6 



who from a more or less higher stand-point lays down the law to 

 his fellows, the American editor is like a man standing chatting on 

 equal terms with his neighbours. As an illustration of the free- 

 and-easy terms upon which they stand, I quote a Httle notice in 

 which the editor of a Memphis paper announces the forthcoming 

 marriage of one of his assistants. The account is headed, " Our 

 strong arm cleaned out by Cupid," and concludes with the hope 

 that the lady will "curl his ambrosial locks for him." While, 

 then, the extinction of a paper in England is an event always more 

 or less worthy of notice, papers in America come and go without 

 remark. In the city of Sacramento, out of seventy-nine papers 

 that had been started during the previous twenty-six years, there 

 were at the time I was there only thirteen remaining, and now 

 perhaps not so many. Now, men of this sort, who have no special 

 qualifications for the work themselves, and of course are not in a 

 position to command it from others, are men who so far from 

 assisting to keep up the standard of the language, tend rather to 

 degrade it. These are the men who have no scruple in coining 

 any word that suits them. "A store was burglarised^'' "a body 

 was resurrected" "a man dilitated on his journey," &c. This, 

 however, is only a passing phase ; for as these towns rise in wealth 

 and population, we may be sure that journalism of a higher class 

 will not lag behind in the advance ; and meantime, from one point 

 of view, it is an honourable characteristic of the Americans, that 

 they will have a Press of some sort ; indifferent it may be, but still 

 the best that they can get. 



I have already made the remark that the changes which have 

 taken place in the language of late, and, I may add, those which are 

 foreshadowed in the future, come not from the mother country, 

 but from America. And on this point it is worthy of note that we 

 do not seem to have adopted any of the older words formed in 

 America, before the intercourse between the two countries became 

 such as it is now. But the new words which come to the front in 

 America at the present, seem mostly to find their way into English 

 speech. One of the last words which we have adopted from them 

 is collide^ which certainly avoids a periphrasis. We now say, 



