Middlesbrough & Stockton Gazette and General Advertiser. — 1870-08-05 (Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, England)

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. Edinburgh and London:  William Blackwood and Sons. BLACKWOOD has overcome the odium which the publication of the satire on Lothair entailed, and this month politics are eschewed altogether. Maga is a Tory of the true-blue stamp, and its praise of its party, and powerful and searching strictures of its opponents, are always highly edifying. As a general rule, the talented conductors of this magazine are not behind-hand as to intelligence and their strictures on passing events. In the present i number, however, s a lengthy article on the Greek Massacre, long after the country has been shocked by the brutal deed, and everything done to vindicate the honour of England and make the word of Englishmen respected abroad. Blackwood opens its pages to an "Own Commissioner," who furnishes a report which might have appeared at least a month ago. There is nothing new in the communication, and perhaps the real object of the article may be found in the opening sentences. "One of the victims (says the commissioner) was personally known to me, and for poor Herbert I felt the sorrow that all who knew him could not but feel for one of the gentlest, most kind-hearted, and most genial of men." Love for his friend made him more than anxious to undertake the task of proceeding to Athens for the purpose of finding out any particulars which might have escaped the attention of newspaper "specials," but we fail to find anything particularly fresh that this commissioner has been able to pick up there was not known to the public already. However, lie has produced a very succinct and reliable tale of the sad affair, which will rennin as a lasting disgrace to the imbecile condition of the Greek Government. "New Books" is the title of a slashing, though just and well merited criticism, of a class of works generally ranked under the title of " light literature." The blood and murder, " Reynold's Miscellany," and the class of penny magazines generally, Mego looks upon as rather harmless in their way, as nobody "could be supposed to be capable of remembering the horrors and heroines half a day after perusal, which secures them against doing any harm ; and they give work to printers and bookbinders, just as the pretty bon-bon boxes keep up a most laudable, and, indeed, elegant industry." We can hardly go the length of thinkinc, that this class of periodicals does no mischief. 'They degrade and vitiate the tastes of the class of readers who patronise them, and whose tastes are, to say the least, degraded enough already. Vile and obscene as too many of these publications are, it is a slight consolation that they are but ephemeral—once read, they are worthless but for waste paper. There is another class of cublications of a more pretentious and enduring stamp, though but little less dangerous, and among them Blackwood picks out a few which are subjected to a scotching in the crucible. Free Russia, by Hepworth Dixon, is torn to pieces and left in a condition little better than pulp, and ready to be again passed through the paper mill. " Ourselves : Essays on Women," by E. L. Linton; "Poems by. Dante Gabriel Rossetti," "Put yourself in his Place," by Charles Reade, and sonic others, are freely handled, and copious extracts given. If the demand was not great, the supply would soon diminish, may be true enough; but those who give way to the sensational find the craving increase in proportiou as the means of gratifying it is provided.