One antagonist there was who knew neither fear nor forgetfulness, and he attacked Bennett again and again. Bennett returned his blows, and then made most admirable "copy" of the assault. The last encounter between the two is so plainly characteristic of Bennett's style that I quote his description in his own words. "As I was leisurely pursuing my business yesterday in Wall Street," wrote Bennett, "collecting the information which is daily disseminated in 'The Herald,' James Watson Webb came up to me, on the northern side of the street--said something which I could not hear distinctly, then pushed me down the stone steps leading to one of the brokers' offices, and commenced fighting with a species of brutal and demoniac desperation characteristic of a fury. My damage is a scratch, about three-quarters of an inch in length, on the third finger of the left hand, which I received from the iron railing I was forced against, and three buttons torn from my vest, which my tailor will reinstate for six cents. His loss is a rent from top to bottom of a very beautiful black coat, which cost the ruffian $40, and a blow in the face which may have knocked down his throat some of his infernal teeth for all I know. Balance in my favour $39.94. As to intimidating me, or changing my course, the thing cannot be done. Neither Webb nor any other man shall, or can, intimidate me.... I may be attacked, I may be assailed, I may be killed, I may be murdered, but I will never succumb." There speaks the true Gordon Bennett, and his voice, though it may be the voice of a ruffian, is also the voice of a man who is certainly courageous and is not without humour. It is not from such a tradition as that, that the Yellow Press emerged. It does not want much pluck to hang about and sneak secrets. It is the pure negation of humour to preach Socialism in the name of the criminal and degenerate. To judge America by this product would be monstrously unfair, but it corresponds perforce to some baser quality in the cosmopolitans of the United States, and it cannot be overlooked. As it stands, it is the heaviest indictment of the popular taste that can be made. There is no vice so mean as impertinent curiosity, and it is upon this curiosity that the Yellow Press meanly lives and meanly thrives. What is the remedy? There is none, unless time brings with it a natural reaction. It is as desperate a task to touch the Press as to change the Constitution. The odds against reform are too great. A law to check the exuberance of newspapers would never survive the attacks of the newspapers themselves.