‘Phew! There’s not a breath of air in this valley. One had need be a
salamander to appreciate a morning like this. But what a lovely nook it
is—eh, Mac? Quite worth coming half-a-dozen miles to see.’
‘That it’s very pretty, I’ll not attempt to deny; but still’——
‘By no means equal to what you could show us t’other side of the
Border,’ said the vicar with a twinkle. ‘That’s understood, of course.’
The time was the forenoon of the day following the evening on which
Madame De Vigne had been so startled by the sudden appearance of one
whom she had every reason to believe had died long years before.
The scene was a small but romantic glen. Over the summit of a cliff, at
the upper end of a rocky ravine, a stream, which took its rise among
the stern hills that shut in the background, leapt in a cascade of
feathery foam. After a fall of some fifteen or twenty feet, it reached
a broad, shallow basin, in which it spread itself out, as if to gather
breath for its second leap, which, however, was not quite so formidable
as its first one. After this, still babbling its own liquid music, it
fretted its way among the boulders with which its channel was thickly
strewn, and so, after a time, left the valley behind it; and then, less
noisily, and lingering lovingly by many a quiet pool, it gradually
crept onward to the lake, in the deep bosom of whose dark waters lay
the peace for which it seemed to have been craving so long.
A steep and somewhat rugged pathway wound up either side of the glen to
the tableland at the summit, overhung with trees and shrubs of various
kinds, with a rustic seat planted here and there at some specially
romantic point of view. Ferns, mosses, flowers, and grasses innumerable
clothed the rocky sides of the ravine down almost to the water’s
edge. At the foot of the glen the stream was spanned by a quaint old
bridge, on which the vicar and Dr M‘Murdo were now standing. It was
the day of the picnic of which Madame De Vigne had made mention to
Colonel Woodruffe, and the party from the _Palatine_ had driven over
in a couple of wagonettes, which, together with the hampers containing
luncheon, were stationed in a shady spot a quarter of a mile lower down
the valley.
‘Look, Mac, look!’ exclaimed the vicar, ‘at those two speckled darlings
lurking there in the shadow of the bridge. I must come and try my luck
here one of these days.’
‘You look just a bit feckless this morning without your rod and basket.’
‘Where was the use of bringing them? No trout worth calling a trout
would rise on a morning like this, when there’s not a cloud in the
sky as big as one’s hand, and not breeze enough to raise a ripple on
the water. I’ve brought my hammer instead, so that I shan’t want for
amusement. Ah, Mac, what a pity it is that you care nothing either for
angling or geology!’
‘I could not be fashed, as we used to say in the North. Every man to
his likes. I’ve got a treatise in my pocket on _The Diaphragm and its
Functions_, just down from London, with diagrams and plates. Now, if I
can only find a shady nook somewhere, I’ve no doubt that I shall enjoy
myself with my book for the next two or three hours quite as much as
you with your rod or hammer.’
‘So that’s your idea of a picnic, is it?’ The question came from Miss
Gaisford, who had come unperceived upon the two friends as they were
leaning over the parapet of the bridge. ‘To bury yourself among the
trees, eh,’ she went on, ‘and gloat over some dreadful pictures that
nobody but a doctor could look at without shuddering? Allow me to tell
you that you will be permitted to do nothing of the kind. You will just
put your treatise in your pocket, and try for once to make yourself
sociable. Perhaps, if you try very hard, you may even succeed in making
yourself agreeable.’
‘My poor Mac!’ murmured the vicar as he settled his spectacles more
firmly on his nose.
The doctor said nothing, but his eyes twinkled, and he pursed up his
lips.
‘I have arranged my plans for both of you,’ said Miss Pen with emphasis.
‘For both of us!’ they exclaimed simultaneously.
‘Yes. Lady Renshaw’——
‘O-h!’ It was a double groan.
