exposure, or whose sensibility, like the animal flower* that blooms beneath the deep, shrinks from the garish light of day, and the rude and profane handling of vulgar curiosity. Yet those who are in the habit of levying this kind of secret tax from the scared communities in which they live, are in general, it is understood, sufficiently forbearing and liberal in their terms, and in most instances allow the trussed victims, when fully in their power, to buy themselves off for far less sums than might be extorted from them, were the screw of the Press, or the screw press, applied as stringently as it might be to the oozing purses and writhing sensibilities of those unfortunates whom they thus bleed, as the vampire does his prey, by silent assault and secret depletion and exhaustion. The least effort to check or restrain the licentiousness in which they so insolently indulge, at once brings them together with electric effect, and they forthwith unite, shoulder to shoulder, and with one voice, to resist and denounce the attempt, as an interference with the liberty of the Press, by which they mean, as we have already shown, the liberty which they themselves take with the characters and concerns of all the rest of the community. Among the privileges, as we have already said, which they seem to consider themselves as above all others entitled to exercise without question, and by the right of usage and prescription, is that of assailing and denouncing whomsoever they find, or may happen to consider as standing in the way, either of their favorite candidates, or the onward march of free principles, and dragging them, without notice served, before the tribunal of the Public; a tribunal for which they contrive to carve out quite as much business as it can well attend to, and which they have succeeded in rendering scarcely less truculent and terrible, than was that of the Inquisition of Spain, in the darkest days of its persecution and *The sea-anemone. We must in justice and candor admit, that we have never heard this practice attributed to but one of the fraternity, who may also be innocent of the charge, though there is no knowing how many may have been guilty of it, as such doings are not proclaimed from the house-top, but are always secretly and silently managed. power. Hence, when on a late occasion a distinguished member of the guild was expelled from the chamber of the Senate of the United States, for insulting and reviling the members of that body, at the moment when he was enjoying a privilege extended to him by their courtesy and kindness, he was greatly astonished at this daring and unprecedented proceeding, and loudly complained of and denounced it as an "unparalleled outrage," and a highhanded and temerarious attack upon the Freedom of the Press !* Another of these worthies, who, by some underhand or corrupt means, had got possession of and published the late Treaty with Mexico, before the injunction of secresy, during which it was being matured, had been removed, thus notices the efforts made by! that body to trace out the source, or dis cover the perpetrator of this treachery: "The United States Senate and the Libe of the Press.-The United States Senate as solemnly completed its disgrace. It has was ly and sneakingly skulked out of its contest w the humble but independent correspondent c free press, of the free city of New York, belong to this free and independent republic. Nugent, the correspondent of this journal. been discharged by the Senate, after an e gal and high-handed incarceration of three of four weeks, against all law, all constit duct of this body deserves severe and deterr all right, all liberty, and all honor! The or examination. We shall give the full of their services to posterity. In this exam tion, we profess to have the humanity S descend to criticise the conduct of the raTM and more contemptible members of that such as Hannegan, Hale, Turney, Moore others of their calibre and standing! * The gross hypocrisy and infamy of the eof the Senate, shall not be permited to s into the history of the past, without a critical examination, calculated to have a self no less outraged on the above occas *This demi-official appears to have set was a certain equally important country who being somewhat roughly harrià ugly customer whom he had attempte i bade him, with aroused indignaten, “res that he was an officer, clothed with powers; that when he shook him, he »,laws, and all the authorities whom bere ed; an announcement that struck such. the soul of the astonished deloquent, t once submitted, and without giving my trouble, allowed himself to be straightway ducted to prison. salutary effect on all the future conduct of | no personal difference or real controversy responsible branch of the government."* here are there, we may ask, any ter enemies of the Press, than these lent and scurrilous vulgarians, who are ver abusing its privileges, and who ret nothing, not even the highest author, nor the most elevated characters of country? The conduct of both of these , who, by the courtesy of the Senate, e allowed to have their reporters in its mber, serves fully to verify the remark ch one of them himself makes in the owing paragraph, which goes still fur- to show, how sometimes, even without help of that "miraculous organ connce, the guilty are condemned out of r own mouth, and by their voluntary nowledgment: When kindness and favor are shown to the the only use they will make of it will als be to turn around and abuse you. This Is good in every day life, and at all times." One happy consequence, nevertheless, he inquisitorial and searching operaas thus carried on by these "Brothers the Holy Office"-whose domiciliary ts are the dread and terror of every munity-has been, to do away with I utterly abolish that antiquated remat of aristocracy and feudal barbarism, Castle; for before the age of illumiion, and the glorious era of free dission, every man's house was viewed superstitiously respected as a fortress 1 sacred retreat of this kind. It was, be sure, partly by a fiction of law that ery three-story house, and every log in of the forest, was invested with this ty and imposing character; a fiction ich we owe to the same mint of fancy m which we derive the romantic and eresting story of John Doe and Richard e--those two pugnacious, quibbling, vantage-taking, tautologous, and longnded champions, who are always so dy to engage in the quarrels of others, d who have been employed for at least ese two centuries past, in indicting, conting,ejecting and imprisoning innocent d inoffensive folks with whom they had New York Weekly Herald, May 6th, 1848. Ibid.