Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/224

 concerning various manners and customs of the present day. For one example, consider the following:

"The amount of pure and almost spontaneous malevolence in the world is probably far greater than we at first imagine No one, for example, can study the anonymous press, without perceiving how large a part of it is employed systematically, persistently and deliberately in fostering class, or individual or international hatreds, and often in circulating falsehoods to attain this end. Many newspapers notoriously depend for their existence on such appeals, and more than any other instruments, they inflame and perpetuate those permanent animosities which most endanger the peace of mankind. The fact that such newspapers are becoming in many countries the main and almost exclusive reading of the million, forms the most serious deduction from the value of modern education."

Let it be noted, once and for all, that it is not the present writer who thus speaks of "the anonymous press," but the experienced, brilliant and unprejudiced scholar who was among the first to hold the King's "Order of Merit." And so once again to our muttons:—

"Some of the very worst acts of which man can be guilty are acts which are commonly untouched by law, and only faintly censured by opinion. Political crimes, which a false and sickly sentiment so readily condones, are conspicuous among them. Men who have been gambling for wealth and power with the lives and fortunes of multitudes; men who for their own personal ambition are prepared