23 OCTOBER 1830, Page 9

NEWSPAPER FOOD FOR CALUMNY.

THE Newspapers inform the Public, that the persons who have diverted themselves by destroying property and injuring indivi- duals with shots' from air:guns are the sons of Lord H. and Sir What can be more stupidly mischievous than this common practice of thus describing, by the initials of their names, persons guilty of misconduct ? The offenders do not merit the reserve ; nor do all who initials chance to he the same, deserve to be brought saeaieion, and to have their characters discussed, as charac- ers always are discussed, with regard to discreditable probabilities. We will venture to say, that there is nut a son of a Lord H. or or Sir C. B. who has not been homed as the author of the wanton outrages ; and in such speculations, any unlucky circumstance or darker shade in a man's character is produced, exaggerated and heightened, to decide the ' probability. There is thus a grand bu!tue of the reputations of all the children of Lords H.s and Sirs C. 13.s, merely in order tiatt the newspapers may pretend to the refined delicacy of sheltering from a distinct exposure persons that are unwei thy of any consideration. Whenever a charge, howsoever improbable, is raised against a man, some of his friends are sure to remark, " It is so like him." In such cases, a person's character is fitted to the suspicion. This is the Procrustean torture of re- putations, fbr which the newspapers furnish the pullies.. . The initials are clearly challenges to guesses, which may fall on the wrong persons,—because they who know the parties meant cannot need the hint of the initials to direct them ; and they who do not know the parties meant, bring under critical and suspicious review all the people whose names come within the letters of the scandal. This is a cruelty- originating- in affectation of delicacy, where delicacy there is none, continue:!, as of newspaper custom, through thoightlessness.