on a Snake Fight," "Chicago Church Girl
Accuses Millionaire," "Athletics make John D. forget his Money." These
are a few pearls hastily strung together, and they show what jewels of
intelligence are most highly prized by the Greatest Democracy on earth.
Now and again the editor takes his readers into his confidence and asks
them to interfere in the affairs of persons whom they will never know.
Here, for instance, is a characteristic problem set by an editor whose
knowledge of his public exceeds his respect for the decencies of life:
"What Mrs Washington ought to do. Her husband Wall Street Broker. Got
tired of Her and Deserted. But Mrs Washington, who still loves him
dearly, Is determined to win him back. And here is the Advice of the
Readers of this Journal." Is it not monstrous--this interference with
the privacy of common citizens? And yet this specimen has an air of
dignity compared with the grosser exploits of the hired eavesdropper.
Not long since there appeared in a Sunday paper a full list, with
portraits and biographies, of all the ladies in New York who are
habitual drunkards. From which it is clear that the law of libel has
sunk into oblivion, and that the cowhide is no longer a useful weapon.

The disastrous effect upon the people of such a Press as I have
described is obvious. It excites the nerves of the feeble, it presents a
hideously false standard of life, it suggests that nobody is secure from
the omnipotent eavesdropper, and it preaches day after day at the top
of its husky voice the gospel of snobbishness. But it is not merely the
public manners which it degrades; it does its best to hamper the proper
administration of the law. In America trial by journalism has long
supplemented, and goes far to supplant, trial by jury. If a murder be
committed its detection is not left to the officers of the police. A
thousand reporters, cunning as monkeys, active as sleuth-hounds, are on
the track. Whether it is the criminal that they pursue or an innocent
man is indifferent to them. Heedless of injustice, they go in search of
"copy." They interrogate the friends of the victim, and they uncover
the secrets of all the friends and relatives he may have possessed. They
care not how they prejudice the public mind, or what wrong they do to
innocent men. If they make a fair trial impossible, it matters not. They
have given their tired readers a new sensation; they have stimulated
gossip in a thousand tenement houses; jus