Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1891-12-05

| Homecoming Recieao employs the above
heading to indicate its appraisement
| of the following from the Baltimore
| Critic:
That thug Oder of the FRosTBURG MINING
| JOURNAL gets off neat thing now and then.
| Here is one of his bits;
The gentleman who starts the street lamps
burning procrastlnates the performance of
his unpleasant duty so long that it gets too
| dark for him to see how to light the gas.
For it is beyond dispute that he manfests
prejudice against many outside lamps when
the night is dark. And the darker the night
the farther his prejudice extends toward the
middle of the town.
Without feeling 1attered with the
Critics epithet, it is to be said in behalf
of the thug" that he usually per-
forms his part at the behest of pious
considerations.
And as we never say you're
another" we might denominate
the Critic IL beast" which. as all
know, Is moved by its instincts.
But as the critic has neither religion
nor instinct, it is neither thug" nor
beast.
1t is one of the few living remnants
Of the Triassic period, still re-
t,ogressve-in human shape, tits true,
but animated by what Coleridge called
,, a ''reptile's appetite"
Tbn +,r,,, ..,po,up,o,I, al q"
is apt Just now, however, in two other
instances in our experience with
''monumental' papers.
Several years ago one Rev. William
Kirkus, D. d., sacerdotal chaplain to
an autocratic coterie pious bigbugs,
wrote savage comment in the Balti-
more SIM on one of Rev. Sam Jones
sermons. His letter was 50 manifestly
unjust that the editor hereof replied to
it, packing the contribution with the
very condensed milk of sarcasm, satire
and irony. Every word was full of
meat and the climax reached in one
of Horace Greeley's best stories.
But the SIN declined publication,
saying 1--WE really have no room for
it, preteXt so gauzy that a mole
could see through it.
A couple of years ago we wrote
sketch of thrilling court incident, in
GLIDING some description of the most
eloquent speech we ever heard from the
tongue of man. October II, last, APP
peared in the Bultimorean. November
7 a letter was printed in same paper.
sigLed "Jas. Fl. Williams" stating
that he made the speech''-a claim
far more amazing, if possible, than any
Of the numerous absurd titles set up
for the authorship of ''Beautiful
Snow
/ At considerable trouble and some
expense we set about to gather the
data proving that he did not make the
| speech, and we succeeded.
But he added to his extraordinary
claim the comment that the praise of
the speech is fusome.'
We might have suffered his astound-
ing claim to go undisputed, but could
not silently submit to the charge that
our description Of a speech Jas. H.
Williams did not make was "fulsome."
Sowe wrotea reply, AGAIN cramming
every demonstration in its narrowest
limits and employing terms congested
with the very life-blood of trenchant
significance.
The Baltimorean declined it as fol
| lows:
| l herewith return your manuscript, which,
| am sorry to say, is too long for publication
| in the Ba!timoredR.
a pretext that should have been
written on ice.
Our readers have no interest in this
matter whatever, we know, but Balti-
moreans ought to have.
For these examples illustrate precise
ly the spirit and policy which keep
the metropolis of Maryland from being
the home of a great newspaper.
For in the seryile eagerness of its
daily and weekly press to protect the
uttelances of certain social and as
sumptively intellectual autocrats from
criticism is to be found the corollaries
which doggedly provincialize the city
both as centre of intelligence and an
intellectual centre.
The result is-cities like Louisville
| and Atlanta, for instance, mnch less
important than Baltimore, far out
shine the latter all over the country as
the home of great papers-papers
whose notions are not tied down or
fettered by slavish homage of any man
or set of newspapers, in short, which
are above little as well as big mean
nesses.
1t will be no answer to this indict-
ment to plead any sort of baby act.
Nothing will do but plain straight
admission of guilty.
Then, and not before, will the jour
NAL do its level best to get the Iona
coming Recien to change its happy
heading of Monumental Courtesy to
the happier one of metropolitan
| Fair Playn