Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/36



possible material for the accessory furniture of a battleship.

"A day or two after, a quiet answer in the House of Commons from Mr. Goschen informed the limited public who read it, that no fire whatever had occurred on the occasion so graphically described by the host of Press correspondents.

"The events dealt with on these occasions took place in our own country, and under our own eyes, so to speak. If such untrue reports are set forth with the verisimilitude of accurate and detailed personal description of eye-witnesses, what are we to say of the truth in the reports of events occurring at a distance?

"Special knowledge, special experience long continued, speaking under a sense of responsibility, are set at nought. The regular channels of information are neglected, and the conduct of affairs is based on newspaper reports. Any private business conducted and managed on these lines would be immediately ruined. The business of the Empire is more important, and the results of its mismanagement are more serious. For how long will it be possible to continue its management, trusting to the light thrown on events by an irresponsible Press?"

The "irresponsibility" here complained of comes out perhaps more often and most glaringly in those papers which profess to chronicle the sayings and doings of kings and queens, prime ministers, and personages more or less well known in the world of art, letters and society. In nine cases out of ten,