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Jones was looking tired and that Miss Robinson was the tallest girl in the room, come as near as possible to the American ideal; and why they are not horsewhipped every day in this civilized country it is difficult to understand. No one seriously blames woman journalist for this kind work; she simply cannot help it. great lady has a delightful story how she once addressed a meeting of lady journalists, begging them not to write so much about clothes; and a lengthy report of the assembly in next day's papers concluded with the words: "The Duchess of X-, who was dressed in gray with a black picturehat, then gave an address." wonders whether a more dreadful creature has ever been produced by modern civilization than a man, who knows the difference between chiffon and muslin, and writes about their wearers daily in a column of social paragraphs.

But one

If you ask nine men out of ten what they mean by sensational journalism they will describe an article which is, in effect, merely a string of lies whirled about by a cataract of adjectives. In a speech on the subject the other day Dr. Macnamara showed that this was his idea of it; and, talking about it some time ago, a prominent Court official, part of whose duty it is to read a large number of newspapers, British and foreign, said that lying was the essential feature of sensationalism, and that no newspaper would ever be accused of being sensational if it took reasonable trouble to verify its statements. In every great institution in this country, he pointed out with much truth, political, social and religious, there was sure to be someone whose business it was to check and correct the news which, as the managers of the institution are wrathfully aware, has got to appear in newspapers nowadays about their affairs.

It was nonsense, added the speaker, to talk of the editor being unwilling to trouble such folk with questions every time an item of news was sent about their affairs; it was almost sure to be someone's business to attend to the newspaper questions; and in any case nothing could be more trouble to everybody concerned than the storm created by false information, with all its ensuing contradictions and explanations.

But this careless inaccuracy, as I pointed out to my companion, was stupidity on the part of the journal, not sensationalism; and stupidity of a kind which carried with it the quickest and most complete punishment. There is nothing more certain in the newspaper world than that a succession of apologies and contradictions will reduce your circulation (and your advertisement revenue with it) to vanishingpoint in a very few months. People change their newspapers much more readily now than in old days. One penny paper only differs from another in its leading articles and in the slightly varying amount of space which it accords to the political speeches of its private or public friends and enemies; the halfpenny papers differ not at all, either in their news or in their fashion of writing about it. If it amuses you to say one morning, "This paper is becoming sensational," and to change it for another, you do it without the sentimental regrets which your grandfather would have felt in similar circumstances. Therefore when a man has been made a fool of by an exciting statement in his paper on Monday morning, which he proceeds to discuss with his friends in all its bearings, till he reads in the "Westminster Gazette" that "the Press Association is authorized to state that there is no truth in" the narrative which has filled his. mind the whole day; and when tris process is

repeated twice in the course of the following fortnight-such a person has no hesitation in ordering something else; and the first newspaper may repent in dust and ashes and tell the truth solidly for ten years without inducing its former reader to stop describing it as "a sensational rag."

As for "scare" headlines and a hailstorm of thrilling adjectives, which constitute one of Dr. Macnamara's ideas of sensational journalism, I presume there were days when, as he graphically expressed it, such a newspaper article would "make a motor-bus shy at it." To-day it would not hurry the pulse of a schoolboy. It must be remembered that this sort of thing when it appears in the "yellow press" of New York is loaded up with personalities, with plain, straightforward statements that So-and-so stabbed his father and poisoned his aunt and forged his brother's name to a cheque, which can hardly fail to tickle the most jaded palate, especially if you happen to be a friend of the gentleman concerned. Failing this, what could be more monotonous than the "descriptive" writing of a man who has hysterics one day about an earthquake, and the next day about a “society" divorce, and the next about a new cancer "cure"?

Resting under the disabilities imposed on him by the British libel law, the "yellow" journalist in this country has in fact invented a sensational journalism of his own which requires some intelligence, a quality by no means necessary in New York. The essence of it is brevity and simplicity in the body of the narrative and brevity and power in its headlines. Above all things the story must be true; and must, if possible, introduce some of the purely human emotions and incidents of everyday human life which assure you that the actors in it are fellow mortals. I remember, for in

stance, a story told in some English newspaper of a hill outside Port Arthur on which the fighting and slaughter had been so frightful that the whole hill was discolored and soaked to a depth of five or six inches with blood; the newspaper man described himself and a companion walking up it, encountering on it only one living person, a Japanese soldier who was sitting on his knapsack putting a new lace into one of his boots. The story Was told without one superfluous word, without an emotional adjective or comment of any description; also I have reason to believe that it was perfectly true. It was not news in any ordinary sense of the word. It was a piece of pure, first-class sensational journalism of the English variety which the most polished word-painter on the "Figaro" might envy, and the most hideous word-squanderer on the "New York World" could not hope to rival in his most sensational effort. Personally, I do not buy a London daily paper to read that kind of thing; moreover, the constant search for such sensational pictures and straining after effect while writing about them occasionally leaves me (and, I gather, the correspondent too) in some considerable doubt as to who has won the battle in which it is an incident.

