Newspaper Page Text
JOHN H. SEALS, - Editor and Proprietor.
MRS. MARY E. BRYAN (*) Associate Editor.
ATLANTA, GA., SATURDAY. OCT. 23, 1875.
The money must accompany all orders for this paper,
and it will be’ discontinued at the expiration of the time,
unless renewed.
1.000 AGENTS WANTED.
An active and reliable canvasser wanted
in every community, to represent “The Sun
ny South.”
SPECIAL CLUB HATES.
Organize clnbs in every community, and get
The Sunny South at the reduced rates. Every
Southern family must take it this fall and win
ter. See our club rates:
A Club of 4, 6, lO and upwards, Sri 50 each.
A “ “ 20 and upwards, $2 25 “
For a Club of 5 at 83, an extra copy will be
sent one year free.
Writing for Pay—A Little Advice.—Scarcely Death to the Birds.—The most fashionable Annual Fairs.—Fairs are the order of the day
a day passes in which we do not receive more or of ladies' liats are now so covered with birds’ this bright, frosty month of October, and they
wings, feathers, and stuffed birds, that they are capital and necessary institutions. They
resemble nothing so much as the picture (in furnish just the excitement and impetus that are
“ Mother Goose ”) of that black-bird pie, which needed after a long summer of work and dull-
was set as a dainty dish befoie good King Ar- ness—of partial stagnation both of business and
thought. Fairs not only stimulate industry and
arouse enterprise, but they are the great cenn-nt-
ers of social feeling. They improve our friendly
as well as our business relations with each
other-they strengthen our humanity while they
brighten the general intellect by affording op
portunities for that electrical attrition of different
minds which is requisite to energetic progress.
So let us have fairs by all means—great, mag
netic assemblages of people and of interests—
gatherings together of the products of the land,
from butter to babies, from quilts to complex
machinery, from bantam chickens to blooded
horses. Let us have fairs, with all their lively
WRITTEN IN BLOOD;
—OR,—
The Midnight Fledge.
BY M. ((l ; AD.
Will be commenced next week. This is an
intensely thrilling story of the last Napoleon’s
reign. ^
A XX O UN CEMEX TS.
THRILLING NEW STORIES,
THRILLING NEW STORIES,
THRILLING NEW STORIES,
BY BRILLIANT WRITERS. ;
BY BRILLIANT WRITERS.
BY BRILLIANT WRITERS.
See the announcement of new stories, in the
last column of the eighth page. They will be the
most thrilling and instructive of any romances
yet published in an American journal.
Mrs. Bryan begins this week her brilliant soci
ety novel, entitled “Fighting Against Fate, or
Alone in the World.” It will be something of
a sequel to her “Haywood Lodge,” published
with such fine effect a few years since, but wholly
independent and complete within itself.
SPECIMENS FREE.
Send in the names and post-offices of your
friends, and we will mail them specimen copies
of the paper free of any charge. Make up clubs
of subscribers, don’t wait for agents. See club
rates.
Suicides.—Has self-destruction become a mania
among our people? Scarcely-.^ day intervenes
between these bloody tragedies, and it is some
what startling to see the cheap estimate which
many put upon human life. So common has it
grown for men and women to kill themselves
that it has ceased to be a matter of much mo
ment, and each separate occurrence is only a
subject of coarse jest and vulgar satire. What
is the cause? Is it insanity? Not so. The old
less manuscript accompanied with a pathetic ap-
, peal or heart-touching statement from the writer
about his or her distressing pecuniary condition,
and urging our acceptance upon that ground.
Many of the writers state that they “have never
before written for the press,” but their poverty is
such that they are compelled to do something,
and owing to physical debility, or something
else, can do nothing but write for the papers.
Some of these statements are couched in such
courteous and feeling language that they often
bring tears to our eyes, and we always wish it
were in our power to return them a thousand-
dollar check. We have fully realized the truth
and beauty of that scriptural apothegm that it is
better to give than to receive, and in all these
instances it would be particularly so had we the
pecuniary ability.
