"THEY SAY."

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2087, 11 September 1875, Page 4

"THEY SAY."

By M. ok N.

Whenever I .hear, a story concerning anyone I know, introduced by the wellknown formula of "they say," I am made instinctively conscious of certain things. First, that the story is either wholly false or so exaggerated as to be only mischievous from the small amount of truth mixed up in it. Second, that the person telling it, knowing its untruthfulness, is ashamed to give the real author, and therefore takes shelter under the general «4»they." And, thirdly, that everything " they say " is added to and improved by the narrator, in a manner to correspond with his or her ideas of how the storjr should be told.

Who they are that are always inventing scandals for the amusement of the world no one has ever been able to find out. People seldom hear what they say about them. Ninety-nine men and women out of every hundred go through life unconscious of the rich meals we have had on their reputations, and if the one victim who is unlucky enough to be made aware of what they say is foolish enough to endeavour to trace the story to its fountain he only gets double vexation for his pains. When a man is told that they say bad things about him the wisest thing he can do for his own piece of mind is to assume " the malady of not marking." For if they find he is sensitive to scandal and winces uuder it, they will continue to say things of him as long as he lives.

They have never a good word to sayof any one. They never set afloat stories that will reflect credit on man or woman. Probably they suspect that their creations wouldn't be repeated. No one ever came to me and whispered of a man I had just parted' from, " They say he is worth 20s in the £1; that he is always giving to the charities, that he never did a dishonest act in his life; that his love for his wife and family is perfectly ridiculous, and that, in fact, he is the best fellow in the world." No. They feel that that sort of information would not be interesting to him or me, and as they must say something they invent stories that every one will have pleasure in repeating. They are on the whole rather fonder of saying things about women than men. A woman's reputation is tenderer than a man's, and is a dainter morsel for the "mouth of a scandal-monger. They say she was no better than she should be before she was married, and that if her husband only knew as much as other folks, there would be nice exposures in the Divorce Court. They say she drinks, and that her fainting fit at the ball the other night after supper was conveniently arranged as an excuse for having her carried to her carriage. Then they say that she paints to the eyes, and that she. has false teeth, dyed hair, and a padded figure. They say she starves her servants, and that her husband never gets a decent meal except when he is lucky enough to get" his dinner at a friend's house. Of course in this case they say that her husband doesn't dare call his soul his own —a way of putting it in which they particularly delight, implying, as it does, something to be ashamed of on both sides. They say that she is head over ears in debt, and the tradespeople will now never leave a pinsworth at the house without the money down. .', " But have you heard though what they really do say ?" One may be perfectly certain when an inquiry is prefaced in this form that something particularly bad is sure to follow. They really do say, for instance, that when the eldest girl was away last year for three months, not one belonging to her knew where she was, and that the story about her being on a visit to friends in the country was all a make-up. Isn't it shocking? '"I'd like to know what they wouldn't say," is another favourite way by which people almost apologise to the hearer for having become, the recipient of a tale of scandal. They actually say that Smith has a wife in England, and that Mrs Smith knew it quite well before she married him. You know, if that is true, it isn't right for one to know her ; and really when you come to think of it there's something in her manner that gives one the impression she is not quite what she should be. There are many people who, in telling us what they say, invariably add, ■ " But I don't believe a word of it." This both satisfies their consciences, and enables them to say, if the story is traced back to them, that while giving publicity to the scandal they washed their hands of all responsibility. The person to whom the story is told, with the customary disclaimer of belief, adopts another social formula and says, "Bat they wouldn't dare to say it if it wasn't true." .Here, then, are two irreconcilable statements. " They Bay it, but I don't believe it," says one". "They say it, and they wouldn't dare to say it, if it wasn't true," says the other. .' The only way out of the difficulty is to tell the story on the . strength of the intangible they, and let the hearer form his own conclusion.

A piece of scandal respecting a king of Phrygia was once bruited abroad. "Have you heard what they say about His Majesty P It is monstrous, horrible, and I don't believe a word of it. They actually say that Midas has ass's, ears!" The ancients, determining to get to the bottom of the report, followed the matter up"; and the " they " of that mythological era turned out to be some reeds to whom the tale had been told in confidence by the garrulous valet of the slandered Midas. What private griefs he had that made him say it know not, but from my earliest acquaintance, with classical history, I have doubted the story of the ass's ears. I believe that Midas caught his servant drinking his best wine, kissing the maids of honour, or pocketing his silver forks— that he dismissed him on the spot without notice, and without a character—and tl at the story of His Majesty's bad taste in preferring Pan to Apollo, and the terrible revenge of the great son of Jupiter, were malicious inventions of the discharged valet. .

And I never hear of what they say concerning friends, enemies, or neutrals without thinking of .what they said of poor Midas. Our servants are " th^ey " who tell'these stories; our womankind— alas!—are the reeds that whisper them abroad. The difficulty we experience in getting at the authors of a slander arises from.the natural reluctance that the fair but frail reed feels in divulging the source of her information. "They" are the servants. From kitchen and servants' hall to drawingroom and boudoir the news is supplied, and we, the world, or that segment of it which is all the world to us, aie gravely told that they say Midas has ass's cars, that Mrs Midas drinks and flirts in her lord's absence, and that he would seek for a divorce if he didn't fear

the recrimination of his own miscond\ict with the pretty nursemaid. • Let this he remembered. When what they say of this ono or that is whispered as they pass us in the street, when we receive the singularly pleasing sensation of hearing scandal gossipped about people that have hitherto stood well with the world, when we feel the impulso strong upon us to repeat things that we have heard, but not believed, on the strength of "what they say," let its' 1 try and remember that in all probability the stories were set going by the servants, and that they are about as likely to be true as that Midas had the ears of an ass. Of course there were people who believed that story, as there will always continue to be those foolish enough to believe every word they say.—Australasian.