It is a pity that an editor should not be a gentleman, for his own sake, and because no position can be more honorable than his, if he choose to make it so, nor more influential for good or evil. Think of the multitude he addresses—the thinking men and women who pass his columns under critical review. Surely, this is a career not to be lightly esteemed, not to be slurred over bunglingly. Surely, this messenger crossing the sacred threshold of home, might well step carefully, reverentially, discreetly, and discuss fairly, justly, all topics especially connected with home duties and home responsibilities. Surely, his advertising list, if he have one, should be a clean one, such as any frank-browed, hitherto innocent young boy, might read. Surely, the maiden, whose horizon is not bounded by a strip of ribbon or silk, or even the marriage altar; should have the great questions of the day, relating to the future of her sex, not brushed aside with a contemptuous sniff, or treated with flippant ridicule, because this is the shortest and easiest way of disposing of that which requires thought and fair deliberation.
It seems so strange to me, who hold in such exalted estimation an editor's calling, that one should ever be found willing to belittle it; it is also a great comfort to know that there are those who hold this their position, for honor and interest second to none, and in this light conscientiously conduct their paper, so far as their strength and means allow.
This would be a very stupid world, I grant, if individuality were not allowed in the editorial chair as well as elsewhere; but leaving a wide margin for this, is there not still room in many newspapers for more justice, manliness, courtesy, and, above all, respectful mention of woman, even though the exigencies of her life may compel her to address the public.
There is a practice of certain penny-a-liners which cannot be too severely reprehended. We do not refer to their personal descriptions of public persons, male and female, which are often wholly false—they having mistaken some one else for the individual they wished to describe; and if certain of the identity, generally "doing" the description in the worst possible taste. All this is bad enough; but we refer now to cases where a forgery or a murder is committed. Not contented with working up these cases in all their harrowing and often disgusting details, your barren penny-a-liner, catching at the least straw of an idea to secure another penny for another line, states that the criminal in question is son of the Hon. Samuel So-and-so, nephew of Mr. So-and-so, a gentlemen well known in the fashionable world, and brother of the beautiful Miss Smith who was so much admired in society last winter. Now, to say that a man who would recklessly carry distress to innocent persons, already sufficiently crushed by their calamity, should be horse-whipped, is a mild way of putting it. No dictionary could do such cold-blooded atrocity justice. Of course such items help sell a paper; but, alas, how low must be that editor's standard of journalism who permits his employés to pander to so corrupt and ghoul-like a taste! I think, could he sometimes look in upon the sorrowing family circle, which he has assisted to drag into this kennel publicity, or if he could suffer in his own family that which he so remorselessly deals out to another, he might realize the deadly nature of these poisoned arrows which he aims at his neighbor's heart.
Again, because the victims so assailed have not the prefix of "Hon." to their names, and have no "fashionable and beautiful sister," or "prominent and wealthy uncle," shall we therefore excuse this cowardly attack upon their poor hearths and homes? Let any one run over certain police reports of the day, if he would see how misery and misfortune are treated as a jest, by these small, brainless wits hard up for a subject. One's blood boils, that the human being exists who could regard such things from the standpoint of a circus clown. In fact, a circus clown is respectable in comparison, since his jests are legitimate and harmless.
These gentry never did me any personal harm.
True, black hair has often been awarded me, instead of light, by these scribblers, "who were on very intimate terms with me," and I have measured six feet in height, instead of four and a half; and I have "a stylish carriage and footmen," which I fervently wish the international copyright law would drive up to my door, bating the usual vulgar livery; also, half the things which they have asserted I "waste my earnings upon" would be agreeable to possess, and of course I grieve to take them down a single peg on all these statements; but lying did not die with the serpent in Eden, for his slimy trail is all through newspaperdom, save and except the —— now don't you wish you knew?
No humane or decent person, can read the police reports in some of the papers in New York, without feeling unutterable loathing and contempt for the writers. Is it not enough that these poor wretches, in their downward course, have lost almost the faintest impress of immortality, that one who at least bears the semblance of manhood, can stand over them and manufacture coarse jibes by the yard, to be perused by young people at the family hearth-stone? It is a disgrace to our civilization, and to the paper in whose columns they appear.
How would these writers like it, if the sister who once shared their cradle—having, in some mad moment, thrown away all in life that is pure and sweet to women—should she be brought up among that wretched crowd for sentence, how would he like it, to have her spoken of in this manner?—
"Miss Josephine Jones, a frail sister, with a bruised nose that once had been prettier, and a bonnet that did not originate in Paris, was charged with getting drunk, and tearing the hair from Miss Alice Carr's red head. The hair was produced in court, but for some inexplicable reason the clerk of the court seemed disinclined to touch it. Miss Josephine was found guilty, and gathering up the remnant of a greasy silk gown in her fair hand, she walked gracefully forth, to be provided with lodgings and grub, free of expense, on Blackwell's Island, where so many of her sex rusticate for the pleasant winter months."