Chapter XIX

_Journalism.--Prodigious Enterprises.--Startling
Headlines.--"Jerked to Jesus."--"Mrs. Carter finds Fault with
her Husband's Kisses."--Jacob's Ladder.--Sensational
News.--How a Journalist became known.--Gossip.--The Murderer
and the Reporters.--Detective Journalists.--"The Devil
Dodged."--Ten Minutes' Stoppage in Purgatory.--French,
English, and American Journalists.--A Visit to the Great
Newspaper Offices.--Sunday Papers.--Country Papers.--Wonderful
Eye-ticklers.--Polemics.--"Pulitzer and Dana."--Comic and
Society Papers.--The "Detroit Free Press" and the "Omaha
World."--American Reviews._

By his discovery of America, Christopher Columbus has furnished the Old World with an inexhaustible source of amusing novelties. You pass from the curious to the marvellous, from the marvellous to the incredible, from the incredible to the impossible realised.

But it is to American journalism that the palm must be awarded.

I shall speak later on of the Sunday papers--those phenomenal productions that fairly take your breath away.

Take the daily papers: eight, ten, sometimes twelve pages, each consisting of eight or nine columns of fine print, the whole for a penny or threehalf-pence. So much for the quantity.

The first thing that attracts your attention is the titles of the articles. The smallest bit of news cannot escape your notice, thanks to these wonderful head-lines. It requires a special genius for the work, to be able to hit upon such eye-ticklers.

Here are a few that I noted down in New York, Chicago, and other large towns:--

The death of Mrs. Garfield, mother of the late President, was announced with the heading:

_Death of Grandma Garfield._

The marriage of M. Maurice Bernhardt:

_Sarah's boy leads his bride to the altar._

The execution of a criminal was announced by a Chicago paper under the heading:

_Jerked to Jesus._

The reports of two divorce cases at Chicago were entitled respectively:

_Tired of William._

_Mrs. Carter finds fault with her husband's kissing._

An article on Prince Bismarck was headed in large letters: BISMARCK WITHDRAWS. Just underneath, in very small print, was: _His resignation as Chancellor of the German Empire_.

The marriage of young Earl Cairns, who had been betrothed several times, was announced to the American ladies thus:

_Garmoyle caught at last._

Mr. Arthur Balfour, having refused to reply to some attacks of the Irish Nationalists, a prominent New York paper thus announced the fact;

_Balfour doesn't care a_----

During his late visit to America, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was invited by the members of a New York club to a dinner given in his honour. At the eleventh hour the right honourable gentleman, being detained in Washington on State business, was obliged to send and excuse himself. Next day, I read in the _New York Herald_:

_One dinner less for Joe._

While I was in the United States, the papers were constantly speaking of a financier named Jacob Sharp. Accused of fraudulent dealings, this gentleman had been arrested, but subsequently released, untried. The press indulged in much comment on the matter, and such remarks as: "All mortals have their trials except financiers."

One morning the newspapers were obliged to desist from their attacks: poor Jacob had passed away from earth.

The same day, I met the editor of one of the large daily papers.

"Well," said I, "here is a fine occasion for a grand head-line to-morrow; you are not going to let it slip, I suppose."

"What do you mean?"

"How can you ask? Why, _Jacob gone up the ladder_! of course."

"Splendid!" he exclaimed.

"_Pends-toi_, my dear editor, thou didst not find that one."

"I must have it. How much will you take for it?"

"I'll make you a present of it," said I.

Next morning, the death of the financier was told in two columns, headed:

_Jacob gone up the ladder._

If ever I wanted to apply for a journalistic post in America, this would be my most weighty recommendation in the eyes of my future chief.

* * * * *

I did not know what lively reading was until I saw an American newspaper.

American journalism is, above all, a sensational journalism. If the facts reported are exact, so much the better for the paper; if not, so much the worse for the facts. Beyond the date, few statements are reliable. But the papers are always lively reading. Picture to yourself a country where the papers are all _Pall Mall Gazettes_, with this difference, that the articles, instead of being always by "One who knows," are oftener by "One who doesn't."