But- touching as these appeals are, we must
remind our friends of the exceeding unreason
ableness of the proposition that any one can
write for the public prints without experience
and practice. As well might we expect a person
to run a locomotive, demonstrate a proposition
in geometry, or a theory in chemistry, without
preparation and training. To write for the press
requires years of close thought, steady practice
and much reading. Indeed, to make a successful
writer requires a life-time of practice and close
application, and hence so few make successes.
Should we publish one article from some of these
inexperienced authors just as it was written and
sent in, it would be all that the public could
stand from that source for a whole century, and
then the idea of paying for it!
Now we do not wish to discourage any ambi
tious soul, and do not write this article with that
view. On the contrary, we are ready to give
every encouragement we can to all aspirants for
literary honors, and no one rejoices more than
we at the success of a Southern writer. But we
mean simply to say that you must not make
money the sole object of your ambition in this
field. Seek first to make a success, both in style
and matter, and when your writings bear the im
press of thought, the stamp of genius and the evi
dences of care and culture, then they will please
and command money. It is the popular writers
of the day who get pay, and no one should ex
pect it till they are capable of pleasing the public.
One great mission of The Sunny South is to
bring out and develop Southern genius, and in
its columns we give all necessary encouragement.
Many of the articles we publish from our con
tributors have cost us much time and labor in
correcting, pruning, remodeling sentences etc.,
but we do it as an encouragement to the writers,
and hope they'will profit by it. If you desire to
write for the press, and wish to win laurels in
the world of letters, then make up your mind,
select good books to read, and preserve each
bright thought you find; “learn to labor and to
wait,” and while your progress may be slow,
make it sure, and ere you are aware of it you
may find your name a power in the land, ,.iwb
then may you command wages for your writing.
Try it, all you who have aspirations in this line,
and let us have more polished and successful
writers in the South, and not so many scribblers.
thur. and “when the pie was opened the birds
began to sing."
The new cap-crown hat is given the veritable
effect of a bird's-nest. with a full-grown mother
bird cosily ensconced in the centre, and a num
ber of small heads peeping out from beneath
her wings; or perhaps the birds are perched
around the nest among the autumn foliage and
berries, thus giving the wearer the aspect of a
perambulating aviary. Feather trimming is also
more than ever in vogue, and the birds, as well as
the beasts, are to be stripped this winter to fur
nish ornamentation for the silks and satins of
our belles.
But how do the birds fancy this last whim of accessories of business and bustle, fun and flirt
ation; with their inflocking of such migratory
fashion ? It is death to them, especially to
those of pretty shape and plumage; and Mr.
Bergh will have to interfere, as did Miss Burdett
Coutts, who last year entered a solemn petition
in behalf of the humming-birds, who were be
ing so ruthlessly immolated on the shrine of
fashion.
It is not only the humming-bird that is now ,
sacrificed, but every winged denizen of conven- *
ient size or graceful plumage. The blue-bird
and red-bird are in demand, as azure and car
dinal-red are the favorite colors for the season.
Verily these flashing meteors of the forest will
have to migrate to some island of the South
seas, where fashion is unknown, and where
“ Never comes the trader, never
Floats a European flag,” *
ITeniimiis at Fairs.-Our committees for
awarding prizes should bear in mind that the
highest reward is due to the results of native in
dustry and perseverance, rather than to those of
mere wealth and desire for display. A young
lady friend of ours, from the lower portion of
this State, once brought to a fair in a neighboring I card, sig- d “Subscriber”:
(For The Sunny South.)
JOHN KNOX.
AN ANALYSIS OF HIS CHARACTER.
BY REV. .1. JOURDAN.
The hero worshipper can find tew names in
history more worthy of veneration, few charac
ters more admirable than the name and charac
ter of John Knok. whose portrait we present on
our front page. There is in the ring ol the
name, the rounded fullness of pure, true metal,
and the name fits the character.
