Chapter 18
Section 18 of Ginger Snaps by Fanny Fern. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Some hints to editors. What a pity when editors review a woman's book, that they so often fall into the error of reviewing the woman instead. For instance, she is young and attractive and will probably before long find her legitimate spear in matrimony. Or, she is an old maid. What can she know of life except through a distorted medium?
Let her wait, if so she be able, till some man is deluded into inviting her to change her name. That appears to be her present need. Or she has the affectation of writing over a nom de plume, and must perforce be a fool. Or she did write a preface to her book, or she omitted writing a preface to her book, as one might expect of a woman.
or we hear she is a widow, and notoriety is probably her object in writing. I introduced this article by saying what a pity that editors in reviewing a woman's book should so often only review the woman. Perhaps I should have said, what a pity all editors are not gentlemen. It is very easy to determine this question if one keeps the general run of editorial articles.
Not that it does not sometimes happen that in the editor's necessary absence, some substitute may get him into hot water, or, as a foreigner who once tried to use this expression called it, dirty water. But taking the general tone of editorial articles,
from one day or one week to another, the want of courtesy and self-respect, or the lack of it, are patent to the intelligent reader. It is a pity that an editor should not be a gentleman for his own sake, and because no position can be more honourable than his if he choose to make it so, nor more influential for
good or evil. Think of the multitude he addresses, the thinking men and women who pass his columns under critical review. Surely this is a career not to be lightly esteemed, not to be slurred over bunglingly. Surely this messenger, crossing the sacred threshold of home, might well step carefully, reverentially, discreetly, and discuss fairly, justly, all topics especially connected with home duties and home responsibilities. Surely his advertising list, if he have one,
should be a clean one, such as any frank-browed, hitherto innocent young boy, might read. Surely the maiden, whose horizon is not bounded by a strip of ribbon or silk or even the marriage altar, should have the great questions of the day relating to the future of her sex not brushed aside with a contemptuous sniff, or treated with flippant ridicule, because this is the shortest and easiest way of disposing of that which requires thought and fair deliberation.
It seems so strange to me, who hold in such exalted estimation an editor's calling, that one should ever be found willing to belittle it. It is also a great comfort to know that there are those who hold this their position, for honour and interest second to none, and in this light conscientiously conduct their paper, so far as their strength and means allow. This would be a very stupid world, I grant, if individuality were not allowed in the editorial chair, as well as elsewhere. But leaving a wide margin for this, is there not still room in many
newspapers for more justice, manliness, courtesy, and above all, respectful mention of woman, even though the exigencies of her life may compel her to address the public? There is a practice of certain penny aligners which cannot be too severely reprehended. We do not refer to their personal descriptions of public persons, male and female, which are often wholly false, they having mistaken someone else for the individual they wish to describe,
and if certain of the identity, generally doing the description in the worst possible taste. All this is bad enough, but we refer now to cases where a forgery or a murder is committed. Not contented with working up these cases in all their harrowing and often disgusting details, your barren penny-a-liner, catching at the least straw of an idea to secure another penny for another line, states that the criminal in question is son of the Honorable Samuel so-and-so,
nephew of Mr. So-and-so, a gentleman well-known in the fashionable world, and brother of the beautiful Miss Smith who was so much admired in society last winter. Now to say that a man who would recklessly carry distress to innocent persons, already sufficiently crushed by their calamity, should be horse-whipped, is a mild way of putting it. No dictionary could do such cold-blooded atrocity justice. Of course, such items help sell a paper. But alas, how low must
be that editor's standard of journalism who permits his employees to pander to so corrupt and ghoul-like a taste? I think, could he sometimes look in upon the sorrowing family circle which he has assisted to drag into this kennel publicity, or if he could suffer in his own family that which he so remorselessly deals out to another, he might realize the deadly nature of these poisoned arrows which he aims at his neighbor's heart. Again, because the victims so assailed have not
the prefix of honorable to their names, and have no fashionable and beautiful sister, or prominent and wealthy uncle, shall we therefore excuse this cowardly attack upon their poor hearths and homes? Let anyone run over certain police reports of the day if he would see how misery and misfortune are treated as a jest by these small brainless wits hard up for a subject.
