| Show journalistic VULGARITY AND SLANG IN times of political excitement and especially on the eve of a presidential election party spirit has always run very high in this country and part izan journals have overflowed with denuncio de actions of and diatribes against the candidates for office but in no previous campaign has such low vulgar and disgraceful language been used by public journalists towards their opponents as now appears in the columns of the tarla varia ou oua political ocic I 1 papers ap ers the vocabulary of our language a e ra nich rich c h as it is to express the nic nicest t sh shades a I 1 e s of t thought hou does not contain words sufficient to enable political writers to describe their antagonists of 0 the opposite party and they have recourse to invention and the strangest and most uncouth and outlandish slang phrases are used with a profusion that must astonish the ordinary reader there is no surer sign of the degeneracy of the time tune than this common use 0 of this depraved language A few years ago journals which now have a large and we are told increasing circus circulation atlon would not have been admitted after their character was known into any respectable spec spee table tabie house they would have been deemed unfit for any person who made any pretence predence pre tence to respectability to read but now they are circulated broadcast over the land and are extensively read by men women and children even in this territory there are many such journals subscribed for and they are read not so much because the sentiments they contain are endorsed by those who read them but because their readers desire to see to what lengths of abuse their editors and contributors go in denouncing their opponents T the e motive mayfle mayl be honest enough that prompts those who subscribe for such papers but we seriously question the propriety of so doing and penta perta certainly think the results of such reading can not be good bucl buci ducq papers do an in infinite amount of harm it is an old saying and experience has proved it to be true that one cannot touch pitch and not be defiled the constant perusal of papers of the class referred to must necessarily have the effect to familiarize the mind with language which many of the readers would blush to use in conversation themselves and would warmly censure and condemn if used by women and children the society of those ohof who use low vulgar slang is not generally agreeable to persons of good taste people who have a wish to improve do not select such persons to be their companions the effects of such intercourse are looked upon as degrading but are they any more so upon the mind than the constant perusal of similar language and expressions in the one case they salute the ear in the other they meet the eye and in both loth both cases the mind is impressed to our mind there is no surer sign of the decay of public morals in the republic at the present time than the bublic licentiousness ic enviousness of the press the future historian who shall calmly and philosophically weigh all the causes which precipitated the nation into a fratricidal war and have brought upon it the dreadful evils under which it now groans will not fall fail to make note of the malign influence exercised by public journalists the bad effects of a mischievous press are every everywhere where apparent through the land public journalists did more than any other class politicians not excepted to bring about the late civil war and their baleful influence is now being felt in the deterioration of public morals |