Living in an age which called for men, lie re
sponded to the call, and adorned the age. Filled
with religious zeal, and blending in his charac
ter the best traits of a statesman and a captain,
the reformation developed no man, perhaps,
more exactly adapted to its wants.
He saw the church corrupted and secularized;
the priestly office degraded by incompetents
who were preferred by courtly favor or for
money, and the treasury of the church supplied
by the unscrupulous peddling of indulgences.
He deemed it his mission to fight against such
evils, and to fight against them was to assail
the church. With Luther and Melancthon and
birds as agents, drummers, vendors of patent ar- | Zwingle? he would i )ave preferred to remain in
tides and advocates of pet schemes; with their
jostling together of farmers and fops, silks and
calicoes, pretty girls and plump matrons, politi
cians and poultry fanciers. *
Name Your Office.—We have a card from W.
B. Bowen, postmaster, stating that no copies of
this paper for October 9tli came to his office, but
he fails to give us the name of his office. Let us
know were you are, and we will supply the miss
ing papers.
Everybody in writing to publishers should be
very particular in naming their office.
Since the above was put in type, we have re
ceived a kind and gentlemanly letter from the
same postmaster, who has charge of the New
berry post-office, South Carolina, and we cannot
account for the failure of the papers to reach
that office. We have sent more, and shall inves
tigate the matter.
Portraits.—We have received the following
Governor Porter, of Tennessee.—In our last
week’s issue we presented an excellent portrait of
the present chief executive of Tennessee, Gov
ernor James D. Porter, Jr. He is a native of the
His father was the late Dr. T. K. Porter, for many
years favorably known in that section of the State.
The Governor graduated at the University of
Nashville in 1846, and began the study of law at
Lebanon. In 1859 he was elected a member of
the Legislature, serving two years. At the out
break of the war he received the appointment of
chief of staff in Cheatham’s Confederate division
his rare executive skill and keen perception
The man of nice feel- ! makiu S kim >*n officer of special value to the
cause. In the Constitutional Convention which
convened in 1870, he rep resen ted his native
county, and did much towards placing the State
: in a position to surmount the effects of the war.
In 1871 he was elected Judge of the Twelth Ju
dicial Circuit of Tennessee, a position he held
until February, 1874. In August following he re
ceived the Democratic nomination for Governor,
and in November he was elected over the Hon
orable Horace Maynard by a majority of nearly
fifty thousand votes, and was inaugurated Gov
ernor on the eighteenth of January last.
idea that a person who committed suicide must be i
insane has long since been abandoned. People Pa ™’ “ d , ab ^ ut of a f;
now plunge into eternity with cool premeditation
and calm deliberation, and no charge of insanity
or aberration of intellect can be alleged against ]
them. The man of business fails, and through
a misconception of his plainest duties under j
the circumstances, takes his life. The loafer, |
idler, or fast young man, runs his schedule of
borrowing, scheming and stealing till he can go j
no further, and then, with curses upon what he
calls luck, takes his life.
ing and conscientious impulses becomes involved
in an affair likely to compromise his honor, and
rather than suffer disgrace, he takes his life. The
young girl with an aspiring soul suffers a few
disappointments, and concludes that her life is
aimless, that she lias nothing to live for, and j
with deliberate purpose, takes her life. And so 1
thousands of cases occur annually where no in- '
sanity can be alleged. I
The causes we have, named are but a small por
tion of the hundreds which lead people in this
day to throttle the life-current in their own
veins, and seek the repose of the grave. Indeed,
we are almost the rivals of h belle France in this
particular. In that land of song and gayety, of
jest and the can-can, where people apparently
care for nothing blit to live, the suicidal spirit
holds high carnival. If a Frenchman is very
poor, he takes his life; is he very rich? his life
becomes ennui and he destroys himself; is he
unlucky at the gambling table ? he takes lxis life;
is he unfortunate in an affair de coeur ? he takes
his life; if his horse fails him in a race, or his
mistress in an intrigue, he takes his life; and
Americans are becoming decidedly Frenchy in
this regard. In “ Merrie England ” it is almost as
bad. The month of November always teems with
repulsive incidents of self-destruction among the
English. And so it has been all the way down
from the men of the old Bible who fell upon
their swords to this more enlightened age of
morphia, pistols and guns; and were it not that
thousands lack the nerve, and thousands more
dread the responsibility and the terrors of a
hereafter, the cases would be infinitely multi
plied.
