NEWSPAPER NUTRIMENT.
MriN the politico-economical dancing-master at Dr. Elimber's breaking-up party in Dombey, asks Mr. Toots, "What will you do with your raw materials when they come into your ports in return for your drain of gold ?" that gentleman, it will be remembered, replied with the promptitude and simplicity of a truly human instinct, " Cook 'em." "Raw" material seems to be tolerated to a very limited extent by civilized feelings, whether in physical or mental diet; the first impulse in any human agent being always to give some artistic or artificial form to that which he offers to his fellow-men for their consumption. Hence, newspapers, which would appear to have been intended only as mere channels or canals to collect and distribute the knowledge of passing events, are distinguished the one from the other, much less by the amount and quality of their "raw material" of news, than by the principle on. which it is selected, and the artifice
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or art with which it is prepared ;—the element of news itself being, even in some instances, so completely worked up into a more refined unity as to be scarcely distinguishable among the modifying and flavouring adjuncts. Hence the utility of occasionally analyzing these highly artificial products, as the chemists do our elaborate forms of food, into their original elements, and trying to deter- mine how much is still nutritive, how much adulteration, and how much permissible and agreeable stimulant. Mr. Blanchard Jerrold read the other day an elaborate dissertation on newspaper influences before the Social Science Association in Dublin, which had some such end in view. But he gave little attention to the important fact to which we have alluded, that there is a large class of neivspapers in which the news is entirely swallowed up in the treatment.. And we will, accordingly, go over the same ground, from a rather different point of view.
Eminent physiologists analyze food into several distinct elements, none of which, however, is found entirely isolated in any actual form of human food, but usually, at least, is combined with some of the others ; thus they tell us of the " flesh-formers," which supply the "tissues" of the body, such as albumen, fibrin, and the like; the heat-givers, or fuel, which, like starch, sugar, or butter, yield, by coin. bastion, the stock of animal warmth; and the merely auxiliary solids and liquids, like condiments, stimulants, or narcotics, which act only, if at all, on the nerves. They surprise us by the most unexpected criticisms on various time-honoured forms of nourishment, announcing that jelly and arrowroot, in spite of their ostentatiously nutritive and sustaining appearance, contain no potentialities of "tissue" at all; that the despised cheese contains most of all, if only human digestions were equal to the task of extorting it from that very concentrated and reserved nature ; and other physiological truths of the same high kind which, to the light of mere nature, are apt to seem paradoxical. Perhaps a careful study of the analogous properties of our political and social food may yield some similar results. We must leave to others the deeper scientific aspects of this great question, but we can, perhaps, strike out a few luminous hints for profounder analysts to follow out.
The actual basis of the social and political fabrics, the "tissue- forming" elements of newspaper nourishment, must be regarded as the ultimate amount of true scientific knowledge on social and political subjects which our journals disseminate; the heat-giving food is, we suppose, the bulky party-convictions which, in under- going the process of political combustion, are made to yield up a wholesome vital warmth to the social constitution; while the non- essential but very important condiments, stimulants, and sedatives, arc those extraneous exciting influences, whether of wit, humour, caustic power, or mere startling sensations, which add nothing to the political substance or warmth, while doing so much to irritate the appetites of readers. Almost all newspapers, we suppose, like almost all foods, aim at combining at least some of all these various elements, but so many of them give striking prominence to some one as to belong to a special type. Thus there are a few journals which aim at providing mere tasteless concentrated political or statis- tical aliment, which, like the Gazelles, or the Mining Journal, or the Price Current, contain plenty of hard, indisputable, scientific certainty, but which, like the " caseme" in a Suffolk cheese, are by no means digestible in large quantities. On the other hand, there are the milky papers, as we may call them, like Chambers's Journal or the Leisure Hour, which provide a highly soluble and digestible compound in minute quantities of all the essentials of political and social nutri- ment for the young. " That milk is a type of all food," says Dr. Laukester, "is found in the fact that the young of all the higher main- malia arc fed on this food for several months, many of them for above a year, and get no other article of diet. During this period they grow very rapidly and increase in size, consequently they must have obtained all that which constitutes their muscle, their nerve, their bone, and every other tissue from the milk they take as food; hence milk is worthy of our study." And, accordingly, we are told it contains 5 per cent. of tissue-forming substance, 8 per cent, of heat-supplying fuel, 1 per cent, of mineral, and 86 per cent. of water. This, we sup- pose, represents fairly the components of philanthropic journals in- tended for political adolescents, except that the stimulus is omitted. There is some fact, chiefly weak historical solutions, census curiosities and the like ; some germs of party conviction, very guarded, indicat- ing the liberal or conservative aims of the instructor; and some in- fusion of a little artificial stimulus in the way of thrilling narrative. There are a few journals intended for adults which aim at this rather invalid diet,—the attractive stimulus being pictures or popular science.