‘Don’t interrupt. Lady Renshaw will be here presently. As soon as she
appears on the scene, you will take charge of her. I have special
reasons for asking you to do this, which I cannot now explain. You
will amuse her, interest her, keep her out of the way, and prevent her
generally from making a nuisance of herself to any one but yourselves,
till luncheon-time.’
‘My dear Pen,’ began the vicar.
‘My dear Miss Gaisford,’ pleaded the doctor.
‘You will do as you are told, and do it without grumbling,’ was the
little woman’s reply as she shook a finger in both their faces. ‘I’ve
arranged my plans for the day, and I can’t have them interfered with.’
‘My dear Pen,’ again persisted the vicar, in his mildest tones, ‘that
your plan is a perfectly admirable one, I do not for one moment doubt,
only, as you know very well, I am not and never have been a ladies’
man, and that in the company of your charming sex I’m just as shy
at fifty-five as I was at eighteen. But with Mac here the case is
altogether different. All doctors know how to please and flatter the
sex—it’s part of their stock-in-trade, so that Mac would be quite at
home with her ladyship; whereas I—well, the fact is I had made up my
mind to walk as far as’——
‘Blackstone Hollow,’ interrupted his sister, ‘in order that you might
have another look at that big trout about which you dream every night,
but which you will never succeed in catching as long as you live.’
‘The traitor! eh, Miss Penelope?’ cried the doctor. ‘This is neither
more nor less than prevarication—yes, sir, prevarication—there’s no
other word for it—and you the vicar of a parish, whose example ought to
be a shining light to all men! Septimus Gaisford, I’m ashamed of you!
As for Lady Renshaw’—— He ended with a snap of his fingers.
‘Neither of you is afraid of her. Of course not,’ remarked Miss
Penelope. ‘You would scorn to acknowledge that you are afraid of any
woman. But why run any risk in the matter? Why allow her ladyship to
attack you separately, when, by keeping together and combining your
forces, you would render your position impregnable?’
‘Impregnable!’ both the gentlemen gasped out.
Miss Gaisford’s merry laugh ran up the glen. ‘What a pair of delicious,
elderly nincompoops you are!’ she cried. ‘Septimus, you dear old
simpleton, haven’t you discovered that this woman would like nothing
better than to bring you to your knees with an offer of marriage?’
‘Good gracious, Pen!’ cried the vicar with a start that nearly shook
the spectacles off his nose.
‘Doctor, did you not see enough of her ladyship’s tactics last evening
to understand that her plan with you is to induce you to believe that
she has fallen in love with you? and when one of your sex gets the
idea into his head that one of our sex is in love with him, why, then,
a little reciprocity of sentiment is the almost inevitable result.’
‘The hussy!’ exclaimed Mac. ‘I should like her to be laid up for a
fortnight and let me have the physicking of her!’
‘I noticed that she did press my arm rather more than seemed needful,
when we were walking last evening by the lake,’ remarked the vicar.
‘And I remember now that she squeezed my hand in a way that seemed to
me quite unnecessary, when she bade me good-night on the steps of the
hotel.’
‘Gentlemen, let there be no jealousy between you, I beg,’ said Miss Pen
with mock-solemnity. ‘If you decline to combine your forces, then make
up your minds which of you is to have her ladyship, and let the other
one go and bewail his sorrows to the moon.’
‘By the way, who _is_ Lady Renshaw?’ asked the vicar. ‘I never had the
pleasure of hearing her name till yesterday.’
‘Her ladyship is the widow of an alderman and ex-sheriff of London,
who was knighted on the occasion of some great event in the City. Her
husband, who was much older than herself, left her very well off when
he died. That pretty girl, her niece, who travels about with her, has
no fortune of her own, and one of her ladyship’s chief objects in life
would seem to be to find a rich husband for her. At the same time, from
what I have already seen of her, it appears to me that Lady Renshaw
herself would by no means object to enter the matrimonial state again,
could she only find a husband to suit her views.’
‘A dangerous woman evidently. We must beware of her, Mac,’ said the
vicar.
