Year: 1875

tlemen whose imagination we are afraid is sometimes allowed too vividly to color their facts, gives us an account of a proposed soci- ety that is to be formed in New York for ''the protection of char acter." This society is to be sup ported by voluntary contributions. It is to be based upon the plan embodied in Mir. Bergh's useful, if at times eccentric, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ami mals. A distinguished citizen, whose name is not given, is to be- come President. There is to be a council of men of high character, and vigilant lawyers are to be en- gagged. The duty of the society will be to prosecute by indictment any journal published in New York that prints a hbellous state ment rehecting upon the charac- ter of private or public citizen. As our correspondent properly shows, the license that attends the management of certain of our newspapers is only stimulated by the indifference of public and pri- vate citizens to attack. An action for libel in New York would be a burlesque upon justice. The req son is that while the means of most private citizens are limited, and while no gentleman, under any circumstances, cares to un- dergo the ordeal of an action at law, the resources of a newspaper are generally large, and libel suit is looked upon as only an other form of advertisement. Consequently ninety nine out of a hundred libels are passed by with impunity because of the indiifer- ence of the person attacked to criticism, or his incapacity to measure resources with a power ful newspaper with money at all its command and writers perfectly capable and willing to hold any judge or jury to a severe account ability who would attempt to do justice upon them. The duty of the society, however, will be to make every libel its own case, just as Mir. Bergh makes the wrongs of every dumb animal his own proper quarrel. The only process by which society of this kind could reach libeller would be by indictment before grand jury.

 We have no doubt that if a so- ciety of this kind were properly organized and it's members kept in funds it would do a great work. The honest newspapers of New York would regard nothing with more qualification than an efficient law of libel. It is as much to their interest as to those of the people that the business of wanton- ly assaulting private and public character shall be stamped out. The indifference that is felt by so many people to newspaper attacks is in itself a reflection upon the power of tine press. If journalism has fallen so low in this country that a private gentleman can afford to treat with disdain a persistent and virulent attack upon him, con scious of his own innocence and integrity, conscious that the as saults make no impression what ever upon the public-that they are dismissed as the rawlings of cowardice and scoundrelism-lt is severe commentary upon the in- dependence and power of the press. Now, if we could put an end to to this indiscriminate and brutal and wanton assailing of private character the result would be that when q newspaper did seriously . make e charge it would be respect : ed and believed.

 1; A society for the protection of regulations would have a very wide scope. We do not know upon > what the correspondent bases his r narrative, but we think such a so- . cfety is more needed in New York than even Mir. Bergh's As sociation for the Prevention oi Cruelty to Animals.-New York Herald.

 :, It's astonishing, says the New | Orleans Bulletin to sec how little > there is of some ladies in these }. days of contracted skirts. And i,