You know, the deeds of “our William” must be bolstered up; lest “waverers” should waver off to the ranks of the “Constitutionalists,” and the “great Liberal party” come to grief at the next general election!
So, how can a journalist have a conscience? You see I’m right, and that I had some excuse for my foreign correspondence of American origin.
I lay the whole blame of the transaction, however, on the narrow shoulders of my lanky “down-east” proprietor:—he is the man to blame in the matter, not I!
After a time, I got tired of this work. I then left the journal on which I had been first engaged—with no hard feelings on either side, let it be mentioned—to join the literary staff of the Aurora Borealis, an organ of quite a different complexion, and of considerable notoriety in the empire city, as it was famed for its bizarre sensations and teeming news.
Here my labours became much more extended—my experiences and knowledge of all shades of American life and character the more varied and complete in consequence.
Years before, when at school in England, I had made some acquaintance with shorthand, in order to save me trouble in noting down lectures—for the purpose of afterwards writing themes thereon, as we had to do at Queen’s College, under “old Jack’s” rule; and, having kept up the acquisition, I found it now of considerable use, for, it caused me to be sent about much more than might otherwise have been the case—to report the speeches of prominent public men, whether they were “stumping the provinces” throughout the Union, or basking in the blazing “bunkum” of the capital at Washington.
What an enormous amount of empty talk have I not had to attend to, noting it down carefully, as if it were of the most vital importance that not a syllable should be lost!
I have listened, with amused ears often, and busy pencil, to the diabolical denunciations of our poor ill-used country, which have long since made famous Senator Sumner—the greatest Anglophobist in the States; hearkened to Horace Greeley’s eager utterances, delivered in thin falsetto voice, wherein he urged, as he urged to the last, universal brotherhood and reconciliation between the North and South; heard Andrew Johnson, the whilom president and one of the ablest who ever occupied that position for ages, defend himself against impeachment—that had been promoted through the bitter animosity of a hostile faction—with the eloquence and legal ability of a Cicero and the fearlessness of a Catiline:—
Reported Ben Butler, the ex-general, and now lawyer, of New Orleans, where he attached to himself an infamous notoriety, that will never desert him—“The Beast,” as Brick Pomeroy, the western wit, calls him—pelting his prosy platitudes and muddy language at the New York “rowdies,” who responded with a more practical shower, of dead cats, and eggs that had seen their better days:—reported Frederick Douglas, the tinted expounder of “advanced Ethiopianism,” who regularly tells his audiences—of sympathising abolitioners—that he had been “bought for three thousand dollars when a slave”—a precious deal more than he was worth, to judge by his appearance—although, he somehow always forgets to speak of the present price he asks, for his “vote and interest!”
Reported Miss Anna Dickenson, the female champion, of whom report says that she loveth the forementioned negro advocate even more as “a man” than as “a brother,” and who blinks her eyes and rolls out her sentences at such a rate that the one dazzle while the other appal the poor stenographer who may have to “follow” her:—reported Mesdames Susan B Anthony—please notice the “B”—and Cady Stanton, besides a host of other strenuous assertors of “woman’s rights” and male wrongs—in respect of petticoat government, “free love,” and various similar amiable, progressional theories that mark the advancement of our Transatlantic sisterhood!—Yes, I have reported each and all of these as they declaimed to their glory and satisfaction—and my disgust and impatience, when their loquacity has extended to such a length that I have had to sit up all night in order to write out my shorthand notes in time for the waiting press—confound them!