The doctor shook his head. ‘My dear friend, your caution doesn’t apply
to me,’ he said. ‘Lady Renshaw is just one of those women that I would
not think of making my wife, if she was worth her weight in gold.’
They had begun to stroll slowly forward during the last minute or two,
and leaving the bridge behind them, were now presently lost to view
down one of the many wooded paths which intersected the valley in every
direction.
But a few minutes had passed, when Lady Renshaw and Miss Wynter
appeared, advancing slowly in the opposite direction. They halted on
the bridge as the others had done before them.
‘What a sweetly pretty place!’ exclaimed Miss Wynter. ‘I had no idea it
would be half so lovely. I could wander about here for a week,’ adding
under her breath, ‘especially if I had Dick to keep me company.’
‘Pooh! my dear; you will have had quite enough of it by luncheon-time,’
responded her aunt, who had seated herself on the low coping of the
bridge with her back to the view up the glen.
‘I always thought you were an admirer of pretty scenery, aunt.’
‘So I am—when in society. But now that we are alone, there’s no need
to go into ecstasies about it. On a broiling day like this, I would
exchange all the scenery of the Lakes for an easy-chair in the veranda,
a nice novel, and the music of a band in the distance.’ Then, as if
suddenly remembering something, she gazed around and said: ‘By-the-bye,
what has become of Mr Golightly?’
‘I saw him strolling in this direction a few minutes ago,’ was the
innocent answer. ‘I have no doubt that he is somewhere about.’
‘Now that Archie Ridsdale has been called away, you will be able to
give him the whole of your attention. There seem plenty of quiet nooks
about where you will be able to get him for a time all to yourself. He
certainly seems excessively infatuated, considering how short a time he
has known you, and I should not be a bit surprised if that waterfall
were to lead him on to make violent love to you before you are six
hours older.’
‘Aunt!’
‘Oh, my dear, I’ve known stranger things than that happen. When a
susceptible young man and a pretty girl sit and watch a waterfall
together, he is almost sure before long to begin squeezing her hand,
and then what follows is simply a question of diplomacy on her part.’
‘If—if—in the course of a few days—Mr Golightly were to propose?’——
‘He may do it this very day for aught one can tell. He seems
infatuated enough for any thing. When he does propose, you will accept
him—conditionally. You will take care to let him see that you care for
him—a little. You have known him for so short a time that really you
scarcely know your own feelings—&c., &c. Of course, before finally
making up your mind, we must have some more definite information as to
the position and prospects of the young man, and what his father the
bishop has in view as regards his future. Besides, Mr Archie Ridsdale
may possibly be back in the course of a day or two.’
‘But in what way can Archie’s return affect me?’
‘You stupid girl! have I not already told you that Sir William is
nearly sure to refuse his consent, and that Archie’s engagement with
this Miss Loraine may be broken off at any moment. Then will come your
opportunity. Archie seemed very fond of you at one time, and there’s no
reason why he should not become fond of you again. Young men’s fancies
are as changeable as the wind, as you ought to know quite well by this
time.’
Bella only shrugged her shoulders and sauntered slowly over the bridge.
The expression of Lady Renshaw’s face changed the moment she found
herself alone, and her thoughts reverted to a topic over which they had
busied themselves earlier in the day.
‘So this high and mighty Madame De Vigne—this person whom nobody
seems to know anything about—could not condescend to come in the same
wagonette with us poor mortals! She and her sister must follow in a
carriage by themselves, forsooth! Last evening, when we got back from
the lake, she had retired for the night; this morning, she breakfasted
in her own room. I feel more convinced than ever that there’s some
mystery about her. If I could but find out what it is! Of course, in
such a case it would become my duty at once to communicate with Sir
William.’
Miss Wynter came back over the bridge, but much more quickly than she
had gone. ‘Oh, look, aunt!’ she exclaimed; ‘I declare there’s D—— I
mean Mr Golightly, standing yonder, gazing at the water, and all alone.’
