SCANDAL AND PUBLICITY.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 65, 10 November 1887, Page 2

SCANDAL AND PUBLICITY.

The tendency of the present age to make much of and amplify any little social scandal is a matter for serious consideration by reflecting minds. It is really shocking at times to mark the feeling of prurient delight that is exhibited when any scandalous revelation is made of the guilty conduct of individuals, especially of those in high positions.

In his sermon last Sunday evening the Rev. Mr Fox referred to This baneful tendency, but he also contended that the world is not so bad as it is painted, and that looking back into history the supposed moral retrogression is not borne out by fact. This is at least a brighter way to look at the matter, but we fear there is not much consolation in this respect. Whether from this point of view there is or is not anything to inspire hope, we cannot overlook the fact that things are very far from being as they should be. Look at the present condition of society in the Old Country, and the gradual drift of the affairs of the colonies into the same groove. Side by side with a senseless and idiotic Lord Mayor’s show we have the most abject poverty and misery, and while the aristocracy are surrounded with every comfort that wealth can command, and

in many cases leading the most dissolute of lives, there are hundreds and thousands living around with no earthly aim or hope. If true Christian feeling pervaded our society would such things be possible ? The rev. gentleman of course did not deal with the subject in this light, but it really all amounts to the same thing. If things were more equally distributed, there would be less class distinction, and therefore less possibility of the glaring exposures that are now so often made in London society. It would be a good thing, no doubt, if people could be led to view their own characters as they are viewed by ethers, b'ut it must be confessed that publicity is one of the greatest preventatives of immorality and cruelty, as has lately been shown in the Langworthy case. There is no doubt a tendency to overdo anything of this kind, but out of evil much good is sometimes to be gained.