journals in this city, that it is generally supposed that after the election is over the paper must go down. So often has this prediction been verified, without even a single exception, that the people appear to be anxiously awaiting the anticipated result, as though it were a fixed fact. We have no doubt that there are a great many honest and well-meaning Democrats who would, for the moment, feel disappointed if our paper did not break down immediately after the election. We can see no good reason why a Democratic paper should not succeed in a city of more than half a million of inhabitants, and with a natural majority of Democrats. At all events, we intend to try what industry, energy, and perseverance will do."-National Democrat, Vol. I., No. 1. It is even true that a city which yields to none other in the world in readiness to imbibe political feeling and foment political excitement, has for many years supported more or less neutral papers, while with a solitary exception those journals that have been devoted to one of its two great parties have languished and died. The "Sun," a neutral sheet, possesses a larger daily circulation than any other journal in New-York, and perhaps than any other in the world. The Herald has never suffered from lack of patronage, and several smaller neutral papers within the shadow of the Sun and Herald establishments are enjoying the stimulus of very healthy incomes. We are not aware of any other city whose journalism presents so anomalous a feature. The weekly papers of New-York are many in number, and of various characteristics, exhibiting in a marked degree the enterprise that distinguishes our daily press. They outnumber the dailies some two or three to one, and one who is disposed to ascertain their exact number by personal research will weary himself in stumbling through the intricacies of Nassau and Ann streets before he has half completed his task. Although English writers are apt to speak of their weekly journalism as the most perfect in the world, we are persuaded that our dignified and semi-naturalized "Albion" will not yield to the "Examiner," memorable though it be in the name of Albany Fonblanque; and that the "Spirit of the Times" may very well compare with "Bell's Life in London." We must, however, confess that our various hebdomadal imitations of inimitable "Punch" have been failures. We are of the opinion that a paper precisely like Punch cannot be sustained by us at present. The experiment has been tried, often and faithfully, and " our first humorists" have been engaged to contribute, but such dismal sheets as "Yankee Doodle " and "The Town " have been the sole consequences. Punch's wit is emphatically the wit of society; society of long duration, complex institutions and clearly defined features, open alike to the most trenchant and the most delicate satire, and sufficiently rigid to be often attacked at the same points without losing those peculiarities that have provoked assailants. Foreigners are obtuse to the wit of Punch. It plays wholly on the national, and would cease to exist if it ceased to be English. But as a matter of fact, we have as yet no society, if we may in the term include those different conditions of ancestry, education, modes of thinking and modes of living which make up the social life of a body of people whose disposition of circumstances has not been broken in upon by revolutions or immigration. And so it results that when our pictorial satirists have used up the "B'hoys "of the Bowery and the "Suckers" of the West, they have very little left to fall back upon. This may partly explain our lack of a national Charivari; and it is also true that we cannot at once change Brother Jonathan's long face to a round one, or occupy ourselves in hunting up materials for laughter when each one of us has quite enough to do at getting his dinner. Most of the New-York weeklies, like their contemporaries of Philadelphia and Boston, are intended expressly for country circulation, and are of large size and very heterogeneous contents. It is not uncommon to find one of them devoted to a dozen or twenty different objects of interest, taste or study, among which literature and the fine arts have hardly enough elbow room to make themselves visible. Very many of our cheap "blood and thunder" novels, written by "Harry Hazel," or "a distinguished naval officer," or "the most eminent of our rising novelists," have first appeared serially in the columns of certain of these weeklies, where, we doubt not, they gave great satisfaction. We have also seen in the columns of these identical sheets valuable disquisitions on the deepest matters of philosophy, essays on religious subjects that might have been penned by a Doctor of Divinity, agricultural treatises whose perusal would benefit a thorough-bred farmer, and candid reasonings on politics and the affairs | quantities of labor and terms of compensation which, it is not too much to say, would not be submitted to by one artisan or day laborer out of a hundred. of the nation. This versatility, or comprehensiveness, as Bulwer Lytton would style it, has been also profitably adopted by the Sunday press, in whose columns, in addition to their overwhelming mass of town gossip, theatrical criticism, and serial fiction, one often meets with sermons from our celebrated clergymen, appearing a little awkwardly, it must be owned, among their unwonted companions; like a sober youth suddenly tossed into a party of gay roysterers whose amusements he is somewhat puz-a large and influential city, is necessarily zled to share. To one of