“‘Exthry Red Speshul Midnight Edition.  Mumps!  Mumps!  Mumps!  Th’ heir iv th’ Hinnissy’s sthricken with th’ turr’ble scoorge.  Panic on th’ stock exchange.  Bereaved father starts f’r th’ plague spot to see his afflicted son.  Phottygrafts iv Young Hinnissy at wan, two, three, eight an’ tin.  Phottygrafts iv th’ house where his father was born, his mother, his aunt, his uncle, Profissor Plantagenet, Groton School, th’ gov’nor iv Connecticut, Chansy Depoo, statue iv Liberty, Thomas Jefferson, Niagara Falls be moonlight.  Diagram iv jaw an’ head showin’ th’ prob’ble coorse iv the Mumpococeus.  Intherviews with J. Pierpont Morgan, Terry McGovern, Mary MeLain, Jawn Mitchell, Lyman J. Gage, th’ Prince iv Wales, Sinitor Bivridge, th’ Earl iv Roslyn, an’ Chief Divry on Mumps.  We offer a prize iv thirty million dollars in advertisin’ space f’r a cure f’r th’ mumps that will save th’ nation’s pride.  Later, it’s croup.’

“An’ so it goes.  We march through life an’ behind us marches th’ phottygrafter an’ th’ rayporther.  There are no such things as private citizens.  No matther how private a man may be, no matther how secretly he steals, some day his pitcher will be in th’ pa-aper along with Mark Hanna, Stamboul 2:01 1/2, Fitzsimmons’ fightin’ face, an’ Douglas, Douglas, Tin dollar shoe.  He can’t get away fr’m it.  An’ I’ll say this f’r him, he don’t want to.  He wants to see what bad th’ neighbors are doin’ an’ he wants thim to see what good he’s doin’.  He gets fifty per cint iv his wish; niver more.  A man keeps his front window shade up so th’ pa-apers can come along an’ make a pitcher iv him settin’ in his iligant furnished parlor readin’ th’ life iv Dwight L. Moody to his fam’ly.  An’ th’ lad with th’ phottygraft happens along at th’ moment whin he is batin’ his wife.  If we wasn’t so anxious to see our names among those prisint at th’ ball, we wudden’t get into th’ pa-apers so often as among those that ought to be prisint in th’ dock.  A man takes his phottygraft to th’ iditor an’ says he:  ’Me attintion has been called to th’ fact that ye’d like to print this mug iv a prom’nent philanthropist;’ an’ th’ iditor don’t use it till he’s robbed a bank.  Ivrybody is inthrested in what ivrybody else is doin’ that’s wrong.  That’s what makes th’ newspapers.  An’ as this is a dimmycratic counthry where ivrybody was bor-rn akel to ivrybody else, aven if they soon outgrow it, an’ where wan man’s as good as another an’ as bad, all iv us has a good chanst to have his name get in at laste wanst a year.

“Some goes in at Mrs. Rasther’s dinner an’ some as victims iv a throlley car, but ivrybody lands at last.  They’ll get ye afther awhile, Hinnissy.  They’ll print ye’er pitcher.  But on’y wanst.  A newspaper is to intertain, not to teach a moral lesson.”

“D’ye think people likes th’ newspapers iv th’ prisint time?” asked Mr. Hennessy.

“D’ye think they’re printed f’r fun?” said Mr. Dooley.