Lady Renshaw took a survey of the young man through her glasses.
Feeling safe in his disguise, Richard had now discarded some portions
of the clerical-looking costume he had worn yesterday, and was attired
this morning more after the style of an ordinary tourist.
‘You had better stroll gently along in the same direction,’ remarked
her ladyship. ‘Poor young man, he looks very lonely!’
‘But I can’t leave you alone, aunt.’
‘Never mind about me. Besides, I see that dear vicar and Dr M‘Murdo
coming this way.’
Lady Renshaw turned to greet Miss Gaisford and the two gentlemen, who
were still a little distance off.
‘Here they come. To which of my two admirers shall I devote myself
to-day?’ she simpered. ‘Why not endeavour to play one off against the
other, and so excite a little jealousy? It is so nice to make the men
jealous. Poor dear Sir Timothy never would be jealous; but then he was
so very stupid!’
Miss Gaisford was the first to speak. ‘We were just wondering what had
become of you, Lady Renshaw.’
‘I lingered here to drink in this fairy scene. It is indeed too, too
exquisitely beautiful.’
‘If they would only turn on a little more water at the top of the cliff
it would be an improvement,’ answered Miss Pen.—‘Septimus, you might
inquire whether they can’t arrange it specially for us to-day.’
‘My dear!’ protested the vicar with mild-eyed amazement.
‘Maybe, like myself,’ remarked the doctor, ‘your ladyship is a
worshipper of beautiful scenery?’
‘O yes. I dote on it—I revel in it. After I lost poor dear Sir Timothy,
I went to Switzerland, in the hope of being able to distract my mind by
travel. Those darling Alps, I shall always feel grateful to them!’
‘What did the Alps do for you, Lady Renshaw?’ queried Miss Pen with the
utmost gravity.
‘They gave me back my peace of mind; they poured consolation into my
lacerated heart.’
‘Very kind of them—very kind indeed,’ answered Miss Pen drily.
Lady Renshaw threw a quick, suspicious glance at her. ‘What a very
strange person!’ she murmured. The vicar’s sister was a puzzle to her.
It could not be that she was covertly making fun of her, Lady Renshaw!
No; the idea was too preposterous.
Dr Mac had not gone about for fifty years with his eyes shut. He
had discovered that many persons, both male and female, who plume
themselves on their knowledge of the world and their shrewdness in
dealing with the common affairs of life, are yet as susceptible to
flattery, even of the most fulsome kind, and just as liable to be
led away by it into the regions of foolishness, as their far less
sophisticated fellow-mortals. What if this woman, with all her
worldly-mindedness and calculating selfishness, were one of those
individuals who may be dexterously led by the nose and persuaded to
dance to any tune so long as their ears are judiciously tickled? A
peculiar gleam came into the doctor’s eyes as these thoughts passed
through his mind. He cleared his voice and turned to her ladyship.
‘It appears to me, Lady Renshaw,’ he began, ‘speaking from a
professional point of view, that you are gifted with one of those
highly-strung, super-sensitive, and poetical organisations which
render those who possess them peculiarly susceptible to all beautiful
influences whether of nature or of art. Hem.’
‘How thoroughly you understand me, Dr M‘Murdo!’ responded her ladyship,
beaming on him with one of her broadest smiles.
The vicar took off his spectacles and proceeded to rub them vigorously
with his handkerchief. ‘Mac, you are nothing better than a barefaced
humbug,’ he whispered to himself.
‘It would seem only natural, my dear madam,’ resumed the unblushing
doctor, ‘that a temperament such as yours, which throbs responsive to
beauty in all its thousand varied forms as readily as an Æolian harp
responds to the faintest sigh of the summer breeze, should—should find
an outlet for itself in one form or other. Have you never, may I ask,
attempted to pour out your thick crowding fancies in verse? Have you
never, while gazing on some such scene as this, felt as if you could
float away on—on the wings of Poesy? Have you never, in brief, felt as
if you could only find relief by rushing into song? Hem.’