impulsive sentiments and little forethought, the profession of a writer for the city press is undoubtedly fascinating. In sober truth, and without arrogating to newspapers any purities of honor or dignities of thought which our common sense tells us they can never possess, the position of a journalist, and especially a journalist in even more than respectable, and can be made of eminent reputation if its incumbent practise those manly virtues which are deemed necessary to the integrities of private life. It disowns all circumstances of wealth and fashion, and bespeaks for the man who holds it a reception into the society of refined and intelligent men and women, which property, unaided by education, might seek after in vain, and which can only be forfeited by violations of good breeding, or derelictions from personal honor. It at once inducts him into the him professionally among authors, painters, musicians, and the favored few whom fortune makes the Mæcenases of current genius. It gives him the entrée of the concert room, the gallery, the senate chamber, and the studio. It spreads before him an array of privileges, whose purchase would demand a fortune, and which renders him for the time contented with what pecuniary recompense he may receive, and oblivious of all drawbacks which the future may have in store for him. Notwithstanding the reputation of hard work and inadequate remuneration attendant upon the profession of a journalist in a large city, and the precarious future which is ever represented as forming the bounding horizon of his path, there is no lack of recruits of all ages and of all degrees of talent to the great army of writers for the press who find subsistence in New-York. The advice constantly given to all such eager aspirants for the honors and rewards of literature by our leading editors and journal-free-masonry of intellect and art. It throws ists, is regarded by them as fallacious and unfounded; and never having been called on to undergo the difficulties against which they are cautioned, and from which it is in their own power to remain aloof, they feel very little hesitation in committing themselves to an undertaking which presents so many attractive features to the man of talent without capital, and yet in whose successful prosecution capital is so largely and vitally concerned. Upon the establishment of a new paper, therefore, in this city, offers of service in its various departments are sure to come in upon the proprietors with most perplexing obtrusiveness, and with a pertinacity that in most cases seems to admit of no denial. As an instance of this, we may mention that the conductors of the Times, in addition to the numberless negatives which they dispatched to applicants during the summer preceding the appearance of their journal, were obliged to let sixty or seventy applications lie over to be publicly answered in their first number, owing to sheer want of time to attend to them by letter. And there is no one of our leading journals that does not daily receive offers of literary service from writers in various parts of the country, many of them proposing Nor are the duties of the novitiate journalist so severe as to discourage his ambition, or his ardor for his vocation. Youth is strong and healthy, and the effects of the close atmosphere amid which he performs his work, and the sedentary constraints he is obliged to undergo, may be nullified by that exercise in the fresh air, and wholesome carelessness in hours of recreation, which is common to most young men who are placed within reach of the stimulating activities of busy life. His duties have not yet palled upon him, and he has not reached those anxieties of existence, those murmurings at the superior success of others, those solicitous longings after better fortune, which pertain so invariably to men of middle age. He sees other young men of steadiness and economy, you will find it about him working harder than himself, and difficult in future to be steady or to save. receiving less pay; young lawyers drudging It is melancholy to see men growing old as at copying for the mere privilege of a good hack-writers, as poor as when they com"seat;" newly-created M. D.'s toiling through menced their career; fortunate indeed if hospitals and private sick-rooms in back- year by year they are permitted to retain streets, with no other reward than "seeing their places, and are not ousted by fresher practice;" clerks in their third and fourth and younger rivals. And such is almost years barely clothing themselves from their sure to be the destiny of men of the press salaries; and he congratulates himself on in large cities, unless they overcome early in his easy and profitable occupation. And at life the injurious influences of their profesthis time of life, while ahead in the race and sion of which we have just spoken. They feeling no diminution of vigor in view of cannot expect to be exempt from those conthe ground yet to be passed over, it would ditions under which they live in common seem that at least an equality in social cir- with other men. In our centres of civilizacumstance and possession of this world's tion, capital is a rigorous deity, whose favor goods might be attained in after years by must be propitiated, no matter by how one so highly favored at the commencement great sacrifices. Clerks, to be merchants, of his active life. must have capital, must have saved, if they have not inherited it. We ask pardon for uttering so obvious a truism, but it is a text equally applicable to hired journalists, and we think pretty generally forgotten