-Article "Black Ingratitude." whatever. The above mode of attacking abuse and defamation, has unluckily been the opinions of other, that is, by personal found so much more convenient and effectual than the old-fashioned method of argument and persuasion, and affords an assailant so many fair opportunities of putting in those home thrusts which operate upon the feelings as well as the convictions of an antagonist, that it has been naturally adopted by the whole corps of the land, and has been attended in praceditors and newspaper writers throughout tice with an extraordinary degree of éclat and decided success. The aim in this re vived species of strategy (for it is by no convince, the obstinate recusant and means new) being to convict, rather than troublesome customer, who proves too cunning of fence" to be put down by the weapons of logic; it becomes expedient in the first instance to reduce him to the defensive, which is readily and at once done by this perfectly fair and skilful mode of attack; as he finds that he has to contend, not against an array of arguments and facts, but of charges and insinuations--which, if only repeated often enough, and with sufficient confidence and perseverance, are sure, sooner or later, to have their effect, and to drive him with defeat and confusion from the field. This being once done renders any after attempts at proof or disproof a hopeless matter, as referring to a by-gone affair, which nobody but the wronged and calumniated party himself has any concern in or cares anything about. In the event of the charges failing prematurely, (for as we have already hinted, their after reputation is a matter of no earthly consequence,) and where the individual to be assailed stands on too high ground to be attacked by direct accusation, (which, from the usual weakness of our common nature, is seldom the case,) the able editor and practised political writer are still left as before observed, a final resource in the petit guerre-the sly warfare of insinuations, hintings and dark questionings-all of which are nearly as good substitutes for facts and reasoning as the charge overt itself, or the counter-check quarrelsome― their effect being heightened, precisely in proportion to the moral sensibility and chance to irritate it or cross its path. Much allowance, to be sure, as we have already said and admitted, should be made for its conductors, and those who are in the habit of freely availing themselves of its privileges--who, between the duty they owe to the public, and the consideration due to the feelings and character of private indi some virtue of the person to be victimized. The editor, on the other hand, if he be of the true pachy-dermatous species, has the advantage of fighting in the armor given him by nature, whose seven-fold thickness effectually protects him from injury and secures him against retaliation. Where all these methods of intimidation, viz., by calumny, mysteriously worded interro-viduals, are certainly placed in a difficult and gations, implying the existence of some- (to use a Peter Pindaric phrase,) a thing dreadful against the character of the what "Peg Nicolson predicament," from unlucky wight thus brought to the bar of which there appears no other way to get out the public and the editorial questioning than the one they usually adopt, namely, committee, unexpectedly fail of effeot, a per- by compromise; the principle, it will b sonal assault upon the anomalous genius recollected, on which the great charter of who thus daringly holds out, and obsti- our liberties was originally framed and nately keeps the field, is an alternative and founded.* This policy is at once so obvi resort still left the enterprising editor and ous and imperative, that in accordance with anonymous calumniator, and has often suc- it the helmsman or master of one of those ceeded in putting down those who are newly launched party fire-ships is gene found to have less bone and sinew than rally careful to provide himself, at the outbrain and character-there being no ne- set of his career, or in commencing a cessary connection between muscle and cruise against the enemy, with a doba merit, or between strength of mind and set of papers; the one designed for the force of body. Yet as no good is without inspection of the curious and the satisfa its attendant drawbacks and disadvan- tion of the public at large, and the other tages, it may be deemed vain and unwise for the use and perusal of his owners o to complain of the hard condition thus and of the party under whose colors s attached to every benefit which Heaven sails. The false papers, or Prospectus # + has bestowed on man, and which, as one they are collectively and technically es of the arrangements of Providence, may being addressed to the public gener well be acquiesced in on the present occa- rather than to the party, always cor' sion, or in the case of so great a boon and carefully worded professions of peet privilege as the liberty of speech and of and