Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/31

 impetus to the paper on which he is employed, he gets up a little bit of speculative melodrama, such as "German Malignity," "Russian Trickery," "Mysterious Movements of the Fleet," "French Insult to the King," "America's Secret Treaty," or "Alarming Eastern Rumours." He is perhaps not in any way departing from his own special line of business if he counts on the general gullibility of the public, though in this matter he is often liable to be himself gulled. For the public have been so frequently taken in by mere "sensationalism" in war news and the like, that they are beginning to view all such rumours with more contempt than credence. Nevertheless the ambitious little Press boys (for they are only boys in their lack of discernment, whatever may be their external appearance as grown men) do not deserve so much reproof for their hot-headed, impulsive and thoughtless ways as the personages set in authority over them, whose business it is to edit their "copy" before passing it on to the printers. They are the responsible parties,—and when they forget the dignity of their position so much as to allow a merely jejune view of the political situation to appear in their journals, under flamboyant headlines which catch the eye and ensnare the attention of the more or less uninstructed crowd, one naturally deplores the lapse of their honourable duty. For in this way a great deal of harm may be done and endless misunderstanding and mischief created. It is quite wrong and wholly unpatriotic that the newspapers of any country should strive to foster ill-feeling between conflicting nations or political parties. When they engage in this kind of petty strife one