England has not yet forgotten the disclosures in the matter of the Chicago packing houses. That the light which was then turned on that industry revealed conditions that were in some details inconceivably shocking, is hardly to be doubted: and I trust that those are mistaken who say that if similar investigation had been made into the methods of certain English establishments, before warning was given, the state of affairs would have been found not much different. What is certain, however, is that the English public received an exaggerated idea of the extent of the abuses. In part, this was a necessary result of the exigencies of journalism. A large majority of the newspapers even of London--certainly those which reach a large majority of the readers--prefer sensationalism. Even those which are anxious in such cases to be fair and temperate are sadly hampered both by the limitations of space in their own columns and by the costliness of telegraphic correspondence. It is inevitable that the most conservative and judicial of correspondents should transmit to his papers whatever are the most striking items--revelations--accusations in an indictment such as was then framed against the packers. The more damning details are the best news. On the other hand he cannot, save to a ridiculously disproportionate extent, transmit the extenuating circumstances, the individual denials, the local atmosphere. Telegraph tolls are heavy and space is straitened while atmosphere and extenuating circumstances are not news at all. An Englishman is generally astonished when he reads the accounts of some conspicuous divorce case or great financial scandal in England as they appear in the American (or for that matter the French or German) papers, with the editorial comments thereupon. In the picture of any event happening at a great distance the readers of even the best-intentioned journals necessarily have presented to their view only the highest lights and the blackest shadows. In this instance a certain section of the American press--what is specifically known as the "yellow" press--had strong motives, of a political kind, for making the case against the packers as bad as possible. It is unfortunate that many of the London newspapers look much too largely to that particular class of American paper for their American news and their views on current American events.