CONECENT REPORTING.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5760, 15 September 1879, Page 3

CONECENT REPORTING.

(Saturday Review.) Once upon a time it was thought that there were things not fit tor publication, that there were certain details of grossness and obscenity which ought not in the interests of decency to be published. There was a class of civil and criminal trials which in old-fashioned and respectable journals were invariably dismissed with the phrase, “The case occupied some time ; the details were unfit for publication.” With penny papers and the Divorce Court a lamentable change set in. Journals otherwise tree from reproach began to give verbatim reports from the courts of the most objectionable cases. Every kind of debauchery and vice, every stage in the course of licentiousness ard crime ; the unedifying jokes of counsel, and sometimes also of the judge ; the demeanor of the witnesses, shame stricken or brazen-faced ; the gossip and lying of the servants’ hall ; the treacherous spying and prying of the valet and the lady’s maid, and the point-blank evidence of paid detectives—all these were given in full. Nothing was too revolting, too painful to be spoken plainly, too indecent to be printed. A spade was called a spade with a vengeance, and soiled linen was washed in the market-place, the proceedings being closely watched by a deeply interested multitude, and, it was said, “ the people like to have it so.” The Yelverton case, the Mordaunt case, the Boulton and Bark case, and quite recently the Bagot case, to say nothing of Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, all have been treated in this fashion, and the harm done thereby bears its full fruit.

The sewer and dustcart are the horrid necessity of congregated humanity ; but for the parade of these moral dustcarts, for the wilful opening out of the stream of this moral sewage, there is, and can be, no excuse. What the Police JVeuJ is to the lower classes some of the daily pennies have come to the middle classes, until there have been days, not a few, when every moderately careful father or mother placed the morning papers under look and key. Meanwhile the higher-priced and weekly journals continued so far to exclude noxious matter that they might in general, with fair confidence, be placed on the drawing room table. Presently a new class of weekly papers, which style themselves, we believe, journals of society, appeared upon the scene. Their contents consisted mainly of club gossip and rumors, of inuendos more or less spiteful and mendacious, and of articles coarse and cynical in tone, and preposterously untrue to life. Often the intelligence given was of a kind that could hardly have been got at except through servants. Some of these chiefly represented the cad, others the flunkey. In some instances bc-

hind the scenes stood the literary bravo. They simmered in their own gravy, to u-e Prb.ee Bismarck's clas-ic phrase, which was hca'c I in the atmosphere of the law Courts ; ami iin' constant appearance of the publisher- m- drfeudauts in iibel cares often operat' d as it was perhaps meant to do, as an excellent cm- not tun costly mode of adverii-iug. As '.ice iu high places begets vice rleewhe: , so tuese “journals of society” have their I.v.v.pnoeo counterpart:-, which have been produced in imitation. Nay, worse still, bron i-h-rm aisi unregistered papers, go # u terly abomu.ah.o in contents that no respectable newsvenoor can bo found to keep them, are hawked about on the pavement, and thrust into people’s bauds. The subject being brought to the notice of Parliament, the Home Secretary said that, tbonoh fully aware of the evil, the Government’ had resolved, and, as we think, wisely resolved, not to prosecute- Notoriety being the object desired, it was felt that more harm than good would follow, whatever the remit might be. The committal of several men for a few days' hard labor for obstructing the streets and hawking unregistered papers lias had some salutary effect in diminishing the intolerable nuisance. At the same time it still continues to be the case that at corners where omnibuses congregate papers are persistently thrust upon passengers, both women and men, the mere headings of which in largo type are an offence and a scandal to see. The directors of the London Omnibus Company are a respectable set of men, and they would do good service to ali classes if they would instruct their conductors to prevent the men or boys who hawk these particular papers from approaching their vehicles or standing on the steps. All this, however, is by the way. We know —at least we thought we knew—where all that is abomination is be found without alloy. If we wanted a pennyworth or sixpenny worth of indecency, we knew what to ask for, with a certainty of receiving it ; but wo did not expect to meet with it elsewhere. The daily perusal of a well edited, first class English newspaper is iu these days a kind of education in itself, and an education of a very important kind. It contains the latest intelligence—political, scientific, commercial, and industrial, —from every part of the world, together with able and independent comments thereon by men more or less qualified to judge, together with the very cream of criticism on the art treasures and literature of the day. We get reports of the proceedings of learned societies, accounts ot meteorological phenomena, geographical and geological discoveries, and the results of antiquarian research ; and ali this fosters in the youthful mind an intelligent desire for travel and enterprise, and is instruction of tho highest class. We like our boys to be interested in the latest details of the wars from which England Is seldom free j and, as one thing leads to another, bo the study of the progress of any given war is sure to induce the study of the history and geography of the country. Every father wishes his sou to understand politics ; wo even desire fthat our girls should take an intelligent interest in them. XAir all these purposes the reading of a good daily paper, free from objectionable matter, is at once an agreeable and efficient means. Now, if there was one paper which we thought could have been trusted in this last respect, it is tho Morning Post, one of the high-priced daily papers. It is supposed to be the favorite reading of the upper classes, and the indispensable channel for communication respecting appointments and engagements in fashionable life. It is certain that when a girl is presented at Court, or when she goes to her first ball, the natural desire to see her name in print leads her to carry off the Morning Post to her own room next morning. If not eminently intellectual or eloquent, it has always been recognised as decorous and entirely suitable for the drawing-room or the schoolroom. What, wo ask then, has possessed the Post suddenly to emulate the worst of the penny papers in their one special and undesirable feature ? There has been quite lately for some three days a suit nominally for breach of promise of marriage in course of trial at Westminster. Anything more vile and vulgar can hardly bo imagined. It was no case of youthful indiscretion, of love, or passion, or romance, or even seduction. It was simply a history of the immoral conduct of a Greek broken down in health and the middle-aged forewoman of a milliner's shop. Conceive the feelings of fathers and mothers on finding all tin- stuff served up in full day after day, for the benefit of their sons and daughters—in the Morning Post of all unlikely papers. For no detail was spared, no suggestion omitted. The commencement of the acquaintance, the following it up, the initial endeavor to secure secresy, the vulgar tricks, the simulated endearments, the worldly wise precautions on the part of the defendant, and the witty remarks of the counsel, are minutely chronicled. Have not the subscribers to the Post good reason to object to these unnecessary and disgusting descriptions of the methods and appliances of vice in low life 1 Can it be profitable or good for any human being to be familiarised with the particulars of such defiling and mercenary bargains ■ Is it a kind of thing which any young woman .should be exposed to the chance ot reading? We are quite aware that English girls inured to outdoor exercise and bred up iu a healthy moral atmosphere, would not of their own accord choose such literature ; but familiarity with vice, even in print, is a thing to be avoided. Any girl might in this instance be led on to read out of curiosity what she would ever afterwards wish that she had never seen. If these matters ivere printed iu papers only dedicated to indecency, it would not matter so much. That they are a special feature of some of the penny dailies, chiefly read by the middle class, is indeed to be lamented, inasmuch as it proves that it pays to publish indecencies. But that high-priced and long-estab-lished journals, from which we have a right to expect better things, should be so untrue to their unwritten engagements and their moral duties as to disgrace their pages by printing that which, if read, must as surely corrupt youth as if it came straight from Holywell, street, seems to us an unseemly and much to be regretted occurrence. Need family life be really so troubled and defiled ? Most dirt be on our breakfast table * Must it be introduced to our domestic circle, and so pollute the atmosphere that there is neither escape nor defence ?