The poor vicar fairly gasped for breath.
‘Yes, yes; that is exactly how I have felt a thousand times,’ gushed
her ladyship. ‘At such moments I seem to exhale poetry.’
‘Dear me! rather a remarkable phenomenon,’ murmured Miss Pen.
‘I long to be a dryad—or a nymph—or one of Dian’s huntresses in some
Arcadian grove of old.’
‘A nymph! Hum,’ remarked the vicar softly to himself.
‘But I have never yet ventured to—to’——
‘Gush into song,’ suggested Miss Pen.
‘To attempt to clothe my thoughts in rhythmic measures,’ went on
her ladyship with a little wave of the hand, as though deprecating
interruption, ‘although I have often felt an inward voice which
impelled me to do so.’
‘Let me advise you to try, my dear madam,’ resumed the doctor with his
gravest professional air. ‘If I may be allowed to say so, you have the
eye of a poet—dreamy, imaginative, with a sort of far-away gaze in it,
as though you were looking at something a long way off which nobody but
yourself could see.’
‘Ought I to listen to these things in silence?’ asked the vicar of
himself with a sudden qualm of conscience.
‘You are a great, naughty flatterer, Dr M‘Murdo,’ said the widow,
shaking a podgy finger archly at him.
‘Madam, that is one of the points on which my education has been
shamefully neglected.’
She turned with a smile. ‘I trust that our dear vicar is also a
worshipper of the beautiful?’
‘With Lady Renshaw before my eyes, it would be rank heresy to doubt
it,’ stammered the dear old boy with a blush that would have become a
lad of eighteen.
‘Pass up one, Septimus,’ whispered his sister in his ear.
‘If you talk to me in that strain, I shall begin to think you a very,
very dangerous man,’ simpered her ladyship.
‘There’s a charming view of the lake from an opening in the trees a
little farther on,’ remarked Dr Mac. ‘Would not your ladyship like to
walk as far?’
‘By all means, though I am loath to tear myself from this exquisite
spot.’
‘We shall find our way back to it later on.’
‘With your permission, I will leave you good people for a little
while,’ remarked Miss Pen. ‘I’ve other fish to fry.’
Her ladyship stared. ‘What an excessively vulgar remark!’ was her
unspoken thought.
Miss Gaisford turned to her. ‘Lady Renshaw, I must intrust these two
young sparks into your hands for a time.’
‘You could not leave us in more charming captivity,’ remarked the
gallant doctor.
The vicar, as he fingered the hammer in his pocket, looked imploringly
at his sister, but she pretended not to see.
‘Au revoir, then, dear Miss Gaisford,’ said her ladyship in her most
affable tones.
‘Au revoir, au revoir.’
As the three went sauntering away, the vicar lagging a little behind
the others, Miss Pen heard the doctor say: ‘You know the song, Lady
Renshaw, _When I view those Scenes so charming_,’ after which nothing
but a murmur reached her ears.
She turned away with a little laugh. ‘The doctor will fool her to
the top of her bent. Who would have thought that high-dried piece of
buckram had so much quiet fun in him?—And now to look after my hampers.
If I trust to the servants, by luncheon-time the ice, like Niobe, will
have wept itself away, the corkscrew will have taken a ramble on its
own account, the vinegar and salt will have gone into housekeeping
together, and the mustard will be making love to the blanc-mange. My
reputation is at stake.’
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS ON THEMSELVES.
It has been fairly proved in previous numbers of this _Journal_ that
so long as advertising continues, a newspaper can rarely be altogether
dull, for the curiosities of the advertisement columns often exhibit
strange freaks and fancies of human nature, which may afford amusement
when the news columns are at their grimmest and dreariest. But the
place of all others which may be regarded as the headquarters of the
advertising genius is the land across the Atlantic, and the papers
which are the medium of the greatest enterprise in this line are the
_Tribunes_ and _Suns_ of the United States; and most entertaining of
all are the announcements by which the American journals draw attention
to their own brilliant pages. An English newspaper directory is not
very attractive, except to the business portion of the community;
but an American publication of the kind is of a much more amusing
character; and in two bulky and comprehensive volumes, an indomitable
transatlantic publisher has issued a universal gazetteer, wherein the
newspapers of every part of the globe may be studied.
