Year: 1873




This highfalutin braggadocio finds
constant expression under all sorts of
varying forms in the press of London,
which is at once representative of the
conventional British ass and an example
of the material well-being enjoyed by
the better class of Englishmen. Tell an
Englishman he can't ride and he will
laugh at you. Yet he bobs up and down
in his saddle like Jack-in-thc-box. Tell
him the Times is a wretched old make
believe, and he will consider, it ma
tional insult but that is just what the
Times is.


have been reading this stately COM
pound of poppy-cock every morning now
for three weeks, having plenty of time
to wade through it, and L must say that
of all the illustrations of CANNON and
presumption furnished by the fogyism
of England, it is the most transparent
and absurd. 1t resembles, as far as it
resembles anything, one of those fat,
addressed buffers whom you will meet
at any of the great houses in Park lane,
all insolence and breeches but, where
as here is fitness in the buffers obesi-
ty and swagger, the rotund deficiency
of the Times is a constant affront to
good manners, common sense and or
binary intelligence. The Times is print





type; and to this extent it is worthy of
imitation It has another virtue, also,
which is still higher and rarer-it does
not belong to the advertiser and is, on
the whole, to be trusted in small mat
ters. Like the sleek butler in Park
lane, it will neither lie nor steal for the
rabble. It is only to be reached and
overcome by the remunerative demands
of the nobility. Nor is there any occa-
sion to quarrel with its decency. Its
cleanliness is undeniable. But when it
sets up for the first journal in the world,
and by the grace of this pretense di-
vides it's supercilious twaddle into two
parts, that which is tediously oracular
and that which is helplessly silent, one
is disposed to look for some solid inter
nal evidence of power. Thus moved to
seek, he will fail to find. To-day's
Times is, like yesterdays Times, a mess
of inadequate gable about European
politics, repetition of last weeks edi-
| torial hatulencies, few scraps of de-
sultory and unimportant information, a
| line or two from America concerning the
cotton crop and the Modocs, and a vast
and valuable array of crisp and spark
ling advertising matter. You will not
catch CLEAN of sunshine or ray of
humor in the Times during a twelve
month. 1t is habitually belated with
its news. Written in feeble and finished
English it is j; but that is all. With
faultless Typography, its "make up" is
bungle of bad taste and chance-work
with prodigious resources, it has neither
variety nor enterprise. Why is it a
power in the land? Because it is a rep
resentative of that slow-moving, OK
eyed, upper and middle-class Bourbon
ism which has for years obstinately
stuck it's head behind the rotten wooden
walls of England, refusing to bulge out
of sheer perversity, and hating progress
because it sees and knows that there is
good in it. The Times, however, is
losing, slowly but surely, its influence
with its circulation. It is already ex-
ceeded by the Telegraph, and will pres
emily be equaled by the NeaOs.


Its competitors, the Telegraph and
the NeaOs, are brighter. But they are
miserably behind the American Journals
in everything except their moderation
and culture, and certain good faith in
the matter of advertising, which they
have found profitable, and which every
newspaper that adopts it Will find it
equally SO. The Telegraph is certainly
better written than the New York Her
aid, but it is neither SO brilliant nor SO
enterprising as the New York Tribune.


The press of London is certainly much
behind the press of New York, Chicago
and Cincinnati in enterprise and in
power 1t is decent, but dull, and
strong only as it represents and illus
trates the conventional weakness of the
English character. Cor. Louis
UiELe COttrier-uJOIGTT0L.