Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1895-05-21
SCANDAL MONGERS.
Set Forth In All Their Ugline ss
by Sam P. Jones.
scathiss Denunciation of Human Bu,zards
That Delight to Fattcn on tha Carrion
of Good Name and Reputation
Causes and Cure.
ICoPYRIGHT. 1905 I

zard, they only put their bill into that
which Is purified and rotten. / was
told by the people in California that
buzzard was never seen in that state,
but in all my travels / have never
found q community anywhere, that the
scandal monger was not on hand for
business.
The scandal monger is male biped
or female biped; by nature they be-
long to the genus homo, by practice
they belong to the devil from hat to
heel. The school for scandal has
turned its graduates out upon the
world, and no school was ever hon.
ored more or represented better by the
graduates they have sent out. The
scandal monger like the vulture will
fly over beautiful landscape covered
with verdure and beauty, all that is
sublime and beautiful and graceful
never attracts his eye. The cattle and
sheep grazing quietly in the field, the
sturdy farmer following his plow, the
busy maiden at her work, all these he
does not see, but if somewhere in the
range of his sense of scent he discovers
a decayed body pursuit follows until
possession is his.
So with the scandal mongers OF our
day. Beautiful characters, pleasant
homes, happy parents, obedient chill.
dren, prosperous merchants, diligent
farmers, active mechanics, these fur
nish no food for thought and no reason
for Fcomment, but should there be
purified character or a soiled reputa-
ton or misguided step, then pursuit
is ended and the game is his.
The scandal mongers are OF three
classes. The cowardly scandal monger,
who, by innuendo drives his thrust and
probes with his bill. If he writes for
the press he uses nom de plume, and a
nom de plume in it's last analysis Is
nothing more or less than buzzard
with it's feathers stamped off. His real
name to an article defaming another
would render the article powerless to
hurt the one of whom he writes, or else
he is too cowardly to daddy his own in
fanny.
Another class of scandal mongers is
that class made up of the takers of n
community. Their tongues are ten
feet thick and thousand miles long.
They can cover with slime and filth
whole community in a day. One day
they are a reservoir into which the
sewers Of the town are turned, another
day they are clouds raining filth on
home and field and shop.
Another class of scandal mongers sit
in the sanctum of the newspaper offices,
and WELD pen dipped in gall and as
rotten as perdition. Some editors of
some papers are built that way. Most
generally, though, this food for scandal
is furnished by the little characterless
reporter, who, like a skunk, makes
everything stink that he touches. In
this land where freedom of press and
freedom of speech is the palladium of
our liberty, and one of the evidences of
our civilization, this boon of a free peo-
pie has been appropriated by those
whose work it is to drag angels down
but never lift human being up.
These vultures which feed on human
character and soiled regulations differ
from the buzzard in ono respect. The
buzzard would starve before he would
eat sound flesh; it is putrefaction or
nothing with him, but the scandal
monger will slay it's own victim, and
then rot it with its own slime and thus
prepare his own victim to be devoured
by the students and graduates of the
school of scandal. The scandal monger
like the centipede rots everything over
which he crawls.
There is but one cure for the scandal
monger and that is for him to sit quiet
| ly by and see others do for him and his
home what he has done so frequently
| to others and their home. The tattler,
the slanderer, the hbeler are despisable
because they come within the sacred
| precincts of home, where mother is
| with all her tender solicitude and all
her susceptibility to suffer. They come
into homes and fill with sadness no
BILE fathers heart, or they come into
home and toss and pitch from room to
room the bleeding heart OF devoted
wife, or they gather the tender feelings
Of sweet daughter in their cruel
hands and wiring and crush sensibili-
ties as soft and tender as the heart OF
an angel.
II all men were without father or
mother, a brother or sister, then scan
dal mongers would not be so despisa bie'
but when you touch one person OF
home you have hurt them all, even II
one should be guilty. There are hun
dred innocent ones who will suffer
perhaps more than the guilty one on
whom the scandal monger has done his
work. There may be difference IN
one who occasionally INDUCES In ut
tie gossip, or little unneighboriy taik'
and one whose business it is to play the
vulture on a whole community, but the
difference is only in degree.
Gossipers belong to the primary class
In the school of scandal, and the man
who makes his business to despoil char
acter or hurt reputation is simply q
graduate from the school When Is
the mightier, the tongue or the penn
The Psalmist prayed: "Oh, God, keepmy
tongue from evil and my lips from
speaking guile" Well may we pray:
"Oh, God, keep me from dipping my pen
in gall and writing the lines that de-
fame or hurt character.
It is said custom prevailed IN the
early history of New York to pierce
through the tongue of slanderer. -
that were a law now there would %
many a disfgured tongue. Taste 70.
tainted meat can be cultivated uh.n -
ls more desired than fresh meat 50 =
taste can be created for discussing INC