Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1891-01-17

of our ability because its issue of Tues
day morning, acknowledging its error
and regretting its misunderstanding Of
the matter, estops the reply we had
prepared. We had laid the brash
amateur out in a style that, published,
would have made him an object of
derision when and wherever he again
essayed apostleship of English phi
lology.
With regard to the ''play'' story.
The editor of the JOURNAL did not at
tend the play sin company with the
Ne,cs." The JOURNAL went alone, and
not as a reporter. Afterward, how
ever, the NeonS wanted, for some reason
involving a stroke of policy, fatter-
ing notice of what was to the jour
DAL's unprofessional eye and ear
very poor performance. We acknowl-
edge that our love of justice and ven
GRAFTON for truth made that notice an
extremely difficult one to write. That
we ever got through with it at all may
not be wonder to the infant Hercules,
accustomed, as he seems to be, to any
demand that haste and waste and dis
taste may make upon him, but it is to
us.
The Ne,rs says in its exaggerated ac-
count of this trifling affair that the
Journal profaned its proud profession
by swearing. All who are acquainted
with the JOURNAL as a paper or an
individual know that it is not adj
dicted to habit regarded in real
literary circles as useless, senselesS
and ungentlemanly. No scholar, no
teacher of the masses, no walking
cyclopedia of immaculate rhetoric, no
exemplar of public virtue, no Gus
todian of popular morals can consist
emily indulge in profanity As mat
ter Of ingrained principle and rock
ribbed repugnance to a disgusting
vice the JOURNAL never has, does not
and never will stain its speech with
blasphemy. 1t may err in etymologv,
go astray in syntax and fail of com
plete harmony of ideal arrangement
and perfect euphony of expression,
but in public and private it has not
and will not dishonor its mother
tongue, destined to be the idiom of all
nations, by the employment of sac
religious terms.
The Ne,cs says:
When we first came here we were instructed
to treat the JOURNAL well, because it was not
in the habit of attacking this paper.
The JOURNAL is obliged for the con-
sideration which no doubt has so far
kept it son praying grounds and plead
ing terms with the new and alien
editorial regime of the Ners, but it sub
mits that the pretext given is gauzy.
If the JOURNAL has not been ''in the
habit of attacking" the Nc,rS there is
reason for it. The Netrs has never
been a radical ventilator of local
issues, Outsidc.o of its part in political
compaigns it has pursued the "even
tenor Of way" that has never any
where raised mortal to the skies,
nor pulled an angel down" 1t has
furnished but little cause for attack.
With one more reference to this
matter and the JOURNAL is done. The
Nems concludes its explanation of its
mistake by saying in Tuesdays paper:
We regret of course, that such a ms,lnder-
standing, with its unpleasant results, has
occurred, but we believe that brother Oder
would have done just as we did under the
same circumstances.
The JOURNAL does not assent to any
confession of faith in its course under
certain conditions. The JOURNAL is
not to be judged by the environments
which hedge, nor the halluclnations
which infame the ego of other papers.
In these respects it is sri generis. In
its first issue, away back in 1871, it
announced that it would never be-
come too vain to learn. too old to I'M
prove nor too ignoble to despise all
meamess." From these determine.
tons it has never deviated. 1t has
never been caught nor tripped, because
it has assaulted no man supposed to be
blind. When it has encountered a
masked battery it has not "hollered
ouch" unless sure it had been hit.
Even then it never retorted by firing
upon an unseen foe, much less an
imaginary Trigger in the woodpile.'
In all cases where the target of attack
was involved in uncertainty the JOUR
NAL has awaited itself of the benefit of
the doubt held itself, like Enoch,
''too good to be assailed," and like
Leviathan, Indifferent to arrows which,
though tipped with poison, must have
fallen like straws upon its impenetra-
bic scales.