d not be in the hands
of the ablest men, accomplished scholars, philosophical observers,
discriminating selectors of the news of the world that is worth thinking
over and talking about. The editorial comments frequently are able
enough, but is it worth while keeping an expensive mill going to grind
chaff? I sometimes wonder, as I open my morning paper, if nothing did
happen in the twenty-four hours except crimes, accidents, defalcations,
deaths of unknown loafers, robberies, monstrous births,--say about the
level of police-court news.

OUR NEXT DOOR. I have even noticed that murders have deteriorated; they
are not so high-toned and mysterious as they used to be.

THE FIRE-TENDER. It is true that the newspapers have improved vastly
within the last decade.

HERBERT. I think, for one, that they are very much above the level of
the ordinary gossip of the country.

THE FIRE-TENDER. But I am tired of having the under-world still occupy
so much room in the newspapers. The reporters are rather more alert for
a dog-fight than a philological convention. It must be that the good
deeds of the world outnumber the bad in any given day; and what a good
reflex action it would have on society if they could be more fully
reported than the bad! I suppose the Parson would call this the
Enthusiasm of Humanity.

THE PARSON. You'll see how far you can lift yourself up by your
boot-straps.

HERBERT. I wonder what influence on the quality (I say nothing of
quantity) of news the coming of women into the reporter's and editor's
work will have.

OUR NEXT DOOR. There are the baby-shows; they make cheerful reading.

THE MISTRESS. All of them got up by speculating men, who impose upon the
vanity of weak women.

HERBERT. I think women reporters are more given to personal details
and gossip than the men. When I read the Washington correspondence I am
proud of my country, to see how many Apollo Belvederes, Adonises, how
much marble brow and piercing eye and hyacinthine locks, we have in the
two houses of Congress.

THE YOUNG LADY. That's simply because women understand the personal
weakness of men; they have a long score of personal flattery to pay off
too.

MANDEVILLE. I think women will bring in elements of brightness,
picturesqueness, and purity very much needed. Women have a power
of investing simple ordinary things with a charm; men are bungling
narrators compared with them.

THE PARSON. The mistake they make is in trying to write,