Is there no remedy? We fear not. Educated,
cultivated and intelligent men and women often-
est perpetrate this crime. The Milesian virgins
once took the mania, and every week the dead
body of some young girl was found, but a decree
was passed that the bodies of all suicides should
be exposed naked and dragged through the public
streets. This for a time put an end to the
mania, but it was soon disregarded. Degrada
tion of the body, denial of burial rites, igno
miny forever upon the memory of the self-mnr-
derer, have all been tried in Christianized coun
tries, but there is now nothing of the kind. The
unfortunate man or woman is left in the hands
of the great God of the universe to answer for
the crime, and the world moves on in the same
way, and the sun shines as brightly and the birds
sing as sweetly as if nothing had happened.
city, a quilt made of silk that had been raised,
spun, dyed and woven by her own hands. It
was also quilted with silk that she had spun and
twisted. Her industry won a passing compli
ment. but she failed to obtain a prize. It was
awarded to a lady who exhibited a rich velvet
quilt, made of variously colored pieces of velvet
that she had bought and put together. A great
deal of money had been spent upon this costly
fabric, but nothing like the industry, ingenuity
and patience that had gone to the manufacture
of the native product, which had won no pre
mium at all.
The Crown Prince of Germany is a sensible i
man, albeit a royal personage. At the great
cattle fair in Berlin last April, there were very
few cattle on exhibition that had not been ini- I
ported. The committee awarded the first prize
to an industrious countryman who had entered
a fine steer of his own raising. The Prince went
up to the farmer
his success, »3
prize, my man; it is a token of your industry
and care. But these importers of full grown
stock deserve no premium at all.”
But here, the Prince was only half right; for
the importer of fine stock is a public benefac
tor, and deserves a mark of honor as well as the
raiser of good native cattle. *
“ At tiu.- request of subscribers we write, re
questing pictures in your interesting paper of
Hon. Allen G. Thurman, our next President;
Gov. Wm. Allen, Gov. Sam. J. Tilden, L. Q. C.
Lamar, and of our own fellow-citizens, Hon. C.
D. McCutchen, Judge Rice, Hon. B. H. Bigham,
of LaGrange, and Gen. Wm. T. Wofford.”
In reply, we would say that we shall open a
correspondence with some or all of the distin
guished men named, and hope soon to present
good pictures of them in our “Gallery.”
Tlie Wrong Man.—Some enterprising fellow
sends us a printed price-listof “bagatelle balls, ”
“rondo balls,” “poker chips,” “lay-outs and
faro tools,” “keno pegs,” “props,” “tally boards,”
“ pool jug,” “ ivory dust,” etc.; and as all these
things sound about as intelligible to us as He
brew to a deaf Dutchman, we guess he sent them
to the wrong man.
find complimented him upon
ring: “ You liave deserved your
Royal Dairy Farm.—Apropos of cattle and the
Crown Prince, a graphic letter-writer gives us a
sketch of the royal dairy near Brownstedt, which
is a paying feature of the Prince’s pet farm, and
puts many a kreutzer into the royal purse. “A
wagon stood by the door, in which tin cans were
being filled ready for delivery. Laughingly, I
remarked, ‘I did not know that your Crown
Prince was a milk vendor, too.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ she
replied, ‘his principal profit from the farm is
from the milk and butter. But come, now, and
see our cows; they are the pride of his Highness’
heart.’ And well they may be, we thought, as we
entered the long, low building, with its double
row of stalls, in which were fifty-two as fine
Hierlanders as one could wish to see. As we
passed by the stalls the fat, sleek, gentle crea.
tures looked up at us wonderingly, then resumed
their munching and lazily switched off the flies
with long, bushy tails. Over each stall was the
name of each animal, and they rejoice in such
classical appellations as Aurora, Victoria, Juno,
Hebe, Helene and so on. The cows, the old lady
told us, were all milked twice, and many of them
three times a day, and gave an abundance of
good, rich milk, that was always in demand.”
