Take this matter home to yourself; imagine a case in which you are very much interested. Your house has been entered and all your wife’s jewelry stolen; you complain to the police. Of course, having done so, the yellow journals print a full account of the robbery, also more or less flattering fake portraits of yourself and family. Your bath-room, through which the burglar entered, is described in detail; your billiard table, library cuspidor, etc., are photographed and printed life-size in the evening editions. The next day a portrait of the pretty typewriter employed at your office is displayed, whom some lynx-eyed reporter has discovered wearing diamonds. Then everything you _never_ did in your life is disclosed. The “journalists” take possession of your home; an old pair of slippers and a bicycle hat of bygone days are discovered. You stole the jewelry yourself, you know you did! Your hidden sins stand revealed in all their repulsiveness. The finger of sensational journalism has torn the mask of hypocrisy, so long and successfully worn, from your repellant countenance at last. Confess, miserable wretch! Pictures of Judas Iscariot, Captain Kidd, and others of their type appear in the hysterical press. They are all labelled with _your_ name. How you will be roasted! “It is said,” etc., that on dark nights you steal forth to exhume deceased infants from their tombs—and to eat them. Are you ill-advised enough to deny this? Beware! As for the partner of your joys and sorrows, “We have it on undeniable authority,” etc., etc., that she went yachting with that gay club fellow Noah, and has been engaged to each one of his guests in turn. For a penny, “all who run may read” these romances; the only redeeming feature being that those who read do not believe. While this is going on your better half stays in her room and weeps.
The servants leave, and you have to answer the door-bell yourself and be polite(?) to the representatives of the press, who call every few moments for interviews, and who never print a word you say to them. Every tradesman you deal with sends a collector with his bill; your life insurance policies are cancelled.
Then the police captain of the precinct sends for you. You go prepared to be cast into prison. Not so; while the “Journal,” “World,” and “Herald” have been clearing up the mystery of this “inside job,” the police have made an arrest. The prisoner is a well-known burglar. On that night and at the time your house was entered he was seen loitering outside, but just at present he won’t talk. You know that he either robbed you himself, or watched while a confederate did. Do you want your wife’s property? Do you want your character back again? Do you want to get “hunk”? Remember, whoever entered your house came prepared to kill. Perhaps you are a father, and know your conscientious duty towards that eldest son of yours, your own flesh and blood, when he has misbehaved and is sulky. Do you birch him? Do you trounce him, or do you stop to argue? Is it more brutal to inflict corporal punishment upon a man than upon a child?