Year: 1871

Our readers will have observed that we have


confined our reports of this case to the barest
statement of facts, instead Of entering, as
several of our cotemporaries have seen fit to
do. into the terrible and loathsOme details.
We take this course in this, and in the ma
jolity of criminal trials, because we believe
the Office of journal to be that of a guide
auite as much as caterer to the public taste.
When any high or wholesome purpose is to be
served by exposing vice or fOulness, We have
exposed it unfnchnGly, as in the case of the
panel-houses or the Roscnzweig murder. Ger
tain sewers cannot be cleaned of their filth
without uncOvering them; but the morbid
appetite which induces even cultured men and
women to sloat day by day over the par
ticnlars of this murder or others, subserves no
public or private good. 1t is precisely the
same degraded relish which leads their in
ferOrs in education to read the foul and
bloody pages of the dime novels or the police
journals. We do not cater to the taste of the
one class, and we will not to the other.


As regards the present case. why should it,,
or any other murder trial in fact (whOse ex-
posure will not lead to refOrms). be made q
matter of general INTEREST," Not one in ten
thousand of our readers ever heard of Mrs.
Wharton in her former innocent life: why
should they hear of her in her guilt, if she be
guiltyf What beneficial result is expected to
follow when the whole nation is called to look
upon Gen. Ketchum in his dying agOnics to
watch him tear his throat, or to assist the sur-
geon in the analysis of his stomach7 If this
woman really be, az our excitable cOtempOra-
ries style her, the "last of the BOrgias,"
would not the rational, healthy mode of
dealing with her. her crimes or her
insanity be to leave her to the judg-
ment of the law and of God, with az few
spectators and as far in the background as
possiblei We are not aware that the world
has been benefited whit by the worst of the
Borgias or their record. If. on the other hand,
the unhappy woman be innocent and the vic
tim of an unfortunate cOncatenation of cir
cumstances, why should we make haste to
trumpet her shame still further ITO hale her
brothers and furthest knsfolk into public
view to share in her disgracei The truth is,
it is high time that the newspapers who con-
troll journalism should make q stand against
the demand of public appetite which must
have its new and highly seasoned dish of
adultery and murder served up each morning
ut the breakfast table. Widcly-circulated and
so-called respectable journals have ceased to
be the mirrors of the worlds great move
ments in politics or morals, and have become
mere conduits for personal gossip and scandal.
We are charitable enough to believe that this
is done, not out of any latent vulgarity in the
editors, but simply because it pays. 1t does
pay. The lady and gentleman who would
shrink with horror from peeping in their
ncghbor's key-holc or reading his private
letters, are delighted when through the news
paper, as through spy-glass, they can feast
on all the secrets of some individual life, and
the nastier the better. If he be Prince or
Grand Duke, they catch with eagerncss every
morscl of information which Jenkins can
worm out of his valet or barber; but their
enthusiasm becomes bOundlcss if he be
bigamst or murderer, and they are not
content unless every detail he laid before
them, and from first to last they can see him
at his work.


We have faith enough in the innate purity
of American men to believe that this appetite
is but transient feature of the time, due
more to love of excitement than to unclean-
ness. 1t will not, we trust, be long before
such readers as demand this kind of food
must 20 for it to other sources than leading
journals, who will see the incxpcdicncy and
moral wrong of forcing it upon innocent youth,
or upon the mass of educated people whose
cleaner taste and higher level of thought cause
them to reject it with nausea.