Her “Ain Countrie.”—Of late years, Mrs.
Anne Chambers Ketchum has identified herself
so fully with the North, and has been so ca
ressed in her adopted city of New York, that we
feared her native land of the South had lost her
love as well as her presence. But we find, in a
late pleasant sketch of her European gipsyings,
the following passage to prove that her heart
still turns lovingly to her ain countrie, even when
flying still farther from it across Atlantic waters:
“ The day was a golden day in May; and with
an unconquerable love of the sea, inherited
from Kentish and Provencale ancestors, and fos
tered by many a sojourn along the shores and
amid the waves of our own intertropical Mexican
Sea, I turned aside from the gay company on
board, and spent this and each of the succeeding
ten days on the upper deck. One after one, the
sea-sick people go below. There are but a few
left aloft—a few old voyagers who have grown
used to the sea’s rontfli caresses. The sea-gulls
follow us, the wide-winged, beautiful gulls, just
as I have seen them sail a hundred times over
the soft, bright waters of the Gulf. But these
pale skies are not the skies that bend over my
ain countrie. I am many a league away from the
blood-red sunsets of the South.”
PERSONALS.
Prince Adelbert, uncle of the King of Bavaria,
is dead.
Bishop W. M. Wightman was in the city
Wednesday.
Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard is at Crab Orchard,
Kentucky.
While Cardinal McCloskey remained in Rome,
the American College was his home.
Horatio Stone, the distinguished American
sculptor, died in Italy on the eleventh.
Edwin Booth’s recovery is protracted. He
may have to cancel some of his engagements.
Gen. J. E. Johnston has severed his connec
tion with the London and Globe Insurance Com
pany.
Secretary Bristow has stopped the issue of
ten-cent scrip, and will soon begin the issue of
silver dimes.
P. P. Wintermute, who killed General Mc
Cook at Yankton, D. T., has finally got a verdict
of not guilty.
Dr. Hembold is in the asylum again at
Bloomingdale, from which he made his escape a
few days since.
I)r. Little, our efficient State Geologist, is to
accompany 2he Constitution expedition to the
Okefenokee swamp.
Thaddeus Fairbanks and Charles F. Cliicker-
ing are the only Americans who have ever ac
cepted the nonsensical English title of Sir.
Mrs. J. E. 15. Stuart, widow of the noted Con
federate General, has become a teacher in the
Southern Female College of Richmond, Virginia.
W. H. Davis, City Treasurer of Kansas City,
Kansas, recently committed suicide by drowning
himself. Cause, loss of public funds by gam
bling.
Gov. J. B. Hawley, Hon. W. D. Kelly, ex-Mayor
D. M. Fox, J. M. Robb and C. B. Norton, Cen
tennial commissioners, were in Atlanta Tuesday,
the church, and to struggle there to correct its
evils, but the evils which he saw were radical;
the life of the church, its power, its hold upon
the hearts of men and of monarchs, grew out of
them. Strike the ax into the root of the tree, and
you threaten the life of the tree itself. The re
formers who clung to the church lacked the
pathetic genius, the statesman-like foresight of
Knox.
