Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 5/"And back again"
“AND BACK AGAIN.”
“The sentence of the court is,” said the Judge to a very hardened criminal, “that you be tied to the cart’s tail, and whipped from one end of this town to the other.”
“Thank ye, my lord,” instantly exclaimed the culprit, impudently. “Thank ye, old Wigsby; now you’ve done your worst.”
“And back again,” added the Judge, composedly, and as if in continuation of his speech.
It is not on record whether the criminal made any further observations, or whether this display of the resources of the bench induced him to hold his tongue, lest the sentence should receive another member.
The story always comes back to one’s recollection when a certain newspaper arrives from New York. One cannot help wishing, in the interest of the two great and glorious nations whose common language is prostituted to the use of the journal in question, that its conductors stood in the place of the individual for whose benefit the Judge appended the four syllables to his sentence. At this moment, when every honest man on both sides of the Atlantic is doing his best to prevent the irritability and soreness, which have been produced between England and the Americans, from becoming an incurable wound, it is difficult to express, with becoming moderation, a just judgment upon such a print as the “New York Herald.” Such a mouthpiece as the Judge could most fittingly convey English sentiment upon the subject. But as the brief address which he could make to the parties interested is not likely to be delivered at present, the next best thing is to show some of the reasons why it would be peculiarly appropriate. If one cannot get an offender whipped, it is something to point out to society that he richly deserves it.
English readers rarely read an American paper. The aspect of the article is not very inviting. The exceedingly small print deters most persons except those who have an object in struggling through it, and the staring summary of the contents, in large letters at the commencement of the journal, gives an idea of vulgarity and clap-trap. This idea, of course, arises from mere association. We are accustomed to our own broadsheet, with its eminently readable columns, and to the absence of any attempt at “sensation,” to use an odious word which had better be left to the play-bills. The American paper is, in many respects, a triumph of typography, and the mass of printing which is presented to you for a nominal price is extraordinary. But it is difficult even for a determined reader to become as pleasantly familiar with a New York journal as he is with his own “Times.” He has to master a good deal of local phraseology, and a good deal more of less tolerable local slang, and he is seldom quite sure that amid the ever-shifting sands of the small politics of the States he is safe on his nomenclature. The nickname of to-day may mean something else to-morrow; the modifications of Whig and Tory which have taken us a century would take the Americans a fortnight to effect. Then the contractions and abbreviations which a fast nation likes are troublesome unless you keep the eye in constant practice, and can recollect instinctively that Mr. Brown, Va, and Mr. Jones, Ky, means gentlemen from Virginia and Kentucky. But all these difficulties are comparative trifles—an American is not bound to produce a paper that shall be pleasant reading in London—and if you like to stick to the tiles as they come over, you will soon be tolerably easy with your American reading. Was it not Porson who complained that, although he knew as much Greek as most people, he could not exactly skim off the meaning of Greek at sight as he would the meaning of a newspaper? Work hard, and you will read your American newspaper about as comfortably as Porson could read Greek.
These remarks apply generally to the American press. The “New York Herald” assumes to be the leader and type of all the rest. The assumption is as impudently false as most of the statements of the journal, for many American papers are written by gentlemen, and their temperate and scholarly writing presents a pleasant contrast to the ignorance, and violence, and brutality of the “Herald.” But its sale is enormous, and its influence upon the half-educated millions—educated up to the unfortunate stand-point of being able to read and understand, but not to judge—is very great. At the present time the efforts, scarcely disguised, of the “Herald,” are directed to the object of producing or increasing ill-will between the North and England. Whether that paper is actually hired with Southern money to do this, or whether its policy be merely dictated by a desire to extend its sale by pandering to the worst feelings of the worst men, we have no means of knowing. The “Herald” was, but a short time ago, entirely in the interest of the South, when the Southerns had the mastery in the Government. The foulest abuse was lavished upon the present President, and he who is now the Herald’s “honest Abe,” and “our manly and patriotic chief governor,” was then an “ignorant old woodchopper,” a “stupid clown,” and a “Forcible Feeble.” The conversion of the paper was effected with weather-cock celerity, and it is now as vituperative in behalf of Mr. Lincoln as it used to be against him; but its dearest sympathies are with the slavery-men, and it still keeps up vollies of slang against all who desire the abolition of the slave-system. Mr. Horace Greeley is always nicknamed “Massa Greeley,” and many names of a coarser description are perpetually stuck upon any one who disbelieves in man’s right to sell his fellow-man. The Bible has been most profanely dragged into the fray, and scriptural quotations are flung about, in support of slavery, by writers whose scoffs at the deep and real religious feeling of the States show the blasphemous hollowness of their advocacy. It is therefore a moot question whether the “Herald” is simply a hired tool of the South, or a reckless and selfish speculation.