by them. The writer who has capital enjoys an advantage over his brother writer who has nothing but his salary to depend upon, precisely like that of the moneyed business man over the salesman or book-keeper whose expenditure constantly equals his income. One is independent, and the other dependent. One has it in his power to order; the only option of the other is obedience. One, having the power to plan, finds pleasure in contemplating his future; the other, possessing very little on which to build his hopes, narrows himself to the dubious existence of the moment. The income of one is continually increasing in arithmetical ratio, while that of the other, after a certain lapse of time, remains invariably fixed. Spendthrift clerks do not often rise to the command of establishments; and the writers who eventually become editors and proprietors of city journals will, in most cases, be found to have saved their money, and to have relied as much on their pecuniary as on their mental capital. But, unfortunately, men of the press rarely possess those habits of economy and calculation that attend the progress of rising business men, with whom it has at first been a matter of great difficulty to earn their living. Indeed, as a class, they are noted for extravagance, for disproportionate and heedless expenditure, for carelessness of the future, and for a constant enjoyment of empty pockets. Their habits of life are not calculated to produce caution in spending money or forethought in saving it. The younger employés of a newspaper establishment are paid weekly, and are in consequence exposed to the almost irresistible temptation of a small and constantly-recurring surplus; in each case a trifle in itself, a few dollars more or less, yet a noticeable aggregate in the course of the year, and which if laid up would swell to a firm and useful capital by the time its owner possessed sufficient experience in his profession to make it available. But such savings are rarely practised. What remains after maintenance disappears amid suppers, recreations of the turf and water, expensive presents, and importunate companions; and the end of the year finds the journalist as poor as at the beginning. And such courses of life rarely fail to perpetuate themselves. If with abundant means of saving, you have accumulated nothing at the expiration of one year, the chances are that with increased facilities you will have saved nothing at the end of another. If for a length of time you have suffered irregular hours and irregular overflows of pocket to conquer your notions We say "most cases." We would leave room for occasional triumphs of eminent talent over all drawbacks of extravagance, recklessness, and irregularity. But such triumphs, every practised observer will own, are rare. We think that intelligent industry is a better guide to success than spendthrift talent. And, in fact, to write well for the newspapers, does not require a very large degree of native talent: it demands | gery in comparison with the higher labors of little more than that ability which moderate the press; and sufficient forethought to save intelligence may acquire by faithful prac- his money, while there are no special drafts tice. "Men may think," says Bulwer Lyt- upon his purse; the eminence he will eventton, "that it is a deuced easy thing to write ually gain in the journalism of a great city for the papers; but if they try it once, they will be both honorable and profitable, and will see how much they were mistaken." will seem not unworthy of the sacrifices that We agree with this remark. It is not an have purchased its attainment. For in no easy thing to write a creditable newspaper other country beside our own can the jourarticle. In our own observation, men of un-nalist-the editor-speak his mind fully on doubted abilities, but of small experience in the great topics of social and political welwriting, have appeared very discreditably in fare, and thus perform his real and whole print. But they would not have made a duty. We would not lower the freedom of much better figure at laying brick, or at the American press, by comparing it with navigating vessels, or at any other craft with that of any of the continental monarchies; which they were not practically acquainted. and we shall look in vain among the servilWriting for the press is a profession-a ities and the aristocracy-worship of London craft. Men of ordinary abilities may labor journals, for that independence and boldness at it to good advantage, and between the which characterize our own. It will be difirespective productions of any two newspaper cult to find a foreign sheet that dare speak writers, the eye may see no more difference its real sentiments upon prominent national than between two contiguous brick walls subjects, till it has first ascertained that what laid by different masons. And then it is it may say will not provoke the active wrath not until after years of service, that journal- of government. London newspapers find it ists are allowed the privileges of the strictly for their interest to be obsequious to court editorial columns, where genius, and certain dictates; the Parisian press, enjoying a larger kinds of talent, native to but few men, and liberty than any other in Europe, is conacquired only by infinite difficulty, can alone stantly watched by the police. With us, it display themselves. One man may write a is needless to say, there are no such rebetter leader than another; may be ac-straints. Our press, expected, and in most quainted with more facts, and have a better faculty of drawing