Year: 1867

you are a COO(teD man. III you attempt W
do your duty, you are trying to rule the
country. You are abused for not publish
ing any news; and you are worse abused
if you do publish any People take Of.
fence if you notice them in your paper, or
they find fault if you don't notice them, so
that you never know whether you are to
meet anybody as you parted with them or
not. Your party demands the most i'm
plicit allegiance, and, on election day, when
your prestige, which is your all, is at stake,
it heedlessly or purposely abstains from
voting, and allows you to be beaten TO
death. If you are neutral on politics, you
are of course no good to anybody. You
are neither loved nor hated--simply des-
pissed. You can't support ohe party, new
er so fairly and high mindldly, without
being denounced as all that is mean by the
other. If you are so generous as to ad-
NIT that your opponents are men, acting
from as sincere and conscientious motives
as your own, you are in the market for
buyers. That you can have other than
msrcenary motive, even in your prayers,
is secuted Your editorials are termed
scu,rilsous by your enemies, and tame by
your friends. You are not read if your
paper is not spicy, and your paper is no.
fit to be received into decent family if it
Is spicy. Your brains are the common
property of the public, to be cudgled to
death and forgotten. Your time must be
at the disposal of everybody who wants to
bore or quarrel with you; yet your bills
are the very last that are ever paid; indeed
you are lucky if you are ever paid at all.
You carry your detestable business with
you to your meals, ITO church, into society,
and are so eternally occupied with it as to
be chronically inattentive, and consequent
ly disagreeabe. You are never at rest.
Even your dreams must be turned to some
account. And when you think you have
gotten out good number Of your paper,
some kind friend roughly dispells the ilu-
sion by glancing careiessly ever it, throw
ing it down, and asking you ii here isany-
thing in it. Of course you answer indif-
ferently, and are taken at your word, and
that is the last Of what seemed almost like
inspiration TO you, SO happily did it roll
from your pen. You become accustomed
to taunts and sights, so that vou pass for
a person oftno spirit, whom it is impossi-
BILE to insult. If you should take notice Of
every cur snarling at your heels, on the
contrary, you would be blackleg and an
idiot in the bargain. Moreover you would
soon be food for worms, for you would have
fight on hand every hour of the day, and
an assassin like attack at least once every
night 1t is well for the editor and for the
devils in hell that there is a great deal in
use. The latter, at their memorable coGn-
Gil in ,pandemoniam, comforted themselves
with the idea that in time they would as
simulate in substance with the fercs fires
into which they had been plunged from
lleavo.l.:


Our torments also may in length of time


Become elements their piercing fires


As soft IS now severe, orr temper changed


Into their temper which must needs remove
The sensible of pain-----


The editor consoles himself with the
idea that he will soon wear out aid be re-
lieved by permission to join the aforesaid
1t may be asked why are there editors,
since no one is compelled to adopt 50 hate
ful profession. 1t is well known that
old soldiers come to love beyond everything
else the long roll which beats to arms. 1t
is so with an editor. Tumult, and rows,
and wrangling, and confusion come to be
his element, without which he were dead
though he live. And his lot, mean as tis,
is much what he makes it, the same as 9TH
er peoples. And there are many worse
ones. There is something truly noble in
the editors mission, which is, we take it,
to give his readers as accurate ideas of
events and men as are to be had, and to
make such comments and suggestions as
seem likely to promote the public good.
just in proportion to his ability and faith
fulness in performing this mission is his
power. Power is sweet, and such power
as this is a worthy object of ambition.
Finally, let all be pleased to remember
that the weak, or cowardly, or unjust edi-
tor, suffers far more from those faults than
by any possibility can his victims.