In the first place, it is enough for an English paper, as a rule, to
state the town and county it represents; but young America must do
more than this, if readers outside her various regions are to estimate
the value of her press. Jacksonville or Euteroga must be set forth as
indisputably the most thriving city in the richest district of the
most prosperous State. Magnolia, advertisers are ‘notified,’ is a
‘flourishing town with more than twenty-five business-houses;’ Augusta
‘is growing and has a bright future;’ Westfield is ‘a thriving town
of above a thousand inhabitants,’ clearly affording scope for a large
circulation.
Manchester (United States), we learn, in a sentence racy of the soil,
‘is a large, live, and growing city, makes one hundred and seventy-nine
miles of cloth per day, can build fifteen locomotives a month, and
fifty steam fire-engines a year, and an endless variety of other
products of skill and industry.’ Another rising spot has ‘fourteen
grocery, three hardware, and five dry goods stores, four tailor-shops,
six butcher-shops, two banks, four hotels, three grist-mills, two
stave-factories, foundry, planing-mills, &c., and six churches, one of
which cost about sixteen thousand dollars, and has a spire one hundred
and forty-eight feet high.’ But this edifice is outdone in a third town
which ‘points with just pride to its magnificent iron bridge, costing
over forty thousand dollars, and other evidences of public enterprise.’
Middle Loup Valley is, we are told, ‘one of the largest and most
productive valleys in the State, which is from its picturesque scenery
and fertility of soil poetically called the “Rhine of America.”’
Another touch of poetry is come across unexpectedly: ‘A belt of fire
from thousands of coke ovens surrounds Mount Pleasant, the centre of
the great Connellsville Coke County, and the place where the _Times and
Mining Journal_ is published;’ and there is a rhythmical swing about
the remark that the _Honey Grove Independent_ ‘is published in the land
where cotton grows rank and tall, and where cattle grow fat in the
wild prairies.’ But Honey Grove with its cattle is nothing to Hancock
County, where ‘the people have become so corpulent, that the druggists
are all becoming independently rich from the sale of Allen’s Anti-Fat;’
and the Blue Grass Valley of Kentucky ‘is famous all over the world for
its handsome women, thoroughbred horses, rich soil, and fine climate.’
To be worthy of a land like this, the newspapers also possess rare
attractions for readers and advertisers, the latter especially. They
are ‘alive and growing’ ‘newsy! pithy! spicy!’ one is a ‘paper for all
mankind,’ another ‘overflows with local gossip,’ and a third ‘discusses
public questions with lively respectability, and feeds its readers with
no less than four and often five columns of spicy local matter each
week;’ a fourth has ‘everything first-class;’ you can get ‘a bright and
newsy wide-awake local paper,’ or ‘a live thirty-two column weekly;’
and the _Eaton Rapids Journal_ will be found, appropriately to its
name, ‘a live paper in a live town.’ Yet more richly descriptive is the
account of the ‘red-hot local paper that feeds twenty thousand people
every week and makes them fat; advertisements can reach millions of
hungry minds through this medium.’ Again, we learn that ‘Life on the
ocean wave is nothing compared with reading the _Plymouth Pantograph_.’
The _Sacramento Bee_ is ‘the spiciest, ablest, most brilliant, and
most independent journal published on the Pacific coast;’ while for
‘talking large,’ honourable mention should also be accorded to one
of Cincinnati’s lights, which is ‘the best paper ever published. All
its news is first-hand from upwards of fifteen hundred reporters and
correspondents in every part of the United States and Europe.’
But these are mere outward characteristics and generalisations.
