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Editor's Table, January 1852

From: Editor's Table
Creator:  A (author)
Date: January 1852
Publication: The Opal
Source: New York State Library

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We believe our Chapel, at the Asylum, has never been consecrated, or if you please dedicated, and so the anecdote we are going to tell will please be understood as not applying particularly against us. We insert it chiefly for the benefit of those Churches in general, which are accustomed to be appropriated for all sorts of "doings," aside from the object to which they were originally set apart. They are welcome to make the application as may suit them to do.

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As to the anecdote: Once on a time when the "Ethiopians" were in town, they kindly offered their services to the Asylum; which as you know we could not very well decline, we very gladly accepted. Ah, that was a high day when a platform was built over the pulpit, and all the people of "Asylumia" were gathered in the Chapel, to listen to the banjo and instruments and voices accompanying, of our glorious melodists. It takes us folks up here to appreciate good music. Well, after the performance was over, and with merry hearts forgetful of all our ills and aches, were getting down stairs; our good Superintendent chanced to ask one of the wisest and otherwise most remarkable of our number -- "Well -- how did you like the entertainment?" "Oh," said our shrewd brother, "oh, very well, very well, only I thought Doctor, the pulpit looked rather sneaking."

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Editors, we notice, are fond of retailing compliments they receive from their readers -- we don't wish to fill our columns in this way, but the following specimen we cannot very well pass by. The former relations of our correspondent to our institution, will not detract from its interest: "I am very much obliged to my brother and sister Lunatics, for the words of wisdom which drop from their lips, (through the Opal,) and if I do not at times shed tears when thinking of that loved spot, 'tis not because I have not a heart susceptible enough to feel, but only because tears cannot reach what words cannot express. No.1, North, was my home. How pleasant the memory of those months, embittered as they were by my own waywardness. But all was patiently borne, and surely Heaven will reward those under whose care I was."

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The fraternity of Editors, in New-York City, have had a glorious time, we notice, with Brother Kossuth. How we should like to have been there! But the fact was, our duties, and we may add, our privileges too, detained us. We fancy few of the Press are such keepers as home as we. -- The consequence is we rarely have any of those excuses to make about the appearance of our sheet that some editors indulge in. -- As the Sophomore observed, we are "semper paratus -- always."

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Surely, no one who has read the Opal can have slighted the original and striking "Reflections on American Law," which we have published in successive numbers. We have "a few more of the same sort left," but lest our readers should think we were keeping them in too deep water, we shall have to forbear for the present. Papers, so profound, require time for consideration; witness the following sentence from a No. not yet published: "I will not expatiate upon this suggestion, because I believe that self-evident facts require little testimony, and when useful and important, should be cordially received, on sufficient examination, as a means of assuaging more necessary and complicated elaboration, and applying the best susceptibilities of industrious occupation with the most reasonable and abounding hopes of corresponding satisfactory and pleasing returns." Unless our columns should be otherwise occupied, we shall not fail to present our readers with occasional specimens of observations so lucid and important.

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We hope, also, that our "Foreign Correspondence" will be appreciated by the readers of the Opal. They will have marked the freshness that characterizes it. Few of our contemporaries, we imagine, enjoy such facilities for the speedy transmission of letters from abroad as we have an arrangement which, for our purpose, nearly or quite supersedes the convenience of a Trans-Atlantic Telegraph. Our Correspondent dates from Turin, the present month. By another, we should not wonder if he had passed over to Vienna and St. Petersburgh, to report the effect of the last advices from the Kossuth celebrations upon the money market. -- Should he have any personal interviews with their majesties, Joseph and Nicholas he will report the conversation in full.

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The thought has just struck us, that we have not said our full say -- that we have a few words for our patrons, exchanges, and the public generally, including of course "all the world and the rest of mankind and we won't stop till it is out. It is whispered in certain quarters of the outer world and thought in many others where it is not whispered, that the Opal, being the production of cracked brains, may not prove very reliable, but, by and by, bolt the track, and leave its readers in mental darkness. Now we, and we ought to know, say that no such thing will happen. Some delay has occurred in the getting out of this number, but hereafter we hope to issue it promptly on the 1st day of each month. We shall continue to send to all our old exchanges, and shall be glad to place many more new ones upon our list. The Opal will be sent to all who desire an exchange.

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