To succeed as a journalist in America, it is not necessary to be a man of letters, to be able to write leading articles _a la_ John Lemoinne; the only qualification necessary is to be able to amuse and interest the reader; this must be done at any cost; all styles are admissible except the heavy.

The accounts of trials in the police courts or at the courts of assize eclipse the novels of M. du Boisgobey. I, who never read tribunal reports in the English newspapers, was more than once surprised in America to find myself deeply interested in the account of a trial for murder, following all the details of the case and unwilling to miss a word. Alternately moved and horrified, I would read to the end, then, passing my hand across my forehead, I would say to myself: "How silly; it is mostly fiction, after all!"

The American journalist must be spicy, lively, bright. He must know how to, not _report_, but _relate_ an accident, a trial, a conflagration, and, at a push, make up an article of one or two columns in length upon the most insignificant incident. He must be interesting, _readable_, as the English call it with reason. His eyes and ears must be always open, every sense on the alert; for, before all and above all, he must keep ahead in this race for news; if he should once let himself be outdone by a _confrere_, his reputation would be blasted.

But you will perhaps exclaim: "What is the poor fellow to do when there is no news?" What is he to do? And his imagination, is it given him for no purpose? If he have no imagination, he had better give up the idea of being a journalist in America, as he will soon find out.

This is how one American reporter made a reputation at a bound. The Chicago people are still proud to tell the story.

The young fellow was taking a walk one evening in a retired part of the town, on the look-out for what adventure history does not say. All at once, a human form, lying motionless on the ground, attracted the sight of our hero. He drew near to it, stooped down, and found it to be a corpse. His first impulse was to immediately seek a policeman and tell him of the discovery.

But a second idea came; it was more practical, and he adopted it. This was it:

His paper comes out at two in the afternoon, so that by running straight to the police station he would be making the matter public, and furnishing his brother reporters with a column or two for their morning papers. It is a catch, this corpse, and not to be lightly given away. What to do? Simply this. Our journalist drags the body into an empty building near at hand, and carefully hides it. At eleven next morning, he _discovers_ it by chance, goes as fast as possible to make his declaration to the police, and then hastens away to the office of his newspaper with two columns of description written overnight. At two o'clock, the paper announces "Mysterious murder in Chicago: discovery of the victim by one of our reporters!"

The morning papers were outdone; the evening ones nowhere.

This is the kind of talent you must have in order to stand a chance of making your way in American journalism.

Crimes, divorces, elopements, mesalliances, gossip of all kinds, furnish the papers with three-quarters of their contents. A mysterious affair, skilfully handled, will make the fortune of a paper.

For several weeks, during the months of February and March, the American papers were talking about a young lady of good family in Washington, who, it appeared, had become engaged to a young Indian named Chaska, a tawny brave of the Sioux tribe. There were descriptions of the wild man; descriptions of the festivities which were to be held in his honour at the camp of the great chief, Swift Bird; descriptions of the gorgeous ornaments with which the members of the tribe would be adorned--nothing was wanting: day after day fresh details were added. Then the despair of the young lady's family was pictured. The threats of an indignant father, the tears of a distressed mother, nothing, it seemed, could touch the heart of the fair one but the piercing eyes of Chaska.

At last the marriage takes place, not only in broad day, but in church. It is not Swift Bird who blesses the young couple; it is the parish clergyman. Romance gives place to verity; and, without the slightest sign of being disconcerted, the papers announce (in a few lines only this time) that the young lady has married a clerk in the _Indian Affairs Office_.

* * * * *

All this is as nothing. It is when there is a criminal case to handle that American journalism becomes simply sublime.

The criminal is no sooner arrested than the reporters hurry to his cell, and get him to undergo the curious operation now known throughout the world as _interviewing_. He is treated with all the consideration due to a man in his position. "Mr. So and So, of the _Earthquake_, presents his compliments to Mr. Blank, charged with murder, and requests the favour of a few minutes' conversation." To be accused of an important crime gives a man a certain standing in America. The more atrocious the crime, the more interesting the accused; and columns upon columns of print supply the public with his slightest sayings and doings. He is the hero of the day. From the prison, the reporters go to hunt up the witnesses, whom they also interview in their turn. Regular examinations, these interviews!

