'Scandalmonger,' and the Philadelphia 'Prestidigitateur,' and the Boston
'Prolific,' which do nothing but hoodwink and confound the public mind. Ten
dollars will get a favorable report of a meeting, or as much will get it
caricatured. There is a secret spring behind almost every column. It
depends on what the editor had for supper the night before whether he wants
Foster hung or his sentence commuted. If the literary man had toast and
tea, as weak as this before me, he sleeps soundly, and next day says in his
columns that Foster ought not to be executed; he is a good fellow, and the
clergymen who went to Albany to get him pardoned were engaged in a holy
calling, and their congregations had better hold fast of them lest they go
up like Elijah. But if the editor had a supper at eleven, o'clock at night
of scallops fried in poor lard, and a little too much bourbon, the next day
he is headachy, and says Foster, the scalawag, ought to be hung, or beaten
to death with his own car-hook, and the ministers who went to Albany to get
him pardoned might better have been taking tea with some of the old ladies.
I have been behind the scenes and know all about it, and must admit that I
have done some of the bad work myself. I have on my writing-stand thirty
or forty books to discuss as a critic, and the column must be made up. Do
you think I take time to read the thirty or forty books? No. I first take a
dive into the index, a second dive into the preface, a third dive into the
four hundredth page, the fourth dive into the seventieth page, and then
seize my pen and do up the whole job in fifteen minutes. I make up my mind
to like the book or not to like it, according as I admire or despise the
author. But the leniency or severity of my article depends on whether the
room is cold and my rheumatism that day is sharp or easy. Speaking of these
things reminds me that the sermon which the Right Reverend Bishop
Goodenough preached last Sunday, on 'Growth in Grace,' was taken down and
brought to our office by a reporter who fell over the door-sill of the
sanctum so drunk we had to help him up and fish in his pockets for the
bishop's sermon on holiness of heart and life, which we were sure was