University of Virginia Library

CIII

It is impossible to glance through any newspaper,
no matter what the day, the month or the year,
without finding on every line the most frightful

traces of human perversity, together with the most
astonishing boasts of probity, charity, and benevolence
and the most brazen statements regarding the
progress of civilization.

Every journal, from the first line to the last, is
nothing but a tissue of horrors. Wars, crimes, thefts,
lecheries, tortures, the evil deeds of princes, of
nations, of private individuals; an orgy of universal
atrocity.

And it is with this loathsome appetizer that civilized
man daily washes down his morning repast.
Everything in this world oozes crime: the newspaper,
the street wall, and the human countenance.

I am unable to comprehend how a man of honour
could take a newspaper in his hands without a
shudder of disgust.