inferences from his stock of information; may have a more copious fund of allusion; may be better able to satirize a political enemy, or dignify a party friend; may reason away prejudices more skilfully, and advance doubtful propositions with a better grace: but genius is not a better hand at the scissors than industry; and "city items," fatal accidents, military parades, freaks of mad oxen, personal rencontres, variations of the thermometer, and horse-thief committals, may be chronicled as well by unknown scribblers as by Messrs. Greeley or Bryant themselves. It is among such themes as these that young journalism finds its occupation, and those of its members are wise who seek in the exciting task of making them known to the public a source of pecuniary profit, as a backer in after years, rather than a fame, whose attainment is, to say the least, problematical. But if a writer be sufficiently healthy in mind and body to withstand the wearing effects of a long probation in duties which often lose their interest, and seem but drud cases disposed, to observe the rules of decency and order, is privileged to speak its mind on all subjects with which it is concerned, with the assurance that its opinions will meet with such a reception as their honesty and value may bespeak. And although no one pretends that newspapers form public sentiment, or create creeds and systems of belief where none before existed, it is a grateful truth to the journalist, that he has the privilege of laying the results of extended information and practised reasoning powers before a large audience of intelligent men and women, and of compelling the assent of candid minds to what is undeniably true, whether fact or theory, but which, had it not been proved, might have ever remained disbelieved. A well-informed, truth-loving, and independent editor has the satisfaction of knowing that his readers are predisposed to side with his views, regarding him as a closer student of public affairs than themselves, and as a better authority in doubtful and difficult questions. Thus, although they may think strongly and even obstinately for themselves, they are inclined for the sake of bettering and fortifying their main conclusions, to square with the expressed views of one whose especial business it is to record and draw inferences from facts with which he is better acquainted than themselves. Perhaps their ideas are misty about certain matters not of every-day mention; the refracting medium of editorial intelligence clears away the fog, and presents to them their former notions in definite and tangible form. And often, for the mere sake of convenience, they permit opinions, of whose ultimate issue they are careless, and whose paternity they would deny, if at any time proved to be unfounded or mischievous, to flow in such channels as the practised hand of the journalist may indicate. Without assuming to the journalism of New-York an influence over the thoughts of this nation greater than that enjoyed by the press of large and emulous cities on either side, it is not too much to say that it is vastly more influential abroad. A fact mentioned a few pages back readily explains this. The papers of New-York represent the American press throughout all Europe. The Philadelphia "North American" and the Boston "Atlas" may scarcely be known at London, at Paris, or at Berlin; but the Tribune, the Herald, the Courier and Enquirer, are in all foreign reading rooms, on the tables of all literary men, whether German, English, French, or Italian; read by diplomatists, scholars, politicians, merchants, and circulated to an astonishing extent among the common people. We need not enlarge upon the importance of the field thus open to the inculcation of republican opinion, or the privilege our journalism thus enjoys, of being the medium of free opinion from our highly favored nation to others less advanced in the study of those first truths which despotism has ever striven to keep in obscurity. It will, indeed, be an unpardonable fault, if a press so peculiarly honored shall ever retrograde in honest thinking or honest speaking, or shall content itself with looking on while freedom is at war with oppression. In conclusion, we would congratulate the entire American press on its many improvements in style and tone which it has been our pleasure to witness of late years. That spirit of rancor, of jealousy, of low abusiveness, of unwillingness to see any thing of good in opponents, of blind subserviency to the basest uses of party, in which so many of our journals were steeped, has, we are glad to say, wonderfully diminished, and the courtesies and refinement of education and manliness are fast taking its place. We do not err in saying that scurrility is no longer at a premium, and that a reputation for political malice and personal abusiveness is bad capital on which to build up a newspaper. We are creating a name for national enterprise and good behavior, which the mass of our citizens are unwilling should be perilled to gratify dishonest editors, or bribe-taking publishers. Foreign advances, too, are stimulating our own ambition, and American journalists are mending their style as well as their spirit; are learning to say what they have to say in the best manner, and with the aid of those graces of which their predecessors were ignoramt. And there are no reasons why we may not augur constant improvements in future, and predict a time when our journals shall be models to the world for courtesy and literary grace, as well as for independence, enterprise, and adaptation to popular wants. |