ERRORS OF THE PRESS: AMERICAN NEWS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
9th October 1844.
SIR-In your reference last week to American news, you mention that "a great armed crusade has been got up in States round the little one of Rhode Island, to invade it, or break open the prison of Mr. Dorr," &c. I have reason to suppose that this statement is materially erroneous. A great public meeting had been held in Rhode Island, to make speeches about this Mr. DORR : very silly speeches there may have been ; but 1 think there is no good authority for styling it an "armed crusade," or an "invasion." Several thousands were present ; and in the course of the speechifying there was an idle call in the crowd for a rescue of Dona-which received no response; and even those witnesses most opposed to the object of the meeting represent it as not only " unarmed," but in no respect disorderly. The orators had their say, and the multitude quietly dispersed and went home.
Again, you mention " Governor Ford of New York," as being afraid or unable to enforce the laws, &c. This, of course, was an oversight ; but the im- pression with your readers would be somewhat different, perhaps, if they knew that the person you refer to is the Governor of Illinois, a frontier state, some 800 miles from New York.
I trust you will excuse this liberty, as the proverbial accuracy and fairness of the Spectator give its statements weight and authority.
1 am, Sir, very respectfully,
A CONSTANT READER. P.S. Probably the papers which copied your paragraph will consider this ex- planation as quite unnecessary. [The account by the correspondent of the Times, which we copied into our compendium of news, was certainly calculated to convey the impression that the gathering was intended to rescue DORR by " force and arms "; and at all events, the display of sympathy with an imprisoned violator of the law, in "monster meeting," at which a rescue was confessedly proposed, was indecorous enough. The other correction is more substantial. By some inadvertence we confounded the two Governors; and that flagrant instance of defied law is re- moved to the frontier. We admit the geographical qualification, such as it is.-ED.]
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