INDISCREET JOURNALISM.

The Cortland News, Friday, April 6, 1883.

Indiscreet Journalism.

   Many severe criticisms upon the impudence of journalism were provoked last week by the exposure of family affairs caused by the publication in the Cortland Standard of the last wills and codicils of three prominent citizens of our town. When a weak or gossiping man gets charge of a newspaper he seems generally to think that nothing is too sacred for exposure, providing it will aid him in the sales of his paper. It is an unfortunate fact for the journalistic profession.

   An editor has no more right in morals, whatever may be the law, to publish to the world the wills of deceased men without the consent of the families interested than he has to stand under a window and eavesdrop and publish the private interviews of the family.

   When a man makes his will he has reasons of his own for giving to one and withholding from another. He does not express those reasons in his will, and if he did it would be none of the business of the public. If those reasons are sufficient to satisfy his judgment and conscience, that is all that is required. The public has nothing to do with it and has no right to meddle with it. He may have a prodigal son, to whom he knows that money would be a curse. He is not amenable to trial in a newspaper because he withholds from that prodigal. After he has made a will he may see good reasons for changing it by a codicil. The world has no right to sit in judgment upon the act, perchance to curse his memory when he cannot be heard in self-defense. He may while alive have provided amply for his widow or a portion of his heirs and in his will have evened it up with the others. If his will is to be paraded before the public, how is the testator to defend his act in discriminating between the natural objects of his bounty?

   Many other considerations suggest themselves to any thinking man to condemn this uncalled for thrusting of private family matters before the public. And the publication of the three wills in question is as good an illustration of the impropriety of the act as could well be given. Here were three prominent, high-minded, honorable men. Each lived with his second wife. There were two sets of children in each case. Their circumstances varied, their necessities varied, and they were not like other families if their deserts did not vary. The testator knew what the public cannot as to what was equitable between them.

   By what right were they held up in a newspaper for public discussion and condemnation or commendation? The editor of the Standard has done his share of stirring up the living since he came to this town. Can't he be induced to keep his hand off the dead?

Protest and Explanation.

To the Editor of The News:

   SIR: I was last week made a party to a proceeding which has been freely and severely criticised in this community, and by no one more honestly than by myself. I allude to the publication in the Cortland Standard of abstracts from certain instruments and records in the Surrogate's office. In my judgment it would be neither necessary nor proper for me to offer the public an explanation of my connection with that enterprise were I alone to be affected by it; but when convinced, as I thoroughly am, that a generous and delicate consideration of my feelings restrains Judge Smith from authorizing you to publish the fact of his absence from town on the day those abstracts were secured, then clearly my course remains no longer optional—I see that it is no longer possible for me to preserve both silence and self-respect.

   On the day in question Judge Smith was attending Special Term at Binghamton, and I, to accommodate him, had left my own office and was taking general charge of affairs in his. During the afternoon a young man, a stranger to me, called and courteously stated that he would like to copy a portion of a certain will which very recently had been placed on file. Supposing him to be an heir or legatee of the testator, I handed him the will, supplied him with pen, ink and paper, and further aided him to the extent of deciphering a few words which he was unable to make out. He then asked to see a certain other will. The original was not shown him, but I opened to the record and he copied from that. He examined a third, made copy, and went away.

   I gave the matter no further thought until I learned with surprise and chagrin of the unpardonable use which had been made of those abstracts. I did not at the time, nor do I now, understand that duty required me to catechize that young man concerning his motives, or that it permitted me, as a public servant, to decline to allow him to take extracts from any and all instruments which the law directs to be filed or recorded in the office of the Surrogate of the county. Yet an opinion seems to prevail with very many that a breach of public trust has been committed. It remains for me to say that if such be the case I alone am responsible for it, and not Judge Smith. 
Respectfully,

ELIOT GLOVER.

CORTLAND AND VICINITY.

   Carnival next week.

   The McGuire's on the 2d evening of the Orris Hose fair will be immense. Sew your buttons on tight.

   The postoffice was removed Monday night to its new quarters in the [Standard] block corner Main and Tompkins streets.

   Miss Josie Fical has changed her rooms for dress-making from the Schermerhorn block to Union Hall block.

   A right good time, is the verdict of all who attended the maple sugar party at the M. E. church Wednesday evening.

   Mr. F. N. Harrington last week met with a loss which he will probably find it difficult to replace—that of one of his magnificent span of bay horses.

   Mr. Moses Rowley is stocking his farm with lull-blooded Jersey and Guernsey cattle. In a few days he is to receive a couple of fine Jerseys from Vermont.

   Adam Forepaugh's great [circus] show exhibits one week in Philadelphia, beginning on the 16th of April, and then start on its summer tour through northern States.

   Dan Rice, the well-known circus manager, is with Nathans & Co.'s Consolidated Shows, and an illustrated circular lately received from him announces, "I am Coming."

   Mr. A. Rosenbaum, of Cobleskill, N. Y., has leased the store of P. Sugerman in Masonic Hall block for a term of years and will continue the business of selling gents' clothing, hats, caps and furnishing goods. See local notices.

   We are requested by the corporation health officer, who at present is Dr. Chas. Bennett, to inform our citizens that the State law requiring that a permit for the burial of a corpse shall first be obtained of such officer must be carried out in every instance.

