front pages teem with caricatures of the judge upon the bench,
of the individual jurors with exaggerated heads upon
impossible bodies, of the lawyers ranting and bellowing,
juxtaposed with sketches of the defendant praying beside his
prison cot or firing the fatal shot in obedience to a message
borne by an angel from on high.

How long would the "unwritten law" play any part in the
administration of criminal justice if every paper in the land
united in demanding, not only in its editorials, but upon its
front pages, that private vengeance must cease? Let the
"yellow" newspapers confine themselves simply to an accurate
report of the evidence at the trial, with a reiterated
insistence that the law must take its course. Let them stop
pandering to those morbid tastes which they have themselves
created. Let the "Sympathy Sisters," the photographer, and
the special artist be excluded from the court-room. When
these things are done, we shall have the same high standard of
efficiency upon the part of the jury in great murder trials
that we have in other cases.



CHAPTER IV

Why Do Men Kill?


When a shrewd but genial editor called me up on the telephone
and asked me how I should like to write an article on the