e of party hatred. The most
sensational fictions will be invented to increase the circulation;
Journalism will descend to mountebanks' tricks worthy of Bobeche;
Journalism would serve up its father with the Attic salt of its own wit
sooner than fail to interest or amuse the public; Journalism will outdo
the actor who put his son's ashes into the urn to draw real tears from
his eyes, or the mistress who sacrifices everything to her lover."

"Journalism is, in fact, the People in folio form," interrupted Blondet.

"The people with hypocrisy added and generosity lacking," said Vignon.
"All real ability will be driven out from the ranks of Journalism,
as Aristides was driven into exile by the Athenians. We shall see
newspapers started in the first instance by men of honor, falling sooner
or later into the hands of men of abilities even lower than the
average, but endowed with the resistance of flexibility of india-rubber,
qualities denied to noble genius; nay, perhaps the future newspaper
proprietor will be the tradesman with capital sufficient to buy venal
pens. We see such things already indeed, but in ten years' time every
little youngster that has left school will take himself for a great man,
slash his predecessors from the lofty height of a newspaper column, drag
them down by the feet, and take their place.

"Napoleon did wisely when he muzzled the press. I would wager that the
Opposition papers would batter down a government of their own setting
up, just as they are battering the present government, if any demand
was refused. The more they have, the more they will want in the way
of concessions. The _parvenu_ journalist will be succeeded by the
starveling hack. There is no salve for this sore. It is a kind of
corruption which grows more and more obtrusive and malignant; the wider
it spreads, the more patiently it will be endured, until the day
comes when newspapers shall so increase and multiply in the earth that
confusion will be the result--a second Babel. We, all of us, such as
we are, have reason to know that crowned kings are less ungrateful than
kings of our profession; that the most sordid man of business is not so
mercenary nor so keen in speculation; that our brains are consumed to
furnish their daily supply of poisonous trash. And yet we, all of us,
shall continue to write, like men who work in quicksilver mines, knowing
that they are doomed to die of their trade.

"Look there," he continued, "at that yo