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An essay by Caleb Crain, originally published in The New Republic 224 (28 May 2001), pp. 41-48. The essay is a review of The Magnificent Activist: The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1823-1…
Harry Marks of the Financial News testified at a libel trial that he had been on the staff for the New York World during the 1870's, which would have been during Hurlbert's tenure. During the Whitechapel Murders, the Financial News offered £300 toward a reward.
91. GEORGE WASHINGTON BUTTERFIELD was indicted for publishing a false, scandalous, and malicious libel of and concerning Harry Hananel Marks, to which he pleaded a justification that the libel was true in fact, and was published for "the public good.
HARRY HANANEL MARKS. I am one of the chief proprietors of the paper known as the Financial News—I went to America in 1870, and it was there that I became connected with journalism—from 1873 to 1878 I was on the regular staff of the New York World, and acted as New York correspondent for the Chicago Times, and other Western newspapers—some time before July, 1878, I became an occasional contributor to the Jewish Times and Reformer [...]
[...] I went to America at fifteen, alone—my father had friends in New Orleans, and I became a clerk in their house—I had taught here at a school, during a vacation at college, at Dr. Bidlake's, at Islington, only during the vacation—I had had no other business or employment—I went into a wholesale drug house in America; I stayed there till 1872, about a year; the name of the firm was E. J. Hart and Co.—part of the time I did their French and German correspondence, or assisted in it, and the rest of the time I was in the laboratory—from there I went to Texas—my first employment there was as a canvasser for sewing machines, and driver of a mule team for the sewing-machine agent—my next employ-ment was as managing editor of the San Antonio Daily Express—that was during the Presidential campaign in the latter part of 1872—I next became a travelling correspondent for the Galveston Bulletin—I continued that until I returned to New Orleans in March, 1873—in 1873 I joined the staff of the New Orleans Picaune, and remained there till the latter part of 1873—I then went to New York with introductions from the editors I had served, and obtained a position on the staff of the New York World, which I held till 1878—at the beginning, during the Carlist War, I assisted the foreign editor—after that I became the assistant night editor of the paper, and held that for about three years; as far as I re-member those were all the employments I was in till 1878 [...]
I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. With all humility, I think 'whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,' infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbour as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbour; you must be living with your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Odd that Piggott should commit suicide after making a clean breast of it and even escaping. Whilst reading his testimony in MacDonald's diary of the trial, he came across as a survivor.
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