The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1896-04-04

| dal. we speak and write of the filthy
printing press; or, seeing Journal
through bribery, wheel round from one
political side to the other in one night,
We speak of the corrupt printing press,
and many talk about the lampoonery,
and the empiricism, and the sans-cou-
lotteism of the printing press.
But 1 discourse now on a subject you
have never heard-the Unreasonable
and everlasting blessing of . good
newspaper Thank God for the wheel
full of eyes. Thank God that we do
not have-like the Athenians-to go
about to gather up and relate the It'd
ings of the day, since the omnivorous
newspaper does both for u.s. The
grandest temporal blessing that God
has given to the nineteenth century is
the newspaper. We would have bet
| ter appreciation OF this blessing II
we knew the money, the brain, the
losses, the exasperations, the ankle
ties, the wear and tear of heartstrings
involved in the production OF a good
newspaper. Under the impression that
almost anybody can make a newspa-
per, scores of inexperienced capitals is
every year enter the lists, and, conse-
quently, during the last few years,
newspaper has died almost every day.
The disease Is epidemic The large
papers swallow the smaller ones, the
whale taking down so minnows at
one swallow. With more than 1000
dailies and weeklies in the United
States and Canadas, they are but
thirty-six half a century old. News
papers do not average more than five
years existence. The most of them
die of cholera infantum. 1t Is high
time that the people found out that
the most successful way to sink money
and keep it sunk is to start newspa-
per. There comes time when almost
every one is smitten with the newspa-
per mania, and starts one, or have
stock in one he must or die.
The course of procedure is about
this: A literary man has an agricul-
tural or scientific or political or relig-
Gus idea which he wants to ventilate.
He has no money of his own-literary
men seldom have. But he talks OF his
ideas among confidential friends until
they become infamed with the idea,
and forthwith they buy type and press,
and rent composing room, and gather
a corps of editors, and with a
prospectus that proposes to cure
everything, the first copy is flung on
the attention of an admiring world.
After awhile one of the plain stock
holders finds out that no great revolu-
ton has been effected by this daily or
weekly publication; that neither sun
nor moon stands still: that the world
goes on lying and cheating and steal
ing just as it did before the first issue.
The aforesaid matter-of-fact stock
holder wants to sell his stock, but no.
body wants to buy, and other stock
holders get infected and sick of news
paperdom, and an enormous bill at
the paper factory rolls into an
avalanche, and the printers refuse
to work until back wages are paid up,
and the compositor bows to, the manag-
ing editor and the managing editor
bows to the editor-in-chief, and the
editor-in-chief bows to the directors.
large, and all the subscribers wonder
why their paper dosen't come. The
world will have to learn that a news
paper is as much an institution as
the bank of England or Yale coll
lege, and is not an enter
prise. If you have the aforesaid agri-
cultural, or scientific, or religious, or
political idea to vestilate, You had bet
ter charge upon the world through
the columns already established. 1t
is folly for anyone who can not sue
coed at anything else to try newspa-
perdom. If you can not climb the hill
back of your house it is folly TO try the
sides of the Matterhorn.
To publish a newspaper requires the
skill, the precision, the boldness, the
vigilance, the strategy of command
er-in-chief. To edit newspaper re-
quires that one be statesman, an
essayist, a geographer, a statistician,
and, in acquisition, encyclopaedia
To man, to govern, to propel news
paper until it shall be a fixed institu-
ton, national fact, demand more
qualities than any business on earth.
If you feel like starting any newspa-
per, secular or religious, understand
that you are being threatened with soft
ening of the brain or lunacy and throw
ing your pocketbook into your wife's
lap, start for some insane asylum be-
fore you do something desperate.
Meanwhile, as the dead newspapers,
week by week. are carried out to the
burial, all the living newspapers give
respectful obituary, telling when they
were born and when they died. The
best printers ink should give at least
one stickful of epitaph. If it was a
good paper, say, peace to it's ashes.
If it was bad paper, / suggest the
epitaph written for Francis Chart
reuse Here continueth to rot the
body of Francis Chartreusc, who, with
an inf1exible constancy and uniformity
of life, persisted in the practice of every
human vice, except prodigality and
hypocrisy; his Unsuitable avarice ex-
empted him from the first, his match
less impudence from the second" l
say this because l want you to know
I,ak a.