The Press., 1895-01-03

the liberal use of eXageration, you can make out case against the best person in the world sufficient to hang him, and not tell lie either. It is very easy to hold person up to ridicule before con- munity, and just as easy to make him the object of malicious islander. All that needs to be done is to exaggerate some pe- culiarity. It is mild sort of injustice because it does not represent the individ- ual impartially. The political cartoonist in our illustrated journals is fair sample of this sort of islander. Not only physi- greatly exaggerated. Such wilful mis- representation, of course, makes the in- dividual appear ridiculous. The press circulates their carricatures far and wide. The great majority of readers, perhaps laugh, but some sheer because it is the only political gospel they are capable of understanding. When viewed in the most charitable light pt 3ible, it can ap- pear as nothing less than a sort of evil speaking, because 1t is the evident inten- tion of the cartoonist to misrepresent the people and ideas he deals with. The most cutting sarcasm, as we'll as the cruelist and hardest kind of gossip to answer is that which rests on some substratum of fact. The news monger is we'll aware of this, and never loses sight of it as he matches up his villianous misrepresenta- Tc al NR iEo oil the world that needs more than this to hear the words of scripture Refrain thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile?"
 The newsmonger, however, is rarely, if ever, satisfied with even 8 malicious expansion of the truth. Truth in none of it's forms, however unsightly and mon- strous, is his forte. Like the alligator, he is wretched when swimming in clear, pure water. His paradise is the mud and slime of falsehood. He fourishes most when the outrageous stories he concocts and circulates have not shred of truth in them. He is an expert only as his tongue is dispensing evil and his lips are peddllng only guile. In order to become proficient in the black art of evil speak Ing, one must learn by degrees to blunt all the finer sensibilities of his nature, If an indiyidual is endowed with talent by nature, and has taken pains to give il cultivation and training 1t Is impossible for such person to degenerate into mere gossiping, which indicates the absence ol all talents. If one has in his soul love for music, poetry, nature, the fine arts that is If he has any love for God as seer through sound, or form, or color, orif h, has any message to deliver to his fellowl j tfls n any way administer to tnei
 eing, he is not likely to turn righ Z SJout and strike these talents in the face i and that is precisely what every news monger must do. As I have said, tn, basis of ideal gossip is out and out false hood. Now if a person finds that his sou is stirred by the profound truth that lies back of Enoch Arden, The Comus, ol Hiawatha, is 1t possible for him to love and propagate falsehood? If he is inter ested in the great realities of life such as the choral symphonies of the composer communicate to his soul, he will of course "refrain his tongue from evil and his lipl from speaking guile" If mans mission in this life is to work out some great DO litical pro oblem for the improvement o the human family, or if his soul is fireC with that higher message that points thu human heart to the final refuge of eterna day-such great spirits live in an atmos phere above the polluting touch of false hood. Think for an instance of such mel as Tennyson, or Beethoven, or Gladstone or Moody, men with message to deliver lowering themselves to the meanness o gossip-it is actually beyond all ration al conception, Now the logic of all thi is not very flattering to the newsmonger for every idle tale that is set afloat speak this sentiment: II have nothing else t. offer the world, judge ye then of my nor al and intellectual worth"
 Country life seems to be afflicted witt gossip more than city life, at any rate is far more conspicuous. City life is ia from perfect, and it has nothing to boas of in the light of its glaring sins, but it errors are not in the line of small gain saying. The city possesses at least on advantage over the country that canno be too highly prized, and that is an ordi nary person can be so lost in the whirl o city life that nobody knows him, and con sequently nobody makes hts bushes their own. Itis otherwise in the country Everybody knows everybody else, and he is not he is expected to make himsel known to everybody, as to his personali ty, his property, his plans, and, if single whom he expects to marry and when. l he is dilatOry in these matters the de linquency is soon made up with ven geance. A person who has always live tage of having every fact of family histo ry ''raked over the coals" of publicit
 from the days of Melchizedek to the pres ent. The very best of families has som skeleton in the closet, and by divine righ
 it ought to stay there. But where all tn facts are known, there are persons enougl of malicious curiosity to open that close
 door just wide enongh to see that skeleton grin, and others who will thrust thei
 hands in and pull that skeleton out simpl to show him to some new conner, as thoug
 he had any interest whatever in these bye
 zones. Some may think that I am put
 ting this, point rather strohg9y. am
 and from personal experiences kno,
 that am also putting it truthfully. >
 was once new conner here myself, and
 had not been here one week when ol
 family affairs wore dug up that care