The English "yellow" press has not yet gone nearly far enough on its evil way to be irreclaimable; and, with constant "nagging" from friends and enemies, it may keep straight for a good many years more. With one or two exceptions the papers of this class, morning and evening, tell the truth whenever they know it, behave with decency to all opponents except a few of their owners' pet private enemies. keep their advertisement columns fairly clean, and publish some very prompt and good reports of all home matters. If they could be persuaded to realize the intolerable impudence of

the greater part of their social news, and would be a little less unscrupulous in gratifying their owner's private spites, their home columns would leave little to be desired by people who were not too particular about the English language. The influence of their foreign news and opinions both at home and abroad, during some crisis and in the process of manufacturing the crisis, is, however, wholly unfortunate. The proprietor, usually a man of utterly unbalanced judgment, ignorant observation and violent prejudices, insists upon his point of view being adopted and explained day after day in the brief, forcible language of true sensation; special correspondents are sent out to certain foreign ceremonies or serious political conferences, tinged The Saturday Review.

with this emotional, ill-judged partisanship; and, under the same infilu

ence, their messages are smothered by the sub-editor under "scare" headlines whose irresponsible absurdity is not yet understood on the Continent. Rebukes, entreaties, threats and promises of every description are lavished by those in authority on such occasions to prevent the "yellow" proprietor making a fool of himself; but I have never yet known these to have the slightest effect. Fortunately it is only rarely that the sensational journalist of this description is able to "let himself go"; but when some such foreign crisis arises the saner press of this country ought to address its erring brethren in very emphatic language. Edward H. Cooper.

Samuel G. Blythe's "We Have With Us Tonight" (Henry Altemus Company) is a clever skit which hits off the various types of bores who succeed one another as after dinner speakers at public banquets. Every one has heard them,-the confused and ineffective toastmaster, the turgid orator, the flamboyant poet, the highly informing speaker who reads his address from acres of manuscript, the professional raconteur, the man who makes a blunder in telling what should have been a funny story and waits flushed and expectant for the laugh which fails to come-these all are tedious enough as one encounters them in the flesh, but as they move in procession through Mr. Blythe's pages they are certainly amusing.

"Young gentlemen," a celebrated naturalist was wont to say to his classes, "you do not know what an insect is

and you do not know what insects are," and then, for the promotion of humility, he would betray them into definitions that would classify half the animal kingdom as insects, and then would lay before them a set of characteristics apparently denoting a ferocious monster, and show them that the creature possessing them was nearly microscopic. The world is not so very much wiser to-day, in spite of newspaper entomology and the reports of various slaughtering commissions, and the information in Dr. John B. Smith's "Our Insect Friends and Enemies" is needed by the Audubon Societies, the seeker for a home site, the housekeeper, the gardener, the farmer, the traveller, and numberless other folk. It has a colored frontispiece showing some fourteen unfriendly creatures; and also a great number of good pictures in black and white, and its twelve chapters are admirably arranged for consultation besides being well-indexed. Insects

are considered in relation to the animal kingdom; to plants as benefactors and as destroyers; to one another; to particular animals; to man, both in their beneficent aspects, and as carriers of disease, and to the farmer and fruit grower, and a whole chapter is given to the war on insects. The style strikes the happy medium between the strictly scientific and the over-simple, and the volume may be read with pleasure by an intelligent High School pupil, but it is intended not for amusement but for instruction. It is more valuable than most books intended to cover the same field, because its chapters on insects in their relations to other creatures, animal and vegetable, awaken the uninstructed mind to the truth set forth in the preface that nothing exists to, for, or by itself alone. The first glimpse of this principle is often marvellously enlightening. J. B. Lippincott Co.

Sidney McCall's fourth essay in fiction, "Red Horse Hill" evades comparison with either of the two types represented in its author's earlier work, and enters a field in which little has been attempted in this country. Hitherto, such juvenile victims of the curse of Eden as have appeared in American novels have been slaves, or have labored for sweaters of their own foreign nationalities, but those who toil in the Regina cotton mill in Sidon, Alabama, are free born Americans, and Sidney McCall so describes them that no reader of hers is likely soon to forget, the poor young creatures, transformed by the exigencies of their daily labor into nervous, restless-eyed, wiry little elves, with fingers cramped to catch the flying threads, voices shrilled to rise above the clatter of machinery, minds narrowed and shrivelled by lifelong starvation, souls stained by encounter with coarse and vicious elders. Nevertheless she treats her subject

fairly, showing the little ones as anxious to begin to earn money, and afterwards eager rivals, and she does not forget to show that the parents inflict no hardship more severe than that forming part of their own daily lot. The added oppression of overcharges for food and clothing material, and the deadly, murderous wrong of machinery unfurnished with the protective apparatus required by the law are also adequately and effectively set forth, and it is to be hoped that the book will be read in Alabama. Also, it is to be hoped that critics of other states will not wax too Pharisaical when contemplating the picture. New England boards of inspection sometimes find it necessary to hold both manufacturers and parents to weekly reports of school attendance. It is said that the author's sympathies are so strongly engaged in behalf of the mill children that her book was primarily undertaken in their interest, but she has so steadfastly resisted the temptation to produce a tract in their behalf, that the mill-owner and his wife, and not the mill-hands occupy the centre of the picture, and next them stands a pair of typical modern American lovers, both profoundly resolved to reconstruct their environment, and hardly sensible of the approach of Eros as he comes bringing sheaves of reports and a quiver full of impressive circulars. Thus has she made sure of readers, and of the wide presentation of her problem, and thus has she made an artistic novel. "Truth Dexter" was successful because it was based upon a plot of which women never tire: "Red Horse Hill" will succeed because it has so blended four distinct threads of interest that it will almost equally attract those who dispute of divorce, of child labor, of the mission of woman, with a capital letter, and of a minister's duty to speak the plain truth to wealthy sinners. Little, Brown & Co.