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Show jjocrc&IIsm in Its Modern Sense. Judging from the wail emitted by a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, modern journalism must be flourishing in England. ' . "We are continually told," says this writer, "that we live in the golden age of journalism. The journalist jour-nalist has usurped something of the romance which once hung furtively about the curate; enthusiastic ladies work slippers for him; schools are established estab-lished for his education: and it seems as though he would become the spoilt darling of modern times. But while he is thus rich and fortunate, he has pitiably piti-ably descended from the high estate which once was his. He is more deeply interested in the mere I accidents of life than in public affairs, and a sensational sensa-tional murder is more to his mind than a change of government, for the excellent reason that it attracts a larger number of readers." This prodigious "knocking" might have emanated eman-ated from the City of the1 Saints, where there is much harking from the tombs along similar lines. The, rallying cry of journalists of the past tense is continual slurring at more progressive and therefore more successful persons in the same line of work. This English writer, however, recognizes one factor that makes in favor of modern journalism, and thereby loses his case. "He must follow, not lead, his public," sneers the English critic; "and as hia public desires before all things to be amused, he must fill his print with strange snippets and vain excitements. For the modern reader is possessed by what Robert Burton called 'an itching humor, or a kind of longing to see that which is not to be seen, to know that secret which should not be known, to eat of the forbidden fruit'; and the newspapers neglect nothing to gratify grati-fy his desire." N . It is news, not mere opinion; facts, not deductions deduc-tions drawn from a biased standpoint; live topics, not. dead issues, that the public twants. Modern journalism fills the bill and the public is satisfied. |