ORATIONS "There is no true eloquence, unless there is a man behind The Enforcement of the Liquor Law Wendell Phillips PAGE Henry Ward Beecher 90 106 Henry Cabot Lodge Sherman Hoar William H. Seward Victor Hugo John P. Chidwick . John C. Calhoun . 131 • 158 . 161 164 The Men and Deeds of the Revolution Edward Everett Valedictory Address to The Senate. Gouverneur Morris Henry Clay Thomas W. Higginson 221 Daniel Webster George Wm. Curtis. 228 Lord Macaulay Russia the Antagonist of the United States.. Edwin Booth. International Arbitration The Truth of the Gospel. John W. Griggs Thomas Corwin James Russell Lowell 259 Abraham Lincoln. . 294 By FISHER AMES. IT T seems as if newspaper wares were made to suit a market, as much as any other. The starers, and wonderers, and gapers, engross a very large share of the attention of all the sons of the type. Extraordinary events multiply upon us surprisingly. Gazettes, it is seriously to be feared, will not long allow room to anything that is not loathsome or shocking. A newspaper is pronounced to be very lean and destitute of matter, if it contains no accounts of murders, suicides, prodigies, or monstrous births. Some of these tales excite horror, and others disgust; yet the fashion reigns, like a tyrant, to relish wonders, and almost to relish nothing else. Is this a reasonable taste? Is the History of Newgate the only one worth reading? Are oddities only to be hunted? Pray tell us, men of ink, if our presses are to diffuse information, and we, the poor ignorant people, can get it in no other way than by newspapers, what knowledge are we to glean from the blundering lies, or the tiresome truths about thunder-storms, that, strange to tell! kill oxen, or burn barns; and cats, that bring two-headed kittens; and sows, that eat their own pigs? The crowing of a hen is supposed to forebode cuckledom; and the tickling of a little bug in the wall threatens yellow fever. It seems really as if our newspapers were busy to spread superstition. Omens, and dreams, and prodigies are recorded, as if they were worth minding. One would think our gazettes were intended for Roman readers, who were silly enough to make account of such things. Surely, extraordinary events have not the best title |