reach all the electric wires that cross the continent and
undergird the sea, some one shall, with the forefinger of the right
hand, click the instrument that shall thrill through all lands, across
all islands, under all seas, through all palaces, into all dungeons,
and startle both hemispheres with the news, that in a few
moments shall rush out from the ten thousand times ten thousand
printing-presses of the earth: "Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good-will toward men!"

You see, therefore, that, in the plain words to be written, I have no
grudges to gratify against the newspaper press. Professional men are
accustomed to complain of injustice done them, but I take the censure
I have sometimes received and place it on one side the scales, and the
excessive praise, and place it on the other side, and they balance,
and so I consider I have had simple justice. But we are all aware that
there is a class of men in towns and cities who send forth a baleful
influence from their editorial pens. There are enough bad newspapers
weekly poured out into the homes of our country to poison a vast
population. In addition to the home manufacture of iniquitous sheets,
the mail-bags of other cities come in gorged with abominations. New
York scoops up from the sewers of other cities, and adds to its own
newspaper filth. And to-night, lying on the tables of this city, or
laid away on the shelf, or in the trunk, for more private perusal, are
papers the mere mention of the names of which would send a blush to
the cheek, and make the decent and Christian world cry out: "God save
the city!"

There is a paper published in Boston of outrageous character, and yet
there are seven thousand copies of that paper coming weekly to New
York for circulation. I will not mention the name, lest some of you
should go right away and get it. It is wonderful how quick the fingers
of the printer-boy fly, but the fingers of sin and pollution can set
up fifty thousand types in an instant. The supply of bad newspapers
in New York does not meet the insatiable appetite of our people for
refuse, and garbage, and moral swill. We must, therefore, import
corrupt weeklies published elsewhere, that make our newspaper stands
groan under the burden.

But we need not go abroad. There are papers in New York that long ago
came to perfection of shamelessness, and there is no more power
in venom and mud and slime to pollute them. They have dashed their
iniquit