If there is any love story mixed in with the affair, if there are a few piquant details, you may easily imagine that the public gets the worth of its penny.

The American is gallant, and when the victim is of the feminine gender, I can assure you the accused generally gets a pretty drubbing in the press.

* * * * *

American journalism carries the spirit of enterprise still further. Not content with trying criminals, it hunts them out and brings them to justice. Policeman, magistrate, public prosecutor, judge--the journalist is all these.

I know of several American newspapers having quite a staff of detectives--yes, detectives. If a criminal escapes justice, or an affair remains surrounded by mystery, these new-fashioned journalists are let loose every morning on a search for the criminal, or to try and pick up threads of information that may lead to the clearing up of the mystery. These detectives are employed, not only in cases of crime, but work just as hard over a divorce or an elopement: it is journalism turned private detective agency. A newspaper that can boast of having brought a criminal to justice, discovered the hiding-place of an unfaithful wife, or run a ravisher to earth, is rewarded by an increased sale forthwith.

The slightest thing that can make the paper attractive is seized upon with avidity. The headings, which I have spoken of, are called into requisition on all occasions, and there is nothing, down to the mere announcements, that will not suggest to a wide-awake editor one of these wonderful eye-ticklers. Thus the Saturday list of preachers for the morrow is headed in the _New York Herald_:

_Salvation for all_; or _Guiding Sinners Heavenwards_, or _Dodging the Devil_.

In one paper, you will see the list of births, marriages, and deaths, headed respectively: _The Cradle_, _the Altar_, and _the Tomb_; in another, more facetious: _Hatches_, _Matches_, and _Dispatches_.

In a society paper, much given to gossip, I noticed the news of the fashionable world distributed under the following titles:

_Cradle_ (list of births);

_Flirtations_ (list of young people suspected of a tender passion for each other);

_Engagements_ (promises of marriage);

_Tiffs_ (sic);

_Ruptures_;

_Marriages_;

_Divorces and Separations_;

_Deaths_.

It was the whole comedy of life.

What a pity the American papers cannot have reporters in the other world to note the _entries into Paradise_, and _descents into Hell_!

_Ten minutes' stoppage in Purgatory_ would be very crisp and effective.

* * * * *

Compared with the French and English papers, the American dailies have neither the literary value of the former nor the authority of the latter in the matter of political foreign news.

The French newspapers are most of them literary productions of incontestable worth; but, with the exception of one or two leading articles, and the literary, musical, and dramatic criticisms, nothing very serious in the way of information is to be found in them. The foreign intelligence is of the most meagre, and usually consists of a few lines furnished by _L'agence Havas_: "The Emperor of Germany is a little better," or "Queen Victoria has returned to Windsor from Scotland," etc.

Mr. George Augustus Sala once said very wittily that the French papers bear the date of to-morrow and the news of yesterday. The satire is a little severe, but it is not unmerited. He might, however, have taken that opportunity for reminding his numerous readers that, if the Parisian papers are inferior to the London ones in the matter of news, they are greatly their superiors in the matter of articles. It is true we have no longer among our journalists Roqueplan, Karr, Mery, Janin, Prevost-Paradol, Girardin, Taine, About; but we have still John Lemoinne, Weiss, Sarcey, Rochefort, Wolff, Lockroy, Vacquerie, Scholl, Fouquier, Bergerat, and many others, who offer to the public every morning articles stamped with genius, or, at the least, sparkling with wit; yes, we have still a goodly group of such.

For the intelligent, serious man, the English daily papers have only the attraction of the correctness of their correspondence, home and foreign. It consists of facts in all their aridity, but still facts. As for the articles, few persons, I fancy, read those productions written, with few exceptions, in the dry, thready, pedagogic style much affected by lower-form schoolboys, and often deserving the favourite comment of the late M. Lemaire, professor at the Lycee Charlemagne: "_Lourd, pateux, delaye dans le vide_."

