_ In taking upon myself the burden of editing a department in THE GALAXY
magazine, I have been actuated by a conviction that I was needed, almost
imperatively, in this particular field of literature. I have long felt
that while the magazine literature of the day had much to recommend it,
it yet lacked stability, solidity, weight. It seemed plain to me that
too much space was given to poetry and romance, and not enough to
statistics and agriculture. This defect it shall be my earnest endeavour
to remedy. If I succeed, the simple consciousness that I have done a
good deed will be a sufficient reward.**--[**Together with salary.]
In this department of mine the public may always rely upon finding
exhaustive statistical tables concerning the finances of the country,
the ratio of births and deaths; the percentage of increase of population,
etc., etc.--in a word, everything in the realm of statistics that can
make existence bright and beautiful.
Also, in my department will always be found elaborate condensations of
the Patent Office Reports, wherein a faithful endeavour will at all times
be made to strip the nutritious facts bare of that effulgence of
imagination and sublimity of diction which too often mar the excellence
of those great works.**--[** N. B.--No other magazine in the country
makes a specialty of the Patent Office Reports.]
In my department will always be found ample excerpts from those able
dissertations upon Political Economy which I have for a long time been
contributing to a great metropolitan journal, and which, for reasons
utterly incomprehensible to me, another party has chosen to usurp the
credit of composing.
And, finally, I call attention with pride to the fact that in my
department of the magazine the farmer will always find full market
reports, and also complete instructions about farming, even from the
grafting of the seed to the harrowing of the matured crop. I shall throw
a pathos into the subject of Agriculture that will surprise and delight
the world.
Such is my programme; and I am persuaded that by adhering to it with
fidelity I shall succeed in materially changing the character of this
magazine. Therefore I am emboldened to ask the assistance and
encouragement of all whose sympathies are with Progress and Reform.
In the other departments of the magazine will be found poetry, tales, and
other frothy trifles, and to these the reader can turn for relaxation
from time to time, and thus guard against overstraining the powers of his
mind.
M. T.
P. S.--1. I have not sold out of the "Buffalo Express," and shall not;
neither shall I stop writing for it. This remark seems necessary in a
business point of view.
2. These MEMORANDA are not a "humorous" department. I would not conduct
an exclusively and professedly humorous department for any one. I would
always prefer to have the privilege of printing a serious and sensible
remark, in case one occurred to me, without the reader's feeling obliged
to consider himself outraged. We cannot keep the same mood day after
day. I am liable, some day, to want to print my opinion on
jurisprudence, or Homeric poetry, or international law, and I shall do
it. It will be of small consequence to me whether the reader survive or
not. I shall never go straining after jokes when in a cheerless mood, so
long as the unhackneyed subject of international law is open to me.
I will leave all that straining to people who edit professedly and
inexorably "humorous" departments and publications.
3. I have chosen the general title of MEMORANDA for this department
because it is plain and simple, and makes no fraudulent promises. I can
print under it statistics, hotel arrivals, or anything that comes handy,
without violating faith with the reader.
4. Puns cannot be allowed a place in this department. Inoffensive
ignorance, benignant stupidity, and unostentatious imbecility will always
be welcomed and cheerfully accorded a corner, and even the feeblest
humour will be admitted, when we can do no better; but no circumstances,
however dismal, will ever be considered a sufficient excuse for the
admission of that last--and saddest evidence of intellectual poverty, the
Pun. _