That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more
sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But
journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the
permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on
their posters, "Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe," or "Mr. Jones, of
Worthing, Not Dead Yet." They cannot announce the happiness of
mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not
stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved.
Hence the complete picture they give of life is of necessity
fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However
democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the
minority.

The incident of the religious fanatic who broke a window on
Ludgate Hill was alone enough to set them up in good copy for the
night. But when the same man was brought before a magistrate and
defied his enemy to mortal combat in the open court, then the
columns would hardly hold the excruciating information, and the
headlines were so large that there was hardly room for any of the
text. The _Daily Telegraph_ headed a column, "A Duel on
Divinity," and there was a correspondence afterwards which lasted
for months, about whether police magistrates ought to mention
religion. The _Daily Mail_ in its dull, sensible way, headed the
events, "Wanted to fight for the Virgin." Mr. James Douglas, in
_The Star_, presuming on his knowledge of philosophical and
theological terms, described the Christian's outbreak under the
title of "Dualist and Duellist." The _Daily News_ inserted a
colourless account of the matter, but was pursued and eaten up
for some weeks, with letters from outlying ministers, headed
"Murder and Mariolatry." But the journalistic temperature was