-
Articles/Ads
Article THE SIGNS OF ENGLAND; Page 1 of 5 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Signs Of England;
. THE SiaNS OF ENGLAND ;
BY ONE WHO HAS PAINTED MANY . SIGKN" THE riFTH . —THE NEWSPAPERS . Now we do not wish to be misconstrued in what we are going to say . "We are preparing to speak a little truth ; and it will appear
strange when we add , that , however well received at last , the full speaking of it requires a certain caution . People are not prepared for it . It is a special gift to see truth . Every person professes to love it , yet , if we press them closely as to their ideas on it , we shall often find it repudiated in a very extraordinary fashion .
Banking among the wonders of this wonderful time , is the strange influence which an overgrown Newspaper possesses . Why , it would be the work of a week , with the closest attention , to read through a single number of it ! And few of us , except the prosers , who are just the people to yield easily their judgment , have time to inspect more of this broadsheet than the leading article , and the particulars of an
atrocity , or the " extraordinary disclosure" which is forming the towntalk . "We always seize upon the subject which is exciting the public curiosity . We must be up in conversation . The Paper , in other respects , is a sea of information , in which , as we may say , we sadly stand in a need of a buoy whereupon to mount and make ourselves aware of the phases of the view around us . The embarrassment of
rich things , to the curious and to the intelligent , is vexatious . We are overborne by talk—and good talk , to ^>! Somehow or other , the Newspaper has worked itself up to become the complete magister —the undeniable layer down of the law ; and its self-confidence in that which it can bring to pass is every day more and more developed . The public , in its hands , is but in leading-strings—at least , so the Newspaper thinks : that is its policy . It speaks to the hour . It
looks not forward , by its own confession . It must live de die in diem . Thus there never , perhaps , was such a mass of contradiction - —not to be detected in the verbiage—than is presented by two days' numbers , separated by anything like an interval . It hovers between Paul and Barabbas , with a fidgety hand to each , when the people are looking , or not looking— -just according to
circumstances . What , to it , is truth—that truth which is so long of arrival ? Will the paper sell , sir ? That is the point . This is the grand query now asked , east and west . And old Chronos of the newspaper-office looks out of his eyry to see , every morning , which way the hands
of the great clock of public opinion are going round . Two or ten , as the bell strikes , not as by the natural day . lie loves , above all , the gold letters . As for the rest of the political dial , it is all an inside of wire and wooden hammers . If our readers will mark , they will find that the statements of the " Paper " arc put forth in the dictatorial
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Signs Of England;
. THE SiaNS OF ENGLAND ;
BY ONE WHO HAS PAINTED MANY . SIGKN" THE riFTH . —THE NEWSPAPERS . Now we do not wish to be misconstrued in what we are going to say . "We are preparing to speak a little truth ; and it will appear
strange when we add , that , however well received at last , the full speaking of it requires a certain caution . People are not prepared for it . It is a special gift to see truth . Every person professes to love it , yet , if we press them closely as to their ideas on it , we shall often find it repudiated in a very extraordinary fashion .
Banking among the wonders of this wonderful time , is the strange influence which an overgrown Newspaper possesses . Why , it would be the work of a week , with the closest attention , to read through a single number of it ! And few of us , except the prosers , who are just the people to yield easily their judgment , have time to inspect more of this broadsheet than the leading article , and the particulars of an
atrocity , or the " extraordinary disclosure" which is forming the towntalk . "We always seize upon the subject which is exciting the public curiosity . We must be up in conversation . The Paper , in other respects , is a sea of information , in which , as we may say , we sadly stand in a need of a buoy whereupon to mount and make ourselves aware of the phases of the view around us . The embarrassment of
rich things , to the curious and to the intelligent , is vexatious . We are overborne by talk—and good talk , to ^>! Somehow or other , the Newspaper has worked itself up to become the complete magister —the undeniable layer down of the law ; and its self-confidence in that which it can bring to pass is every day more and more developed . The public , in its hands , is but in leading-strings—at least , so the Newspaper thinks : that is its policy . It speaks to the hour . It
looks not forward , by its own confession . It must live de die in diem . Thus there never , perhaps , was such a mass of contradiction - —not to be detected in the verbiage—than is presented by two days' numbers , separated by anything like an interval . It hovers between Paul and Barabbas , with a fidgety hand to each , when the people are looking , or not looking— -just according to
circumstances . What , to it , is truth—that truth which is so long of arrival ? Will the paper sell , sir ? That is the point . This is the grand query now asked , east and west . And old Chronos of the newspaper-office looks out of his eyry to see , every morning , which way the hands
of the great clock of public opinion are going round . Two or ten , as the bell strikes , not as by the natural day . lie loves , above all , the gold letters . As for the rest of the political dial , it is all an inside of wire and wooden hammers . If our readers will mark , they will find that the statements of the " Paper " arc put forth in the dictatorial