   The Dryden Herald in its account of the Teachers' Institute says that "’Elements Which Constitute Good Public Schools,’ was the subject of Prof. Hoose's lecture Thursday evening. In his practical, off-hand, inimitable way every minute of his hour was given to saying something that hears better than it reads. A fragmentary report would not do the speaker justice."

   The difference between the former location of the postoffice in the center [Court Street] of the village and where it is now, in the southern part, is over 500 feet. The majority of our business men call at that office from three to five times each day. Those living north of Court street and going to the postoffice three times will, in the course of a year, travel nearly 200 miles. And the fact that this compulsory exercise may possibly strengthen the muscles of their legs will not lessen feelings of indignation toward those who have been instrumental in procuring the removal of the postoffice.

   A disagreement exists, we believe, between the two leading secret societies as to which is older in origin. The Masons claim that Free Masonry was established at the building of Solomon's temple; some going back even farther than that—when, at the erection of the tower of Babel, the confusion of tongues induced the masons to band together with signs and grips that they might know each other. But Masons will have to give it up as the first Odd Fellow existed before the flood:

You may talk of your mythical Hiram of Tyre,

Of rites Eleusinian boastingly bellow;

The first-born of woman we claim as our sire.

For the land that he went to made Cain a Nod-fellow.

   The Cortland Democrat says that it is stated on good authority that 600 new houses will go up there this season.—Moravia Republican. In the issue of THE NEWS of Jan. 26 was an item stating that "contracts for 200 houses to be erected the coming season in this village have already been made." This statement was copied by several of our exchanges, but in the course of its travels the figure 2 became changed to 6, and in that shape reached the Democrat. As the erection of 600 houses is equivalent to an increase from 2,000 to 3,000 population, which would be a big yearly addition even to so large a city as Syracuse, or to a town in a newly discovered gold field, the absurdity of the statement in regard to so old and small a village as this is apparent.

   Mr. Granville Jewett has bought a lot on Madison street and will build a house thereon the coming season.

   The old postoffice room is being fitted up for Mr. T. B. Capron, who now occupies a store in Taylor Hall block.

   Fancy articles for the Carnival and Fair, which will open on Tuesday evening, April 10, at Taylor Hall, may be left with C. F. Brown at the store of Brown & Maybury, on or before Monday evening next.

   Mahan's Musical Festival (9th year) will be held at Taylor Hall, Cortland, June 12, 13, 14 and 15, 1883. Dr. H. R. Palmer will again conduct the chorus work. Mr. Mahan will soon go to New York and Boston to engage some of the leading soloists to assist, and will spare no pains or expense to make the coming Festival a grand success.

   Mr. A. Mahan's new addition to his piano, organ and sewing machine warerooms is now completed, making one of the handsomest show-rooms in town, and one of the most complete establishments of the kind in the State. An extensive stock of all the leading and most reliable makes of pianos; organs and sewing machines may be found at Mr. Mahan's warerooms, and his knowledge of the trade from many years' experience and heavy purchases from first hands for cash enables him to distance all competitors. No one should buy a piano, organ or sewing machine without first calling at this establishment.

   If the editor of the Standard, who last week so officiously notified us that Hon. Wm. B. Ruggles had been elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction, will read THE NEWS of March 16, he will see that we made the statement in that issue—the first one after said election. Intending to pay our respects to Mr. Ruggles when he took possession of the office, we mentioned only the mere fact in that issue. The new Superintendent assumed the duties of the office on Tuesday, and, though we have the pleasure of presenting Mr. Ruggles to our readers this week in a more extended article elsewhere, we here assure the enemies of the Normal schools, and especially those who for the last three years have been trying to ruin our noble and cherished institution, that Mr. Ruggles is an able and honorable man, and that those, who, like the editor of the Standard, see in his election the overthrow of the Normal school system of the State, will find that they have laughed too quickly and counted a good many chickens that will never hatch.

   A serious railroad accident, in which Frank C. Welch, a son of Benjamin Welch, of Cortlandville, and a nephew and former clerk of S. E. Welch, of this village, was badly injured and 51 out of 127 passengers more or less so, but none killed, occurred last Friday morning near Mason's Station, Ky., about 40 miles from Cincinnati, Ohio, on the Cincinnati Southern Railroad. The train was ten minutes behind time and the engineer was running it at a speed of sixty miles an hour, when, in going around a curve, the cars were thrown from the track and down a fifty-foot embankment, one of the cars being so badly smashed as to preclude the possibility of repairing it. Mr. Welch was accompanied by his wife, to whom he was married on the 6th of March in Florida, where both had spent the winter, and was on his way to her home in Cleveland. He got his wife out of the ruins and after assisting all the others in the car, was taken with a fainting fit, when it was found that he was seriously cut about the head and that blood was flowing freely from his wounds. For seven or eight hours he lay in an unconscious condition, and doubts were expressed that he would survive. Mrs. Welch was much hurt and lamed, but not seriously so. B. A. Benedict, Esq., who left Cortland the day previous for Cleveland, where he was to transact business for Mrs. Welch, proceeded to Williamstown, near the scene of the accident and where the wounded had been taken. He returned Wednesday morning and reported Mrs. Welch as being able to wait on her husband, though suffering much from her injuries, and Mr. Welch slowly improving but not out of danger.