We have, of course, no hope that our remarks will be read in America by many whom they are likely to disabuse of the belief sought to be promoted by the “Herald.” Those who read what we write will not need to be told either that we thoroughly understand the object of the “Herald,” or that England has no such designs or feelings as are lyingly attributed to her by that journal. Yet, having the opportunity of entering a protest against the atrocious system which the “Herald” is pursuing, it is satisfactory to make such entry, and it is also well that the English reader should have some illustrations of the character of a print which is striving to widen the breach between himself and his American brother,—which is poisoning the mind of the latter with incessant allegations that England desires the destruction of the Republic, and that English gold has produced the war, and which continually assures Americans that as soon as the war is over, the conduct of England in refusing to lend aid against the South shall be punished by the sweeping away her flag from the New World.
Files of the paper lie—in every sense—before us, and it is the wealth of dirty material which makes selection difficult. But it may be well that Englishmen should at once understand that the war now raging in America has been brought about by the Americans themselves. That there may be no mistake on the subject, it should be known that Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Palmerston’s friend and confidant, distinctly stated to
“The Reverend Mr. Newman, of the Bedford Street Methodist Episcopal Church, that it would be impossible for England to permit the existence of an overshadowing empire like that of America;”
and therefore, of course, Lord Shaftesbury, a friend of the abolitionists, supplied the South with gold, in order to get up a rebellion, which should sever a large portion of the overshadowing empire from the rest. It was, however, in keeping with Lord Shaftesbury’s known highmindedness and frankness of character, that he should make this revelation to the first Methodist Episcopal who demanded to know the views of Lord Palmerston.
But the key-note having been struck, let us go on with the music. Here is the solemn commencement of an article on the recent fast day—the article will be found in the “Herald” of the 28th September.
“By the intrigues of the British Anti-Slavery Society and the gold of the English aristocracy, by the propagandism of American abolition societies, playing into their hands for the last thirty years, and by the anti-slavery disunion doctrines preached from the pulpit, and reiterated by the fanatical press, civil war has broken out in the American republic, and two hundred thousand insurgents on the banks of the Potomac, stimulated and inflamed by the abolition crusade against Southern domestic institutions, stand ready to march against the Union army, to seize the national capital, and to advance as far northward as the success of their arms will warrant. We know not the moment when the terrible collision will take place between four hundred thousand men in arms, all Americans and brothers. In the midst of this national calamity the President, whose wise, patriotic and conservative course has won golden opinions for him throughout the laud, issues a proclamation for a national fast, in the hope that such of the people as had been led astray by the demagogues of the pulpit and the press would consider the error of their ways, and make up their minds to return to the ancient landmarks of the constitution—a departure from which is the cause of our present misfortunes.”
Do not fail to observe the adjectives applied to the President; who, until he signified that he would “stand no nonsense,” and made it a little unsafe to abuse him personally, was the “ignorant old woodchopper,” and the “stupid clown.” But let us go on. The article is directed against one of the most earnest of the abolition clergy.