patriotic intentions, and eith free discussion. declarations of a determination on the 747 of the commander of the craft, to pure an upright, fearless and inderd career, and to observe strict justice impartiality in his course towards friends and enemies! This specious it deceptive document is generally Ewith some flourish or motto, such » Fjustitia ruat cælum—or, “Let all the m thou aimest at be thy country's”—-> not only reads agreeably, but greath the effect intended to be produced v While, then, the daily press continues to shed with the diffusive power of the sun the rays of intelligence over the land, and between the crevices of the remotest log hut of the forest, shall we complain that in doing this it at the same time disperses every shadow of privacy and retirement, and even those deeper glooms of obscurity and concealment under which repentant guilt and proud misfortune once sought shelter, and once found respite and repose? Most certainly not; but we must still be allowed to protest against such abuses of its privileges as some of those we have been noticing, as the power of this potent and elephantine agent might surely be shown in some more eligible, and at any rate in some less offensive way, than in thrusting its "lithe proboscis" into every door and domicil that it passes, and bespattering with dirty water whoever may *The analogy in the two instances part appear at once obvious, but will be fa much closer than might be at first suspe magnanimous disregard of private forming the point of resemblance, and som assimilating the two cases; the sole being, that an immolation of the private of others is the only sacrifice made on : casions by the corps on the altar of the good. to the ground again, and straight are seen mind of the too believing and pensive 39 *Meteora is the Greek term for Metaphors, turned sentence or two. It is at any rate proper at the outset, in taking out their license, to observe a decent demeanor, and at least to profess that they do not consider it as giving them a privilege "To run a muck at all they meet;" to stab at the reputation of their neigh bors; to dig up the ashes of the dead and commote society from its foundationS and “Deal damnation round the land rather more fury than strategy, and in lihood of an event of this kind ever hap which they are so often compelled to sac-pening, it is yet, we repeat, well for then. rifice every private feeling, and even com- to prepare for such an emergency.— mon decency and propriety, upon the altar the more especially, as a flourish of the of their country's good. At most, it ap- kind costs only a little extra ink and papears, they can only steer between ex-per, a few emphatic phrases, and a welltremes, in the manner they usually do, and which we have already described,— namely, by making at the outset a graceful obeisance to their patrons and subscribers, in a Prospectus, or by saying over their moral creed, and making public profession of their belief in and allegiance to those rules of decency and propriety, by which the rest of the world are governed in their conduct to, and in their intercourse with each other. Beyond this, they seem to have made up their minds, that no editor who has a proper sense of his duty towards the public, can be reaOn each they judge their foe;" sonably expected to go. Hence the Pros- though they in the end but too often us pectus of a modern and thorough-going it without stint or scruple, for all the party paper always forms a safe and sa- fell and unhallowed purposes. Nor ne cred repository of the moral resolutions they make it generally known, but be and principles of its conductors, and thus careful to leave it to others to find out generally bears a not distant resemblance they may, that they mean to employ a to a tomb-stone-the only difference being, also as a convenient roring commisŠÍM that it promises of the unborn, what the which empowers them to pursue whey latter vaunts of the dead, both being equal-course they please in politics-eitbes ly veracious, and equally credited by their trim between parties, go over to the ez readers; who nevertheless are content to my, or sail back again, as may best pardon their monotonous cant and rotheir present interests and converse mancing, as a homage paid to virtue and Though the Press, thus managed, serve morals, at the expense of modesty and as might be expected, scarcely any truth. The Knights of the Type and Ink-purpose than to obscure truth, eire. bottle are probably further moved to this falsehood, and promote persecuti 5: conspicuous act of public worship and hy-religiously, or rather superstitiously pocrisy, by the consideration, that the prin- garded by the people, as the Pallciples of morality and decency, to which Liberty, if not as the very Ark of the 2 they thus ostentatiously proclaim their alle-litical safety and salvation. The most giance, may some day or other* actually vorite image, however, under w... come into vogue and practice among the are accustomed to regard it, is that fraternity, and exercise a proper authority Watch-tower, with "Sentinels" and "!: and influence over their conduct and writ-alds" posted on its top, lighted up by “F ings. Though there is certainly little like *They would seem to have derived a hint on the subject, from the politic course pursued by a certain eccentric Italian, who was observed to bow reverently to a statue of Jupiter in the Vatican, whenever he passed it. On being asked his reason for this rather mysterious movement, he replied, that "as in the course of human events," the deposed deity might possibly come up again, and recover his lost superlation and sway, he supposed that he would not fail to remember those who remembered him in his adversity, and paid him respect during his misfortune. cons," and provided with "Toesins, |