An American newspaper is a conglomeration of news, political, literary, artistic, scientific, and fashionable, of reports of trials, of amusing anecdotes, gossip of all kinds, interviews, jokes, scandal; the whole written in a style which sometimes shocks the man of taste, but which often interests, and always amuses.

A literary celebrity of Boston said to me one day: "I am ashamed of our American press; we have only two papers in the country that I do not blush for, and those are the Boston _Post_, and the _Evening Post_ of New York.

I must say that, if you want to hear America and everything American severely criticised, you have only to go to Boston. There you will hear Boston and England praised, and America picked to pieces.

"Are you an American?" I once asked of a gentleman I met in New York.

"Well," he said after some hesitation, "I'm from Boston."

Fancy! being born in Boston, and obliged to be an American! That's hard.

The American public is not composed merely of the refined society of Boston and New York, and the press is obliged to cater to the public taste. When the public taste is improved, the newspapers will reform, and everything leads to the belief that the amelioration will not be long coming.

* * * * *

As for political news sent over from Europe, one needs to allow a little margin on what one reads in the American papers; but it is impossible not to praise the activity which animates the press.

Thus, for instance, I was in New York on the day that M. Victorien Sardou brought out _La Tosca_ at the Porte St. Martin. The first representation took place on a Saturday. The next morning, my newspaper gave me a most complete analytical description of the performance in two columns. That is to say, the Americans were able to read the details of Sarah Bernhardt's latest triumph earlier than the inhabitants of Lyons or Marseilles, who had to wait for the Paris papers.

Thanks to their journalism, the Americans have at least an idea of what is going on in Europe: they know our new plays, they read our new books, they are kept informed of every event, just as if they were neighbours. And how is it possible, I repeat, not to say a good word for a journalism which knows how to excite, as well as satisfy, the curiosity of a great people?

Go and ask the first hundred Frenchmen you meet in the streets of Paris what is the name of the President of the United States, you will find ninety-nine of them unable to tell you. The Frenchman is exclusive to the point of stupidity, and that which is not French possesses no interest for him. Enveloped in this exclusiveness, he knows nothing: in the matter of foreign questions, he is the most ignorant being in the world; and French journalism, obliged to study his tastes, serves him with nothing but French dishes.

You must visit the offices of the great New York papers in the evening, if you would get an idea of these colossal enterprises. There you see about fifty reporters with their news all ready for print in their hands. Each one in turn passes before the heads of the various departments, political, literary, dramatic, etc.

"What have you?" asks an editor of the first reporter who presents himself.

"An interview with Sarah Bernhardt."

"Very good. Half a column. And what have you?" he says, turning to the second.

"A report of John Smith, the banker's case."

"Right. One column. And you?"

"I have an account of the President's forthcoming journey to the South."

When all the reporters have passed, they go to another room to reduce their articles to the required length. Over six hundred correspondents, scattered all over the globe, send in their telegrams[9] by special wire for the most part; and the conversation, which we have just overheard in the office, begins again, this time with Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, London, Berlin, &c.

[9] I have seen, in American papers, European telegrams of 2,000 and
even 3,000 words--at sixpence a word.

"What have you for us this evening?" says the editor to his correspondent in Berlin.

"Bismarck threatens to send in his resignation."

"One column."

"Boulanger has just received an ovation at Lille. A riot is feared in Paris," wires the Paris correspondent.

"Capital! send two columns."

"A scandal in Rome. The Marchioness of N. has run away with her husband's secretary."

"Good. Where are they gone?"

"No one knows."

"No matter. Send a good stirring column all the same."

"What's-his-name, the financier, has made off," ticks the wire from Chicago.

"A column. Send report, and start on scent of the fugitive."

When the telegraph has ceased ticking, and the crowd of reporters have departed, the chief editor, like a ship's captain, the last to leave the deck, works on. He reads over everything--yes, everything; sifts, corrects, cuts down, adds to, puts all in order, and towards two o'clock in the morning gives the order to print, and goes home.

