emporary fashions. Such slang passes rapidly into use
and into general recognition, and passes as quickly out again.
Bartlett's "Dictionary of Americanisms" is full of words of this
kind--_locofoco_, for example--which lived their short lives, and then
passed not only out of use, but out of memory. While they are in vogue,
however, they deform our speech, and they tend to increase our habits of
looseness in language; and they bring reproach upon us such as that with
an allusion to which we began this item. For our reputation's sake we
should stop this; it subjects us with some reason to ridicule. But we
shall not stop, because the men who could stop it--the editors--will not
do so. Very few newspapers in the country--only two or three--are really
edited as to the language used in them; and as to slang of this sort, it
is regarded as something pleasant to the ears of the average reader, who
is supposed to think it funny. This is enough. If the readers want it,
the editors will furnish it; and so we may expect to be "bulldosed," or
otherwise dosed with some like nauseous mess of language, until
journalism has some other purpose than to pander to the lower cravings
of the moment.

--It is said that in the schools for girls it is now becoming the
fashion to teach the large angular handwriting which is commonly used by
Englishwomen. The announcement is welcome and surprising in one respect;
for it implies that writing is taught in schools, as to which an
acquaintance with the chirography of the rising generation justly
awakens some doubts. But as to the beneficial result of the adoption of
the style in question, that is a matter of some uncertainty. This
angular English hand is very elegant and lovely to look upon in a little
note, particularly if it assures you of the fair writer's high regard,
or asks you to dinner. But in fact it is so uncertain in its forms that
sometimes it is quite difficult to tell which is meant, the high regard
or the dinner. We have heard of one case of deplorable uncertainty. A
lady going out of town hastily on a short visit left a key upon her
husband's table with a slip of paper on which was written in the new
style a few words which after much toil and with the hint from the key,
he deciphered and read as "Key of wine closet. Please put on gin-sling."
He was amazed; for whatever his fondness might have been for gin-sling,
it was not his habit to put it on the table. Wherefore he inferred that