Politics denote more distinctly the paper’s line of action, whether
‘stalwart Republican,’ ‘sound Democratic,’ or ‘Independent in all
things, neutral in nothing.’ Independence is the cry of many; they are
‘bold and fearless,’ express a hatred of party, rings and ringsters.
‘Now in its third volume,’ exults one banner of freedom, ‘and has
never halted by the way nor wearied of the fight. Always ready to take
up the cause of the poor and oppressed, and never ready to surrender
its independence to party, clique, or ring.’ ‘Has no axe to grind
other than the advancement of every social reform,’ a second patriot
proclaims. ‘Therefore it hits a head whenever that head is seen in
opposition to true advancement.’ For the extremes of party violence we
must go to a Southern journal, which does not, it may well be hoped,
‘speak as the masses of our people feel and talk;’ if it does, so much
the worse for the people. ‘If the Yankees,’ this rodomontade begins,
‘want to know the real sentiments of our people; if they want to have a
realising sense of the utter madness of trying to govern the grand old
sovereign States of the Confederacy, they will close their ears to the
lying professions of our policy-bumming politicians and subscribe to
the _Bartlett News_.’ Perhaps some such rant as that of the _Bartlett
News_ a certain _Labor Standard_ had in view while stating itself to be
‘not a blowing, blustering, black-mail sheet which has to be read in
private because its contents are unfit to be seen in the family,’ but
‘a clean live weekly paper, devoted entirely to the interests of the
working-classes.’
A Texan organ ‘will seek to be a photograph of all the resources
and needs of Texas; a mirror of her markets; a barometer of pure
principles, sound public faith, and private honour. Democratic, but
conservative, independent and outspoken in the exalted interests
of just criticism—no panderer to partisan men or measures, whether
right or wrong!’ This is independence with a vengeance, ahead even of
the gazette which ‘favours immigration, morality, and the Christian
religion; and unflinchingly opposes shams, rings, rogues, and enemies
to the people. It exposes villainy and crime wherever found, and hence
is read by the more intelligent classes of people in the field where it
circulates.’
The conjunction of immigration and the Christian religion reminds one
of the much bemourned lady who ‘painted in water-colours and of such
is the kingdom of heaven.’ But there is a still more frank linking
together of things temporal and spiritual in the ‘only Democratic
out-and-out paper in Western Iowa,’ which sails under the motto, more
Yankee than reverent, ‘Fear God, tell the truth, and make money;’
the editor further announcing that if he ‘is allowed to live under a
Republican administration another year, he will carry your advertising
at five cents per line, fifty dollars per column, or furnish his paper
for one dollar fifty cents per year.’
The _Horseheads Journal and Chemung Co. Greenback_ ‘exposes
rascality everywhere, and aims to give something to interest and
instruct everybody every week,’ from which it may be surmised that
the _Horseheads Journal and Chemung Co. Greenback_ is happier in
its object than in its title. Many of these ‘wide-awake and spicy’
representatives of Western culture are not remarkable for the elegance
of their names, the admixture of Indian and American resulting in
some curious compounds, such as the _Petrolea Topic_, the _Klickitat
Sentinel_, the _Katahdin Kalendar_, the _Waxahachie Enterprise_, and
the _Coshocton Age_. Yankee, pure and simple, reigns in the _Weekly
Blade_, _Jacksonian_, _Biggsville Clipper_, _People’s Telephone_, and
_New Haven Palladium_; but there is a charm of euphony about the _Xenia
Sunlight_ and _Golden Globe_, and the brevity which may be the soul of
wit in the _Call_, _Item_, _Plaindealer_, and _Editor’s Eye_.