But once more all this is nothing. It is in the Sunday's issue that you have the crowning feat of journalistic enterprise: thirty or thirty-two pages of telegrams, articles, essays on politics, the drama, literature, pictures, the fashions, anecdotes, _bons mots_, interviews, stories for children, poetry, biographies, chats on science, the whole illustrated with portraits, sketches of interesting places mentioned in the text, caricatures, etc. All this for the sum of three halfpence.

And this is not all. How send these mammoth newspapers throughout the different States of the Union? How? Oh, that is very simple. The _New York World_ and the _New York Herald_ have special trains. Tell me if it is not enough to take one's breath away. But, you will ask, how can a paper publish such a number for three halfpence? From thirty to forty columns of advertisements, such is the solution of the mystery.

I admire several large papers, notably the _New York Herald_, which put their immense publicity at the disposition of lean purses. Persons in want of servants, for example, have to pay 25 cents. a line for advertising; but male servants in search of a situation only pay 10 cents. a line, and women 5 cents. This is philanthropy of the right sort, chivalrous philanthropy.

* * * * *

In New York, the large daily papers which you see in the hands of everyone are: the _Tribune_, the _Times_, the _Herald_, the _World_, the _Sun_, and the _Star_.

The first two are those most read by the cultivated classes; the most popular are the two following.

Five or six important newspapers appear in the afternoon: the _Post_ (the most respectable and respected of all American organs); the _Commercial Advertiser_, an excellent literary, political, and financial publication; the _Mail and Express_; the _Telegram_, the _Sun_, and the _World_.

Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago possess newspapers in no way second in importance to those of New York. Of such are the _Globe_, the _Post_, the _Advertiser_, the _Herald_, the _Transcript_, and the _Journal_, of Boston; the _Ledger_ and the _Press_, of Philadelphia; the _Tribune_, the _Herald_, the _Inter-Ocean_, and the _Journal_, of Chicago. Washington, St. Louis, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, and many other towns, have also newspapers of the first importance.

Every little town of a thousand to fifteen hundred inhabitants has its two newspapers, one democratic, the other republican. For lively reading, take up these papers during the electoral struggle which terminates with the installation of a new President at the White House. The names of some of them will suffice to give you an idea of the style of the contents: very favourite names are the _Paralyser_, the _Rustler_, the _Cyclone_, the _Prairie Dog_, the _Bazoo_, the _Lucifer_, the _Bundle of Sticks_, the _Thunderer_, the _Earthquake_. I saw and read a copy of the sheet which rejoiced in the name of _Bundle of Sticks_. The first article contained advice to a certain Joseph Mueller, who, instead of working, had taken up street preaching and house-to-house prayer. "We give Joseph Mueller a fortnight to find some honourable employment. If at the end of that time he is still leading an idle life, we will find an exalted position for him." The joke makes one shudder, when one thinks that, if Joseph should turn a deaf ear to the warning, he is quite sure to be hung by his townsmen to the highest branch of some tree in the town.

Manners will tone down in the West, as they have in the East, and in twenty years the _Thunderer_ and the _Avalanche_ will give place to the _Times_ and the _Tribune_.

The characteristic of new societies is freedom of speech as well as of action. I read in some _Thunderer_ the following lines about the editor of the _Lightning_, the other newspaper of the town: "We wish to use moderation, and to keep within the limits of good breeding. We will only go so far as to say that personally he is a sneak; and that as a journalist he is a liar and a scoundrel." The _Lightning_ replies in the same strain, and the public gets amusement for the moderate sum of one halfpenny.

Many of these papers of Kentucky, Texas, and other Western States may be paid for in kind. I extract the following from the _Herald_, of Hazel Green (Kentucky):--

"_NO EXCUSE FOR IGNORANCE._

_How you may get the 'Herald' for a year without money._

_Bring us_:--

_Twenty pounds of pork; or
Ten pounds of pork sausage; or
Two bushels of sound potatoes; or
Five bushels of sound turnips: or
Ten good chickens; or
One bushel of good onions._

_For half the quantity, we will send the paper half the time._"

And so the whole population of Hazel Green has the newspaper put within its reach.

* * * * *

The _Thunderer_ and the _Lightning_ are not the only papers that indulge in violent polemics, in which insulting personalities take the place of arguments.

