On Reading the Newspapers

Dv MoTfi.

" Loan JUSTICE GREER I I am rather inclined to think the prob- abilities are all against what one reads in the newspapers. If it is a subject you happen to know something about yourself you always find the papers are wrong.

Loan JUSTICE Sonterrox I generally find that if it is a subject I know something about the newspapers are wrong.

LORD JUSTICE SLESSER : I rarely read the newspapers at all.

The hearing was adjourned."

(From Tim TIMER of May Wt.) L.ORD JUSTICE SLESSER gets a bag of nuts and a -11--4 free ride on the Scenic Railway ; the other two get their money back. Where all were good (as one used to say in the School Magazine when one had lost the list of the visiting team) it would be invidious to single out individuals for praise. But Slesser is first, though the rest are not nowhere : there can be no doubt about' that. Lord Justice Greer and Lord Justice Scrutton, blowing carefully modulated blasts on the trumpets of circumlocution, might have marched round the walls of Fleet Street indefinitely : the thick-skinned garrison would not have quailed.. Lord Justice Slesser said : "I rarely read the newspapers at all" ; and demolished the whole place with seven words.

He had a big chance, and he took it. He took it in the best way. He might have said "What is a newspaper ? " That would have been a good one. Of course, it is an old gag, but there are times when the audience relishes an old gag. This was one of them. Very often there is only one judge in court, and he has to work up the comedy all on his own, and when he says "What is a cinema ? " or something like that, it sounds a bit forced, because no one is ready for it. But this time they were ready for any- thing. Lord Justice Greer and Lord Justice Scrutton, acting as what arc called" feeds " on the music halls, had got them in the right mood by delivering a couple of thumping half-truths in a provocative manner. Lord Justice Slesser was in the position of the comedian who is asked what his mother-in-law said to him. He had only to open his mouth to bring the house down. All honour to him, then, for renouncing the traditionally popular !lath of burlesque—for fighting down the impulse to say 'What is a newspaper ? "—and for coining out with a really helpful solution of one of the most serious problems of the day.

"I rarely read the newspapers at all." " Rarely " is the word that rings the bell, for it establishes the fact that Lord Justice Slesser knows a newspaper when he sees one, and this is important, because you never know with judges. Newspapers are not altogether outside the range of his experience. He has not only beard of them ; he has read them. But he prefers (it is implied) not to read them un- less he can help it.

And why should he, indeed ? However manfully they bear the daily shock of disillusionment, however vigilant they are to shun the daily snares of delusion, there can be little doubt that for his two colleagues a copy of The Times must represent a pretty horrible ordeal. If they read of what they know about—and are therefore most inter- ested in—they find that The Times has got it all hope- lessly wrong. This means—assuming, as I hope we may, that their knowledge is fairly extensive—that there is something on almost every page to arouse their indigna- tion and dismay ; for in the presence of Error no good man can feel at his case. It is, of course, true that The Times devotes a great deal of its space to subjects which nobody knows about and nobody is interested in. But even in these arid pastures Lord Justice Greer and Lord Justice Scrutton cannot browse with confidence (though whether any person or thing can be said, in any circumstances, to browse with confidence, I am not sure). Their faith

has been undermined. • If the papers arc always (Greer), or even generally (Scrutton), wrong about your own sub- jects, there is not much hope of their being right about other people's subjects. And as for those things (like Antidenominationalism in Bessarabia) which are nobody's subject, these are simply outlets for the Press's more ex- travagant powers of invention.

And, anyhow, even if the information which the news- papers give us were accurate, or occasionally accurate, is there any valid reason why we should go to the trouble and expense of acquiring it ?

There is none. What do we do with this information ? If we are a judge, we disbelieve it. If we are a politician,

we garble it. If we are a racing man, we lose money on it. If we arc a bore, we remember it. (Or rather, if we remember it, we are a bore.) If we are a fool, we forget it. And if we are a wise man, we forget it too.

To read the newspapers is, then, a habit with no prac- tical value at all. Nor has it any aesthetic or spiritual value as an experience. It would be folly to pre- tend that looking at a copy of the Daily Express is any- thing like looking at a sunset, or going to see Hamlet.

Curiosity, of which the newspaper habit is a symptom, can sometimes be condoned. Curiosity with regard to the past or to the future is not wholly discreditable ; recognition of this axiom has conferred on archaeologists and prophets a prestige which they only partly deserve. But curiosity about the present is merely vulgar ; and the fact that most

of us read about the doings of our contemporaries in the newspapers before (and probably instead of) reading about the past or speculating about the future is simply a proof that the age lacks modesty as well as judgement.

Newspapers are a luxury and not a necessity. The only things to be said against not reading the newspapers are

as follows :

(a) Difficulty of finding out what is happening at, e.g., the Quai d'Otsay Hurst Park : Lord's.

(b) Inability to interpret posters (e.g., " Rector : Further Dis- closures,"' Monism. Does It," &c.), and consequent perplexity and sense of isolation.

(e) Never having anything to draw up the fire with. (d) Insensibility to glorious feeling of relief produced by ceasing (e.g., on departure for a holiday) to read newspapers.

(e) Insensibility to glorious feeling of relief by recommencing (e.g., on return from holiday) to read newspapers.

Were it not for these considerations, and perhaps one or two others of a similar kind, I really believe that Lord Justice Slesser's words might well have sounded the death. knell of journalism. Though it is curious to reflect that it was only by reading the newspapers that we found out what he said.