NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENCE.
{DitilyNcv.s) There is an enormous amount of leisure on the hands of the human race, feme employ it in sport, some in study, some ir» procuring an official' interview with a. police magistrate, most in writing letters? to people they do not know and to the newspapers. The editor of the Birmingham: Post, who has suffered much from the wild race of correspondents, lately published his experiences. Some people ask, “Do stones jrow ?”—it is a common belief in tbs South Sea Islands that they do—acd otheraenquire “ whether man is an animal.’*' Many country papers expose themselves tor these heedless enquiries by acting ae-akind" of oracle, and devoting a column to answering all kinds ot questions. Bufcthe reckless idiotcy ot many persona shows itself in a constant fire of such, questions, poured in on the editors of London papers which do not publish answers to correspondents at all. “ Sir, canr you tell me the weight and height of Mr W. G. Grace,” or the names of actors who have married their second cousins, or the best place to buy Christmas presents, orthe date of the vaccination of the Man in. the Iron Mask, or the number of ways iit which a distinguished historian cam spell Edith, or " whether the battle of Waterloo was fought in French or English. “ waters,” an inquiry in which observation detects conscious humour. Such queries as these, and dozens of others on the most minute details of private life, on cures for freckles, on the best way of getting an article accepted by a magazine editor—these are cast into the post-office,, and find their way promptly into the waste-paper basket. Now, the people who write these letters must have eo joyed at least an elementary education, and it is to be presumed that they have eyes in their faces, ifnot, like the lizard, in their heads. Yet it has never stiuck them that the paper which they pester does not pose as Sir Oracle in this kind, and never gives cures for warts, nor advice as to the treatmentof young men whose intentions “ are honourable, but remote.” There is not much to be gained by remonstrating with, the correspondent who is always ashing questions, nor with the other correspondent who writes hopelessly unacceptable letters, and then, weeks after, writes again to say that he desires to have his manuscript returned. Perhaps “ his manuscript may line a box, or serve to curl & maiden’s locks.” It has passed at all: events into the waste-paper basket, and thence has mysteriously disappeared like the Vanishing Lady. There was nothingin the communication that could interest any mortal. Not often does a newspaperr receive from an unknown correspondent: so quaint an epistle as our Birmingham, contemporary prints. There was a correspondence on the “ Mildness of the Season.’* At last came a letter running thus:— “ Dudley, Nov. 2.188 C. —Dear Sir, —To show you the mildness of the season here we have got the bailiffs in.” Only he di<t not say “ bailiffs,” but used a still shorterword, familiar to mariners iu connection with a nautical vivandidre. “ Who was Salamander; wbere can I read about him ? ” asks an anxious inquirer in Leicestershire. Some student of th e history of Costume wants to know “ what a Dutchman wears in his own country,” as if any one understood things like that. “ Explain the meaning of Morganic marriage.” “Morgan ” is a Breton word for a fairy—- “ Fata Morgana ” —and marriages with fairies were very frequently dissolved, osin the case of Melusine v. Lusignan. A Morganic marriage is therefore a marriage that you can get out of. “ Which was supposed to be the most wealthy man, Raphael or Michael Angelo, the great printers?” “What form of corporal punishment do you think would hurt a person least ?” Probably being kicked to death by wild butterflies, but much depends on the person. “ What recalculated to prevent excessive snoring in a person asleep ?” On that subject at least there can be no doubtEveryone knows that to pop tha soap into the mouth of the person who snores excessively is a certain remedy. Of course there is this difficulty, that yon cannot do it to the gentlemen who fall asleep in Clubs. In this case the best opinions differ. Some are in favour of letting alt the fire-irons fall with a clash. That, however, is a mere palliative. Others suggest appealing to the Committee; others areforaccidentally dropping a folio on the head of the victim of extreme snoring; very inhumanly, ask a waiter to call the gentleman early. But it is a melancholy fact that in this stage of progress no means to “ prevent excessive snoring when a person is asleep ” in a Club, in church, at a drawing-room, or a lecture Las yet been discovered. On the other hand, if the person is not asleep, he very seldom, snores. Perhaps the Church should allow marriages contracted with persons given to excessive snoring when asleep to count as Morganic. “ A fresh hardship of thebattlefield,” as the victimised editor saysi " is brought to light in the query, is a young soldier compelled to write to hia mother or not A youth asks “ through the meridian of your valued paper "—meridian is sumptuous—“ whether my writing is good enough for my age, and for SB insurance office.” But he does not his age ! “ Are members of the Royal family,” asks W. 8., “ permitted to commit perjury in any court of justice in this country ?” It is usually done in the Ember days and in the Court of Common Pleas, by •way of keeping up an old custom, datingfrom the time when Henry V., then Prince of Wales, hexed the ears of the Court. An inquirer in Worcester asks, “which holds the highest office, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or the Grand Master of the Oddfellows’ Society.” When Sir Stafford Northcote was said to “have placed a pistol to the head ” of somebody infdebate in the House of Commons (certainly a robust figure of speech) an intelligent artisan wrote to the editor, and asked “if it was a real pistol, as we are very much divided in our opinion on the matter in this manufactory.”
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Bibliographic details
Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 8146, 18 April 1887, Page 3
Word Count
1,032NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENCE. Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 8146, 18 April 1887, Page 3
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