During the whole time I was in America, Mr. Pulitzer, proprietor and manager of the _World_, and Mr. Dana, editor of the _Sun_, one of the most accomplished American journalists, were day after day calling each other such names as "robber, liar, mortgaged, dirty Jew." I see by papers that my New York friends kindly send me from time to time, that these gentlemen have not yet exhausted their Billingsgate vocabulary.

Do not draw hasty conclusions from this. I do not know Mr. Pulitzer personally, but I have the pleasure of knowing Colonel Cockerill, chief editor of the _World_, and Mr. Charles Dana, of the _Sun_. In private life they are perfect gentlemen, and men of great talent. In public life they are in the swim--they go with the tide. As a study of English, the polemic of the _World_ and the _Sun_ was most interesting.

The American press was divided into two camps: the partisans of Pulitzer and the partisans of Dana. Whenever the combatants were driven up for want of fresh epithets of the requisite strength, their supporters suggested some to them. Here are some congratulations, addressed to Mr. Dana, which I read in the St. Louis _Globe_:

"It was from beginning to end the _Sun's_ stiletto against the _World's_ meat-axe, and, as is always the case, the meat-axe came out second best. The literature of invective contains nothing finer than some of the _Sun's_ attacks on the _World_, and the literature of the gutter contains nothing more feeble than the _World's_ defence. The _Sun_ dealt out prussic acid by the drop, and the _World_ replied with rough-on-rats by the pound. The flatulent anger of Pulitzer was completely overwhelmed by the concentrated venom of Dana."

A _confrere_ could scarcely be more amiable, and I hope Mr. Dana appreciated the compliments.

* * * * *

America, New York especially, has some capital comic papers.

By that, I mean more comic than the rest.

Similar to the Paris _Charivari_ and to _Punch_, _Puck_ and _Judge_ have always skits on the questions of the day, touched off with the freedom which one would expect in free America. The manners of the people are criticised with wit and good taste. The little illustrations are charming, but two or three huge coloured pictures done in the crudest style disfigure each of these papers. Several other publications, such as _Life_, written in a light, sparkling style, and ornamented with little fine, tasteful illustrations, concern themselves with the sayings and doings of higher American society, Little stories, anecdotes, _bons mots_, material for a merry hour. Admirable are these papers, which know how to be comic, witty, and bright, without being objectionable, or unfit to put into the hands of a girl in her teens.

These papers are not only amusing to the stranger, they are instructive. The funny stories, the naive jokes, as descriptive as they are diverting, give a truer idea of American character and manners than many a ponderous volume.

As in France and England, the comic papers in America are the only ones which give proof of a little wisdom or common sense when the horizon is darkened and home and foreign political questions are disturbing the peace of the country.

* * * * *

If I were asked to name the most amusing papers published in the United States, I should not hesitate to award the palm to the _Detroit Free Press_ and the _Omaha World_; in these two, American humour reveals itself in all its spontaneous gaiety, and their drolleries are reproduced from New York to San Francisco, from Montreal to New Orleans.

* * * * *

Space fails me here to do justice to the literary, dramatic, and artistic journals. Among the first, however, mention must be made of the _Critic_. Its analyses are amiable and discreetly erudite. Its criticisms are always fair, and never crabbed.

* * * * *

I cannot close this chapter without speaking of the American Reviews; they have attained a perfection which is the highest utterance of journalism, as understood by the educated world. But they are for the most part so well known in England that I need not enlarge upon the merit and charms of such publications as the _North American Review_, the _Atlantic Monthly_, the _Forum_, the _Century_, the _Harper_, _Scribner_, _Lippincott_, and that treasure of English-reading children all over the world, the incomparable _St. Nicholas_. Besides all these, there are the _Cosmopolitan_, the _America_, the _American Magazine_, and numbers of others.

Alas, it would need a score of volumes to do anything like justice to that which one can see in America. Unhappily, it would take a score of years to see it in. And so I alight but a moment at each turning, happy if, by trying to show the reader a little of everything, I succeed in showing him something.