One's blood boils that the human being exists who could regard such things from the standpoint of a circus clown. In fact, a circus clown is respectable in comparison since his jests are legitimate and harmless. these gentry never did me any personal harm true black hair has often been awarded me instead of
light by these scribblers who were on very intimate terms with me and i have measured six feet in height instead of four and a half and i have a stylish carriage and footman which i fervently wish the international copyright law would drive up to my door baiting the usual vulgar livery. Also, half the things which they have asserted I waste my earnings upon would be agreeable to possess, and of course I grieve to take them down a single peg on all these statements.
But lying did not die with the serpent in Eden, for his slimy trail is all through newspaper-dom, save and accept the blank. Now don't you wish you knew? No humane or decent person can read the police reports in some of the papers in New York, without feeling unutterable loathing and contempt for the writers. Is it not enough that these poor wretches, in their downward course, have lost almost the faintest impress of immortality, that one who at least bears the semblance of manhood
can stand over them and manufacture coarse jibes by the yard to be perused by young people at the family hearthstone. It is a disgrace to our civilization, and to the paper in whose columns they appear. How would these writers like it, if the sister who once shared their cradle, having in some mad moment thrown away all in life that is pure and sweet to women, should she be brought up among that wretched crowd for sentence, how would he like it to
have her spoken of in this manner. Miss Josephine Jones, a frail sister with a bruised nose that once had been prettier and a bonnet that did not originate in Paris, was charged with getting drunk and tearing the hair from Miss Alice Carr's red head. The hair was produced in court, but for some inexplicable reason the clerk of the court seemed disinclined to touch it. Miss Josephine was found guilty, and gathering up the remnant of a greasy silk gown in her fair hand, she walked gracefully
forth to be provided with lodgings and grub free of expense on Blackwell's Island, where so many of her sex rusticate for the pleasant winter months. Or suppose he had a young brother, who had recklessly thrown off home influences, and before reaching maturity, was brought into court as a common drunkard. How would he relish having him spoken of in this manner? An infant of twenty-one, named Harry Dexter, with blear eyes and torn hat slouched over his swollen mug,
was next called up. His boots and the blacking brush seemed not to have had a very intimate acquaintance of late, and the laundress had evidently, for some cause or other, neglected his linen. His youthful hands also would have been improved by a dexterous use of soap and water. Young Harry had no occasion to inquire the way to his future boarding house, having often ridden down on previous occasions in that accommodating omnibus called the Black Maria, to take a sale
at the city's expense to Popper's Island. We might multiply instances of this heartless and disgusting way of speaking of the faults and vices of our fellow creatures, but this specimen will suffice to show the spirit in which they are penned. Nor is it any excuse that many of the friends of these wretched beings can neither read or write, nor by any possibility ever be wounded by these so-called jocular allusions. I insist that the effect on the young people of our
community is demoralizing. God knows that in the crowded city with its whirling life, we have hard work enough to avoid jostling aside the urgent claims of the erring and unfortunate around us without such help as this from the devil. It is bad enough to pass by on the other side when Christian charity challenges pity and help. But what must that man be made of who would stand over a crushed fellow being and for a few dollars make merry with his misery?
Surely, it seems to me, that the editors of the papers, where these disgraceful items appear, cannot be aware how disgusting they have become, to those who would else gladly welcome their daily issues in the family. Burlesquing a drunkard? Why not burlesque a funeral? With the coffin and the mourners, with their sobs and tears and grieving hearts? Do those who get up such a painful exhibition ever think that there may be amid their audience
some persons who have had, day after day, their lives saddened and embittered by the dreadful reality? Is it a legitimate theme for mirth or ridicule? We think not. End of Section 18