But these are, after all, scarcely to be called newspapers. The commonest forms of newspaper-food for grown-up people are usually exposed to much more danger of adulteration and degeneration. The
great temptation is to combine the "heat-giving" element of party-facts and convictions with gross stimulus, to the exclusionof impartial truths and fair argument. The American, Irish, and many of the so-called " religions" journals, are very liable to this danger. The disposition of such journals is to select principally such facts, or appearances of facts as are susceptible of a party-drift,—political " fuel" useful only when burnt up in fair party-conflict,—and to treat them copiously with coarse condiment and the stimuli's of exciting writing.. If you try to live on "starch, sugar, or butter," says the physiologist, "you try to live on animal heat without any nutriment; the potato diet is chiefly starch, combined with a very small proportion of real nourish- ment ; it has much heat but little aliment." Such papers as the Nation and the New York Herald consist entirely of this potato and whisky diet, party-heat and sensation stimulants. On the other hand, the starch of sectarian zeal, and the "oil, sugar, and butter" of pharisaic unction, are the main constituents of such religious and sectarian newspapers as the Union and the Record. No nutriment, but much animal heat, may be generated from such sources. The results, to the constitution, of indulging inphysical over- stimulus are set forth by physiologists with eloquent language, very appropriate to this kindred danger. The American people especially might take to heart their warnings as all but literally applicable to the effects produced by their Sensation journals. The first great danger we are warned of for habitual stimulant-takers is "a fatty degeneration of the tissues." The medical officer of the Anglo- Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company, in Martin Chuzzlewit, justly observes that "in Mr. Crimple's leg, where
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Mr. Crimple's knee fits into the socket—that is to say, between the bone and the socket—there is a certain portion of animal oil. if Mr. Crimple neglects his meals, that oil wanes and becomes ex- hausted. Mr. Crimple's bones sink down into the socket, and Mr. Crimple becomes a weazen puny stunted miserable man." But the opposite view of the case is more commonly insisted on now. The "fattening effect of small doses of alcohol," says Dr. Lankester, is attributed to its " setting free certain fatty matters dissolved in the blood," which are then arrested by the adipose tissue." Such "fatty degeneration of the tissues" would appear to describe very accurately the present state of the American political constitution, chiefly due, we imagine, to the constant over-stimulus applied by the Sensation-newspapers. Let any one take up a communication of Manhattan's to the Standard, and lie will meet with evidence in the first half-dozen lines of that diseased and greasy puffiness of mind,— that unctuous worship of wealth and power,—that late-de:foie-gra: style of thought,—which comes from all the lower organs of the American mob. What amount of "fatty degeneration of the tissues" in America do not such writings as the following of " Manhattan's," for instance, imply ?— " Washington is a vile nest, and to destroy it would be a national blessing. News all goes to it from New York. It has none of its own. Even had this war been conducted from New York it would have been put down long ago. The people in charge at Washington are totally unfit to manage anything. Poor Lincoln is nearly a maniac, overwhelmed with trouble. One moment he talks wildly, and cries like a child; in another he goes into violent hysteria, and has to take composing draughts of a powerful strength. This would not happen in New York city. Here he would meet with men of intellect and patriotism; there he is surrounded by mercenary thieves, and men without character or knowledge."
" The want of a proper controlling influence of the nervous centres," says Dr. Lankester, speaking of the result. of over-stimulus, "is seen in the trembling hands and stumbling gait. The brain, though over excited, is under nourished. Giddiness also frequently occurs in any sudden movement. The intellectual functions are sometimes greatly disturbed; the feelings also are blunted and per- verted." Is not this a description of American political society ?
But, besides these grosser degenerations of newspaper-food, there are more refined forms in which the nutritive element is almost en- tirely lost, from the predominance given to the more delicate intellec- tual flavours. The influences of food on the nervous system are by no means purely stimulant. There is a class of beverages which give little of either nourishment or heat, and retard instead of stimulating nervous excitement. They consist of sedative agents, "theme" or "caffeine," and the aromatic oils, which give the peculiar flavour to these elements. These things have no alimentary effect—they are as purely nervous influences as alcohol; but they are more welcome to the purely intellectual as dispelling instead of stimu- lating sensitive excitement. These, too, have their analogues in the world of newspaper nutriment. "Theme," we are told, is " conservative of tissue," and prevents its destruction. This effect, says the eminent physiologist, "is not always healthful or desirable." "All healthy life depends on the destruction of tissue, and to prevent this is to preserve old stuff instead of new,—to work with bad and imperfect materials when fresh and new ones might be Qbtained." This is a tolerably accurate description of the kind of influence exerted by the educated conservatism of the Saturday Review,—a paper by which no nutriment and no political heat of any kind is generated, but which trusts to its sedative influences and the aromatic oil of its wit, or the acidulated flavour of its criticism, to fascinate its readers. In this critical acid is even a closer tie of analogy to these sedatives. The most powerful accessory element in tea, says Dr. Lankester, is tannic acid, winch he thus describes : "The action of tannic acid on the tissues is seen in the effect produced on the numerous membranes of the mouth when it is introduced. There is no sour flavour, but the mouth is, as it were, drawn up.' This is what is called an astringent effect. Such an action, in a slight degree, is not unpleasant. The effect is more obvious when the tea has neither sugar nor milk." The nutriment held in solution by this kind of fluid is not, we are told, " easy of digestion." The aromatic oil and acid are sought for their own sakes purely ;—they
render the " food taken with it difficult of digestion." Here we reach the euthanasia of the newspaper,—the form in which all politi- cal information or nourishment is merged in the flavour of subtle and caustic accessories.
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