The Sun. — 1851-03-21 (London, England)

JOHN O'CONNELL."  AMERICAN JOURNALISM We published a short time ago a speech of Mr. Cobden, in which he highly eulogized the press of the United States, comparing it with that of England, much to our disadvantage. We extract the following character given of the New York Courier by the New York Day Book, as a specimen of the literary amenities of our Transatlantic contemporaries, whose example Mr. Cobden recommends us to follow :  (From the Day Book of F0b,.1 5.)  The larger the animal the more ridiculous are its flounderings and kickings in its last struggles—providing that animal, from its stealthy character and pestilential influence, and long depredations on the coal munity, has made itself loathed and despised. Such is the case with the courier and Enquirer of this city at the present time. Impudence, treachery, and the worst kind of duplicity often, from various and multiplied causes, will succeed and be suffered for a long time to exist in the community, especially in a city like this, for the reason that time is too precious and the business of each individual too important to enable any one to take upon himself the duty which more properly belongs to the whole. The Day Book, faithful to its promise as an independent journal, has taken upon itself to send one of its arrows to the vitals of the Courier, and hold up the blanket-sheet towards the sun, where its patchwork, threadbare and rotten condition can be seen in its true light. At one time possessed of the talents of MM. Noah and of James Gordon Bennett, it obtained a notoriety which, as soon as they left it (as we believe in disgust and abhorrence), was made the means by which the accomplished blackguard who now controls it commenced his depredations on the community. And since that time no press, in this country at least, has exhibited such unblushing prostitution and profligacy. And not satisfied with his 52,000 dolls. black mail depredations, or the turning of widows and children houseless and homeless upon the world, he adds another arid another to his victims, by means which his own cowardice would not allow himself openly to employ— " murder most foul" and fiendish; an unblushing bully too cowardly to do the deed himself, though ever after gloating over his victims—over the dead, and the living, too, not less helpless in their feminine innocence and juvenile dependence. Success in crime for a series of years deadens the perpetrator to all shame, save the shame and inconvenience attending personal duress and hard labour. This is precisely the case with James Watson Webb, the proclaimed editor of the Courier. Vain of his successful frauds and duplicity, for ever vacillating and treacherous to men, parties, and principles, he goes on in his unblushing shame, while our bankrupt courts show his disgraceful profligacy, and oar criminal records chronicle him as a sentenced felon.  And now to prove him alive to the pains of physical dnrel,s, his coalition with William H. Seward is all sufficient. We know of no other person, principle, or party, during his long career, however deep and sacred his obligations, which he has not abandoned in a much shorter time than this coalition has existed. But Seward is too smart, and continually reminds him that but for his clemency he would have gone to the State Prison; and that the mere hap that ho had the pardoning powor saved him from hard labour, and, perhaps, from the occasional lash—just the only kind of punishment of which the bully convict stands in fear.  We give Webb the credit—for once he is true to his friend, and we give him a long mark! The refined and accomplished demagogue bids him mount the black hobby of abolitionism and spread his blanket-sheet over all the " seven beads and ten horns" of the black monster. He does; and now, shot at in every by-path and corner, the whole concern is reeling in its sickness and asking to be propped up while it is grasping at every hold to prevent its final fall. Let it be transfixed to that wall where the Day Book has driven it.  How