subway express, by a man eating at a lunch counter, by a man standing
on one leg, by a man getting a two-minute shave, or by a man about to
have his teeth drawn by a dentist.

In other words, there is a difference of atmosphere. It is not
merely in the type and the lettering, it is a difference in the
way the news is treated and the kind of words that are used. In
America we love such words as "gun-men" and "joy-ride" and
"death-cell": in England they prefer "person of doubtful character"
and "motor travelling at excessive speed" and "corridor No. 6."
If a milk-waggon collides in the street with a coal-cart, we write
that a "life-waggon" has struck a "death-cart." We call a murderer
a "thug" or a "gun-man" or a "yeg-man." In England they simply call
him "the accused who is a grocer's assistant in Houndsditch." That
designation would knock any decent murder story to pieces.

Hence comes the great difference between the American "lead" or
opening sentence of the article, and the English method of
commencement. In the American paper the idea is that the reader is so
busy that he must first be offered the news in one gulp. After that
if he likes it he can go on and eat some more of it. So the opening
sentence must give the whole thing. Thus, suppose that a leading
member of the United States Congress has committed suicide. This is
the way in which the American reporter deals with it.

"Seated in his room at the Grand Hotel with his carpet slippers on
his feet and his body wrapped in a blue dressing-gown with pink
insertions, after writing a letter of farewell to his wife and
emptying a bottle of Scotch whisky in which he exonerated her from
all culpability in his death, Congressman Ahasuerus P. Tigg was