"How do you know it's true? Who gives the news? Where's the
authority? And what do I care if some human brute has murdered his
wife and blown out his own brains? Am I going to be any the better
for reading such a tale? And if one Government is in or t'other
out, what does it matter to me, or to any of you, so long as you
can work and pay your way? The newspapers are always trying to
persuade us to meddle in other folks's business;--I say, take care
of your own affairs!--serve God and obey the laws of the country,
and there won't be much going wrong with you! If you must read,
read a decent book--something that will last--not a printed sheet
full of advertisements that's fresh one day and torn up for waste
paper the next!"

Under the sway of these prejudiced and arbitrary opinions, it was
not possible for Innocent to have much knowledge of the world that
lay outside Briar Farm. Sometimes she found Priscilla reading an
old magazine or looking at a picture-paper, and she would borrow
these and take them up to her own room surreptitiously for an hour
or so, but she was always more or less pained and puzzled by their
contents. It seemed to her that there were an extraordinary number
of pictures of women with scarcely any clothes on, and she could
not understand how they managed to be pictured at all in such
scanty attire.

"Who are they?" she asked of Priscilla on one occasion--"And how
is it that they are photographed like this? It must be so shameful
for them!"

Priscilla explained as best she could that they were "dancers and
the like."