42 THE DAILY ROUND IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE

occurred to one to print with the financial article pictures
of chairmen or managing directors of companies, these
grim, hard-mouthed visages lowered from nearly all.
Directly one began to give away books (they still call it
that, though actually a profit is now made by it) the rival
organizations rushed to do likewise* If an idea is put up
to them, they look round to see if there is anything of
the sort being done: if not, they turn the idea down*

No sense of shame, no self-respect hinders them from
copying with barefaced servility* When the Evening
News made a hit with war stories from actual experience,
the Star started a feature on the same lines* When the
Sunday Express engaged Lord Castlerosse to write a column
of " flapdoodle/' odds and ends of the peerage popped
up in other quarters almost overnight*

Consequently, when the pestering of persons unhappily
related to victims of " tragedies " was begun by one
" national/' the rest, as usual, took it up, under the
impression—quite wrong, I believe—that, if they did
not, people would drop them and transfer their custom
in order to read this pestilent stuff somewhere else.
This was, then, the kind of thing that reporters were
sent out to do:

A young woman died suddenly in painful circumstances*
Ah inquest had to be arranged. The widowed mother
and younger sister of the dead girl were summoned from
Scotland to attend the inquest* Soon after their arrival
they went to the house where the death had occurred
to learn what they could. They were met on the door-
step by a small crowd of reporters pressing impatiently
for news* As they came out they had again to run the
gauntlet of the reporters, and when getting into their
taxi they unfortunately gave the address of their hotel
in a voice loud enough to be overheard*