for giving "the news,"
the newspapers turn themselves loose like a pack of wolves upon a lame
horse that has lost its way. And the reason the newspapers do this is
because the people crave the savory morsel.

The newspapers are published by men in business, and the wares they
carry are those in demand: mostly gossip, scandal and defamation. And
humanity is of such a quality that it is not scandalized or shocked by
facts, but by the recital of the facts in the courts or public prints.

* * * * *

The House of Commons, in Eighteen Hundred Ninety, was at last ready to
grant Home Rule to Ireland.

A bill satisfactory to the majority was prepared, and Parnell and
Gladstone, the two strongest men of their respective countries, stood
together in perfect accord. Then it was, in that little interval of
perfect peace, that there came the explosion. Captain O'Shea brought
suit against his wife for divorce. The affair was planned not only to
secure the divorce, but also to do it in the most sensational and
salacious manner. The bill of complaint, a voluminous affair, was really
an alleged biography of Charles Parnell, and placed his conduct in the
most offensive light possible. It recited that for more than ten years
Parnell and Mrs. O'Shea had lived together as man and wife; that they
had traveled together on the Continent under an alias; that Parnell had
shaved off his beard to escape identity; and that the only interval of
virtue that had come to the guilty couple since they first met was when
Parnell was in Kilmainham Jail. The intent of the complaint was plainly
to arouse a storm of indignation against Parnell that would make
progress for any measure he might advocate, quite out of the question.
The landlords were so filled with laughter that they forgot to collect
rent; and the tenants were so amazed and wroth at the fall of their
leader that they cashed up--or didn't, as the case happened. Scandal
filled the air; the newspapers issued extras, and ten million
housewives called the news over back fences.

And now at this distance it is very plain that the fuse was laid and
fired by some one beside Captain O'Shea. The woman who was once his
wife, O'Shea had not seen for five years, and was quite content in the
snug arrangements he had in the interval made for himself.

When the divorce was granted without opposition, Justin McCarthy wrote,
"Charles Stewart Parnell is well hated throughout G