EDITOR'S TABLE. 



699 



two or three articles drawing attention 

 to the great evil which must undoubted- 

 ly be wrought by the highly colored 

 and vigorously expressed representa- 

 tions of vice and criminality with 

 which most of our daily papers teem. 

 That such matter is read with avidity 

 by a large class of the population is 

 only too true; and with the average 

 publisher, unfortunately, no other Justi- 

 fication is needed for serving it up in 

 unlimited measure and with the most 

 piquant flavorings that his able " young 

 men " can devise. Apart from the 

 elaborate reporting of vicious and crim- 

 inal actions, the press gives a large por- 

 tion of its space to personalities of a 

 very trivial character, which in their 

 way exert almost as hurtful an influence 

 as the more sensational matter. Noth- 

 ing is more directly or fundamentally 

 opposed to anything like nobility of 

 nature than undue occupation of the 

 mind with personal trifles, particularly 

 when it takes the form of a prying 

 curiosity regarding the private affairs 

 of others. Anything more vulgar than 

 the desire so widely manifested to tear 

 aside the veils which persons who, in 

 certain capacities, are obliged to come 

 more or less before the public eye wish 

 very naturally to draw over their pri- 

 vate lives, could not well be imagined. 

 Yet papers which in some respects de- 

 serve commendation make the very liv- 

 ing of their reporters depend on the 

 success they are able to achieve in this 

 terrible business of destroying a lawful 

 privacy, and encouraging the public 

 to gaze with shameless intrusiveness 

 upon scenes and incidents and senti- 

 ments with which they have nothing 

 whatever to do, and which ought to he 

 kept as inviolate as a letter in the 

 mails. 



The question of responsibility for 

 the evil done to the community in these 

 ways is one that is dismissed too light- 

 ly by those on whom it rests. True, 

 within the limits within which most 

 papers confine their operations, there is I 



no civil tribunal that can interfere with 

 them. Still, the question is a haunting 

 one, " Am I or am I not, for a pecuni- 

 ary consideration, inflicting deliberate- 

 ly and with full knowledge an injury 

 upon society ? " Granted that large 

 numbers are craving for a depraved nu- 

 triment, is a man justified in meeting 

 such a demand ? If so, the thing may 

 be carried further, and, however vi- 

 cious the indulgence sought, the mere 

 fact that there is a demand will justify 

 him who undertakes to supply it. Yet 

 there are trades from which many pub- 

 lishers whose journals are highly sensa- 

 tional would shrink. It is a question, 

 evidently, as to where the line should 

 be drawn ; and it is a great pity that 

 enterprising journalists can not see their 

 way to drawing it a little nearer to 

 sound morals and public duty. 



The fact we have to face to-day is 

 that an agency of unlimited range and 

 influence exists for the popularization 

 of evil, for filling the imagination of 

 young and old with everything that is 

 most unprofitable and pernicious from 

 a moral and social point of view tales 

 of unbridled license, of violence and 

 revenge, of selfishness and fraud. The 

 same journals that contain this noxious 

 stuff may also contain able editorial arti- 

 cles, and other more or less useful read- 

 ing matter; but how many read the able 

 editorials compared with the number of 

 those who fasten chiefly or exclusively 

 upon the gossip and the crime? Be the 

 proportion or disproportion what it may, 

 can the fact that a portion of the paper 

 consists of good and useful matter fur- 

 nish any defense for filling the rest of 

 it with poisonous matter? "Mr. Henry 

 Wood, in an article in The Arena on The 

 Psychology of Crime, cites very appo- 

 sitely the apostolic injunction, " What- 

 soever things are true, honest, just, 

 pure, lovely, and of good report," to 

 "think on these things," and contrasts 

 it with the invitation constantly held 

 out by the press to drench the mind 

 with thoughts of whatever is false, dis- 



