The record-union., 1895-06-29
REFORMATION OF THE SUNDAY
PAPER.

PAPER.
A novel scheme is on foot in Boston to
secure in the issues of newspapers pub
lished on Sundays a given amount of
nOn-sectarian religious matter, and the
RECORD UNION is asked what it thinks
of the plan.
The scheme is, in brief, to organize a
bureau for which money sufficient for
its support for one year has been pledged
desired. 1t is to be written by the ablest
writers who can be secured, and is to
have a devotional and thoroughly re-
igious tone without any reference what
ever to sectarian, dogmatio or doctrinal
beliefs. AS the proponents of the plan
say, ''the aim is to lift the reader into a
plane of purer and better thought than
the character of the average Sunday
newspaper develops; to bring beautiful,
loving and charitable ideas into the
hearts of those who are by necessity or
choice churohless; that there may be. in q
certain way, one column of the news
paper which will be sort of pulpit, but
one against which the most querulous
cannot find words of criticism"
These articles or departments are to
have as their standard of value their
worth as newspaper articles, that is, they
are to be good reading, attractive and not
dry or in the nature of essays. The sug-
gestion is a confession that the pulpit
does not reach the larger clientage of the
newspaper. 1t is at the same time a
charge, which is backed by truth, that
the average Sunday newspapers are of
low moral tone. The majority of those
upon this coast assuredly are any thing but
SUNDAY" papers. They partske more
of the festival order, aud are mainly de-
voted to the world. the flesh and the
devil. Both in matter and illustration
they address frivolous, lRscivious and
sensational tastes.
If one concluded to take day off and
read every line in The average news
paper of the Sunday issue in Califor-
mia, he would come out of the exercise
feeling that be had passed through quar-
ters not inviting to the self-respecting
soul. Romance of the most fiorid char
soter; broadly suggestive short stories;
gossip about people whose consequence
arises out of the fact that they are of fash
sionsble sets; chatter about weddings,
scandal about divorces; announcements
Of engagements; recitals of amOurs; &C.
counts Of great swindlers and criminals;
o page on fashion. illustrated with the
rudest pictures of women, mostly half
clad a column perhaps of religious
news" mainly personal; debates on the
woman question; racing and other sport
ing papers; movements OF people who 60
to the seaside, and whose inconsequential
privacy Is raked before the public to
crafty q vulgar taste for personality In
print; chapter on games; some lurid
anecdotes by the most imaginative of
romancists some Biographical sketches;
now and then accounts of public in
stitutions; notes of travel, elubroom gos-
sip, notices and reviews of books, page
or two pages about actors and actresses
with many lewd reference and behind
the-scenes view; host of small chatter
by writers whose chief value to the paper
is the ability to say nasty things smartiy,
coin new words, and WELD the shafts of
sarcasm mercilessly and impugn motives
brutslly; few editorials on topics that
address the better taste on the level above
local politics. and with something OF
thoughtful helpfulness in them-the best
always that there is in the paper, since
the policy seems to be to permit the ed
itorial writers to take an intellectual bath
and indulge in clean moral shirt for Sun
day some paragraphs about foreign
notables; some notes on recent discovery,
and this is the average make up of the
Sunday newspaper.
Now we submit that in all this there is
little or nothing to lift to that higher
level to which the proponents OF the new
scheme look longingly. VIII a single
column in all this mass of matter of from
ten to thirty pages amount to much
VIII it be lever to lift one much out OF
the muck? VIII it be found or lost II
the wilderness of trash? VIII it leaven
the lump? VIII 1t not, indeed, serve as
an excuse tor the very trashy matter ths.