He severed his connection—protested —and
joined the most consistent of them all. He
fought them in open field. He was the avowed
leader of the Scotch heretics. He was the man
for the place. Iron-nerved, lion-hearted, he
“ never felt the fear of man.” He preached in
the very shadow of an archbishop’s palace, defied
royalty, waged polemical battles with amazing
eloquence, and filled the historic halls of Holy-
rood with the strange magnetism that thrilled
and thralled the multitudes — even Catholic
multitudes. In the presence of the devoted
Romanist Queen Mary, he laid bare the errors
and vices of her church, using his pitiless logic
as a keen dissecting-knife. He bearded the po
tentates of the church and the State, endured
exile and imprisonment, despised offered pre
ferment in the Church of England when his ad
miring friend Cranmer would gladly have given
him a bishopric, and, with a persistency worthy
of his cause and of himself, urged on the reform
ation. Driven by the persecutions of “Bloody
' Mary” from Scotland, he went to the continent,
and at Geneva met in the person of Calvin the
only peer that the century produced, nor was
he in all respects the peer of Knox. Fully
equal in intellect and in daring advocacy of his
convictions, he lacked the magnetism of the
Scot, and the womanly tenderness which makes
us love him while we are content to admire the
sterner Fran co-Switzer.
A man of intense emotions, indignation
blazed within him when he beheld the in
justice and cruelty of the priesthood, and rage
mingled with contempt when he saw the super-
' stition of the ignorant forged into chains for
their own enslavement. The same emotional
nature is seen, as is also a certain charming ten
derness, in the flood of tears and the days of re
tirement which followed his consecration to the
chief ministry of the Scotch reformation.
Born in 1505, he was a lad of twelve years
when Luther startled the ecclesiastical world
by his theses, and began the reformation in
Germany. This movement early attracted his
attij^Siinn. and led him to inquire concerning
the long-trusted patristic authority. It did not,
however, make him a follower of Luther. In
deed, he could hardly be a follower who was so
manifestly born to lead. Moreover, there was
much in Luther’s attitude to the Roman church
that seemed to the mind of Knox inconsistent.
He could make no stand within the cordon of the
church. Separation was to him a necessity.
The independence of each local Christian con
gregation was his high aim.
[For The Sunny South.)
COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS.
BY ARNOT.
Miss Thackeray on Pin-Backs.—The brilliant
daughter of the great novelist, who is one of the
pets of London society, thus speaks up for the and left at noon for Macon,
much-decried pin-back: The European dispatches announce the death
“ We are inclined to regard the pinned-back i of Francis Theophilus Henry Hastings, the thir-
skirt as a revelation intended to revive conti- teentb Earl of Huntington. He was the leader
dence in the first chapter of Genesis, and to
restore to a cheating and doubting world the old
conceptions of the female form divine, which
the ancients made classic in their history, their
poetry and their sculpture. The simple dress in
which Homer enfolded Helen—the same that As-
pasia and Cleopatra wore—wanted nothing in
magnificence by reason of its being so fitted as
to reveal the outlines of the limbs. Petrarch’s
Laura had only two dresses for state occasions,
both,cut to fit the figure like a glove; but the plain
ness did not prevent their being splendid with
gay, profuse and costly charms of hue and trim
ming. There is no limit, and there should be
none, to the possibilities of brilliancy in woman’s
attire; only let the spectacle be honest, consist
ent and harmonious.
Wliy Don’t You 1—Yes, why don’t you send in
the names of your friends who would appreciate
our Sunny South, and let us send them speci.
men copies ? We will forward one immediately
to any friend you may designate if you think he
or she would subscribe. Let every friend of
the paper work for it this fall and winter, and we
will show to the world that there is intelligence
enough in the South to sustain a first class liter
ary journal.
Agents, Where Are You J—We hear nothing
from quite a number of parties who call them
selves agents for this paper. We must hear
from you regularly, and you must work with
spirit if you propose to represent The Sunny
South. We want no “dead-heads,” and unless
you do something, your names will be dropped
from the list of agents. Wake up, and compel
the people by your persistency to come in upon
our subscription books. Now is the time to
work.
Our New Press.—The next issue of this paper
will probably be printed on our splendid new
press. It will reach here this week, and will be
immediately put up in our excellent press-room.
Mr. Campbell, the gentlemanly and efficient
agent of the manufacturers, has arrived from
New York to superintend the putting of it up.
of the Opposition in the last British Parliament.
Mr. Gladstone made an address recently before
a literary institute at Hawarden, in the course of
which he complained that the English as a peo
ple are “ rather indolent as regards mental culti
vation.”
