The American is gallant, and when the victim is of the feminine gender, I can assure you the accused generally gets a pretty drubbing in the press.
American journalism carries the spirit of enterprise still further. Not content with trying criminals, it hunts them out and brings them to justice. Policeman, magistrate, public prosecutor, judge—the journalist is all these.
I know of several American newspapers having quite a staff of detectives—yes, detectives. If a criminal escapes justice, or an affair remains surrounded by mystery, these new-fashioned journalists are let loose every morning on a search for the criminal, or to try and pick up threads of information that may lead to the clearing up of the mystery. These detectives are employed, not only in cases of crime, but work just as hard over a divorce or an elopement: it is journalism turned private detective agency. A newspaper that can boast of having brought a criminal to justice, discovered the hiding-place of an unfaithful wife, or run a ravisher to earth, is rewarded by an increased sale forthwith.
The slightest thing that can make the paper attractive is seized upon with avidity. The headings, which I have spoken of, are called into requisition on all occasions, and there is nothing, down to the mere announcements, that will not suggest to a wide-awake editor one of these wonderful eye-ticklers. Thus the Saturday list of preachers for the morrow is headed in the New York Herald:
Salvation for all; or Guiding Sinners Heavenwards, or Dodging the Devil.
In one paper, you will see the list of births, marriages, and deaths, headed respectively: The Cradle, the Altar, and the Tomb; in another, more facetious: Hatches, Matches, and Dispatches.
In a society paper, much given to gossip, I noticed the news of the fashionable world distributed under the following titles:
Cradle (list of births);
Flirtations (list of young people suspected of a tender passion for each other);