The editors, as is well known, come much more to the front than is
the case in England; they do not remain the invisible and mysterious
‘we’ of the editorial sanctum; their names are frequently advertised
with those of the publishers, occasionally, indeed, accompanied by
a portrait or other additional recommendation; one paper ‘is edited
by two of the ablest newspaper men in the State, and it will be hard
to find a better team in the editorial harness.’ ‘The most important
feature,’ we learn, ‘of the _Free Press_ is its funny squibs by the
editor, “Driftings from Dreamland,” which are original and spicy;’ and
as appropriately named, surely, is ‘a humorous department, “Tea and
Toast,”’ to be found in another print. A Texas editor offers ‘upon
justifiable encouragement to visit any county or city in Texas or
Mexico and make a statistical “write-up” of their every interest and
advantage,’ indicative of lively and reliable information for intending
immigrants; and a _Highland Recorder_, with an affection for the Land
o’ Cakes one can but sympathise with, says that ‘every page breathes of
Clan-Alpine freshness.’
Great stress is laid upon the home-printing of the small journals—‘no
patent outside or inside;’ ‘almost every sentence is of home
manufacture, little clipping is done;’ ‘the only paper that does
all its work at home,’ &c. A further noticeable feature is the
frequent use of certificates and testimonials as to circulation from
public and private individuals or from contemporary prints, or of
self-recommendations such as that of the paper which ‘has a very fine
list of country subscribers,’ or of the journal ‘published by a genuine
Jayhawker,’ which ‘goes to every post-office in the northern part of
the State.’
It is when we come to the direct announcements to advertisers,
however, that we get perhaps the queerest hints from our American
cousins. ‘Advertising rates cheerfully furnished’ appears frequently;
‘Advertisers love it’ is a short and sweet statement regarding one
paper; ‘Should be patronised by every live advertiser;’ ‘Advertisers,
do you want some return for your money? Read our inducements,’
say others. Then, ‘The modesty of the publishers deters them from
mentioning the peculiar merits of the _Courier_ as an advertising
medium’—a modesty rivalled by the remark, ‘Rates of advertising so
low that we are almost ashamed to announce them,’ which differs from
the standpoint of a third, ‘Advertising rates held high enough to
make a living for the publisher;’ and the latter appears upon the
whole to be the more general sentiment, as may be testified by ‘Don’t
send offers under price,’ ‘We only advertise _for money_.’ The last
sentence alludes to a species of exchange evidently less popular among
the publishers than with their clients. ‘No advertising solicited,’
says the _Westfield Pantograph_, ‘except for cash, or what may be as
good. No space to give away or let at half-price.’ More decisive is the
_Calhoun Pilot_, which ‘is choice in the admission of advertisements
in its columns, and those it does admit, “due bills” of no character
will settle for them. Must be in hard cash quarterly in advance, unless
good references are given. Save your paper and postage, ye advertisers
who have nothing to offer us for our space than your wares and due
bills. We don’t want ’em. We have a good article to retail, and nothing
but the almighty dollar will buy it. But,’ adds the _Pilot_ more
amiably, ‘while this is strictly our rule, our rates are low, and we
give value received for all the lucre you place in our possession.’
Still more downright is the declaration, ‘No three-cornered patent
pills, second-hand clothing, skunk-hunting machines, or hand-organs
taken in payment for advertising.’ ‘The _News_ publishes no dead
ads., and gives no puffs;’ ‘No half-cash advertisements accepted, no
swindling or bogus patrons wanted.’ ‘Dead-beat, swindling advertisers,’
sarcastically announces the _Troy Free Press_, ‘can have their matter
chucked carefully into the stove by sending them to our office. Our
space is for sale, and must be paid for at living rates.’ But there
is encouragement for honest advertisers given by a _Clipper-Herald_
through whose columns announcements ‘go to that class of people who
are honest and intelligent and who pay for what they get;’ and in an
equally straightforward assertion elsewhere, the _mens conscia recti_
of the editor rises superior to grammar into the realms of wit: ‘Has a
good circulation among a prompt-paying class of people—these be facts!’
Facts or not, there is a distinctive character about Jonathan’s
advertisements equal to some of the fiction with which he has supplied
us.
THE MISSING CLUE.