Pandora, the Arctic explorer, has returned to
London. AtPeil Sound, within twenty miles of
King William’s Land, lieei -jountered impenetra
ble ice. He found the graves of three of Sir
John Franklin’s men on Beacliy Island.
E. A Proctor, the English astronomer, begins
his new tour in this country with a course of
twelve lectures before the Lowell Institute in
Boston. He will go as far West as San Francisco,
South to New Orleans, and North to Quebec.
Hon. Caleb Cushing, United States Minister
to Spain, it is reported, has entefed his protest
at Madrid against the Spanish Government
sending any more troops to Cuba. The necessi
ties of the American Government, by reason of
the too insolent domination exercised by Spain
in the Gulf of Mexico, has led to this step.
Charles G. Fisher, late Assistant United States
Attorney of the District of Columbia, has been
arrested on a charge of stealing appeal bonds
and papers in forty District cases which had
been appealed from the police court to the crim
inal court, for the purpose of raising money on
them. The papers were all recovered, and
Fisher was committed to jail.
Colonel George Hancock, one of the leaders in
the Texan war for independence, died recently
at Louisville, Kentucky. When the Texans, al
though victorious in several battles, found it im
possible to carry on the war with an empty
treasury and with no means of obtaining arms
and ammunition, Colonel Hancock tendered Gen
eral Houston about $60,000 in gold.
Publish - is of country newspapers constantly
complain of a want of patronage. The complaint
may have some foundation, but another com
plaint of the people that the country newspapers
are generally poor is quite as true as the other.
Country newspaper people rarely understand
the wants of their patrons. A country newspa
per is published for local patronage. Horace
■ Greeley could not have published a weekly news
paper in Whittletown that would have had four
hundred thousand readers; but he published
one in New York city which had that number of
readers. The point is this: a newspaper should
meet the wants of the people who are expected
to sustain it. A local newspaper is not expected
to be a journal of the world’s events; but it
ought to be a journal of the locality where it is
printed. That it ought to contain an epitome of
the week’s news, every one knows, but no one
looks for the world’s commercial reports, but all
expect to have the price current of its locality.
Now, pick up your country paper and see wliat
there is in it of local interest. The people of
the locality patronize it for its local interests; but
in place of local items, the editpr, as a rule, says
about this: “Before going to press, we started
out on the lookout for a local item, hnt narry one
could we find.”
An editor who would write that ought to be
tried by the Press Association for high crimes
and misdemeanors. Items of news are not got
ten up in that way. Everything should be noted
I as it occurs.
For an editor to thank Mrs. Smith for a peck
of tomatoes is an offense to good taste; not that
Mrs. S. ought not to be thanked, but the public
have no interest in private donations to the ed
itor. But to say that Mrs. Smith has raised fine
tomatoes, and tell their size and say a word as
j to their mode of culture, is news, provided they
are in fact fine.
! It gives the people of a community moreinter-
i est in a paper which notices all matters of local
, concern than it does to say that the Sultan has
: fifty wives.
j It is not at all uncommon fora Superior Court
j to be held in a county, and the local paper never
mention it, and for the most important cases to
1 be tried and the fact never appear.
Some simpleton may say that is all known
anyhow. That may be true or not; but it is true
that four-fifths of all the news in a daily is known
before it appears (here is meant local news)- yet
no enterprising daily would leave it out, and
the people look for it there even if they know it
for the editor is supposed to have the correct ver
sion of everything.
No editor of sense expects to make a village
newspaper of general importance; that being so
labor to give it the most local interest.
A brilliant French woman once said; “O lib
erty, how many wrongs have been committed in
thy name!” And I say, O we, the royal, ragged
pronoun, how much nonsense is perpetrated in
thy name!
A neoro by the name of Clarke Edmonson was
lynched at Jonesboro last Sunday morning.
I his is a law-abiding State, and the vilest crim
inals should be punished only by law. The
strong arm of the law is abundantly able to mete
out full justice to all evil-doers without the aid,
ot mobs.