Murders and crimes are worked up to the
keenest pitch of realisation, and any new indelicacy in fashionable
costume, any new medical device or cure, any new dance or athleticism,
any new breach in the moral code, any novelty in sea bathing or the
woman's seat on horseback, or the like, is given copious and moving
illustration, stirring headlines, and eloquent reprobation. There is a
coloured supplement of knock-about fun, written chiefly in the quaint
dialect of the New York slums. It is a language from which "th" has
vanished, and it presents a world in which the kicking by a mule of an
endless succession of victims is an inexhaustible joy to young and old.
"Dat ole Maud!" There is a smaller bale dealing with sport. In the
advertisement columns one finds nothing of books, nothing of art; but
great choice of bust developers, hair restorers, nervous tonics,
clothing sales, self-contained flats, and business opportunities....
Individuality has, in fact, got home to itself, and, as people say,
taken off its frills. All but one; Mr. Arthur Brisbane's eloquence one
may consider as the last stitch of the old costume--mere decoration.
Excitement remains the residual object in life. The _New York American_
represents a clientele to be counted by the hundred thousand, manifestly
with no other solicitudes, just burning to live and living to burn.
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