
pers cannot neglect the Cranks, even
if they are shabby and dubious and
pretentiouS, and actually entertain a
quantity of people of whom nobody
ever heard before. And if the coming
and going and doings of the Blanks,
even down to the smallest details Of
their domestic life, the salaries paid
their cook and the shape and texture
Of their daughters undergarments are