Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1880 — Newspaper Slander. [ARTICLE]

Newspaper Slander.

A journalist has the same right to assail the private character of a citizen that a highwayman has to attack and cudgel the unarmed man who walks the streets, and no more. Of the twp, the malignant, and unscrupulous journalist and the man with a slung-shot, the former is the worst, from the tact that the wounds given by him have in.them a virus that do not heal. This dves not mean that honest iournalism should cease to antagonize every crime of individuals against the public, for as long as newspaper articles are backed up by facts, they are safe protectors of society. Wheu they leave this honored path, and nose around for possible scandal, catching up the barest threads of truth and winding them arouag their victim, they are simply “busy-bodies.” described in the sacred Word as having “tongues set on fires of hell.” A gossip in any neighborhood can keep the whole community in an uproar and by the ears, and a newspaper, with the ears ot iu editor ever eager for a whisper of slander, will keep a oommunity anxious, while a thousand good things will be passed unnoticed. The tongue has always been an unruly member, and protection from its venom is more difficult than from the bludgeon of the highwayman.

Jere Dunn, for cruelty to animals in driving the hone Crockett beyond his limit of physical capacity in the late race between men and horses at Chicago, was fined $25 in a justice oourt. . Mn. Polly McClure, aged SO, while crossing the track of the Short Line rail?Si££d V fcSSi: Ky -’ ,w " nmo,erb7 The body of Peter* Woodland, the foreman who perished with nineteen others when the Hndaon river tunnel caved in. has beep, recovered. (