“Beecher, it seems, was afraid to preach, but Cheever, who has just come over from England with his trunk full of British sovereigns, amply makes up for the omission. He is more impudent and audacious than ever. He maintains that slavery is the damning sin which has brought affliction upon us, as it brought similar judgments upon the Jews of old; though, if we are to believe the Bible, that institution was expressly sanctioned and provided for by the Almighty in the laws which he gave to Moses for the Israelites.”
And at the end of the article the same sentiments are reiterated.
“The aristocracy and abolitionists of England are in league with the abolitionists of America to break up the Union; and hence the anti-slavery presses and pulpits of the North are giving utterance to the most treasonable sentiments against the Union and the constitution, and are denouncing the Chief Magistrate fur his patriotic and conservative action in modifying the proclamation of Fremont.”
There is scarcely a copy of the “Herald,” in which this doctrine is not preached. The British aristocracy is the great bugbear which half-educated Americans are taught to fear and to hate. It will be remembered that among the manifold lies by which Napoleon Bonaparte sought to incense the French against us, a similar charge was incessantly made, and the English nobility and the gold of England were stereotyped enemies of France. Even the City article of the English “Times,” is dictated in one of our fashionable squares.
“Foreign capital, as was expected, is coming here for investment in these securities, in spite of the silly efforts of the organs of European aristocracy to break down American credit.”
But here the charge is put more plainly than ever.
“Nearly four hundred thousand men stand arrayed against each other upon the banks of the Potomac, prepared, before the expiration of many days, and, perhaps, within a very few hours, to plunge forward into such a ferocious and sanguinary conflict as has not been witnessed, in the civilised world, since the terrible struggle of Waterloo. Rivers of blood will flow of citizens, engaged but a short while ago in peaceful pursuits, and valuable lives will be sacrificed by thousands if not by tens of thousands. A cry of mourning will arise from untold bereft families throughout the land, and whichever side may triumph a pall will hang over the most glorious trophies of victory. No one will be at a loss to know who is responsible for so calamitous a state of things. Under the tutelage of an aristocracy, in Great Britain, jealous of the success of American institutions, the Garrisons, Tappans, and Leavitts of thirty years ago began those machinations which, under Greeley, Beecher, Raymond, Cheever, Wendell Phillips, and others, culminated in the creation of a party which denounced the constitution as “a league with hell and a covenant with death,” and never relaxed its incendiary efforts until the slave-holding States had been goaded into overt acts of treason. Northern fanaticism fostered by British gold, and the discontent and rebellion in the South which it engendered, are the sources of all our evils, and both are still seeking, at the present hour, to reap the fruits of their iniquitous labours.”
We could easily multiply quotations of this kind, but these amply suffice to show what the leading journal of America is incessantly telling readers who, predisposed to believe in any origin of the war, save one, the assignment of which is wounding to self-complacency, have no means of arriving at the truth. It is no light matter that a public opinion, destined to spread among millions, and perhaps to endure for centuries, should be left to be constructed by scoundrel hands like those of the “Herald,” but we know not how the mischief is to be prevented, unless by some manly and simultaneous action by the honest journalists of America—by an outspoken repudiation of the vulgar falsehoods of the “Herald.” The latter, says, in another number:
“It is true the republic is on its trial. We are struggling against the effects of the anti-slavery poison installed into the community by British propagandism, and when we have succeeded in this the republic will be stronger than ever, and continue to be worshipped by the down-trodden millions of Europe as the star of empire which is to light them to liberty.”
Deducting the fine writing, and expunging the lie, the sentiment is one which England thoroughly shares, that is to say, she rejoices to believe that an example of true liberty, as set out in America, and more vividly in our own constitution, may ever continue to offer hope to the subjects of despots; but assuredly an estrangement between the two nations must be a bad omen for liberty and for the world. If we have done anything towards exposing the cruel and wicked treason which the “New York Herald” is steadily committing against the Union, against England, and against liberty, the purpose of these lines is answered.