r by a man about to have his teeth drawn by
a dentist.

In other words, there is a difference of atmosphere. It is not merely
in the type and the lettering, it is a difference in the way the news
is treated and the kind of words that are used. In America we love such
words as "gun-men" and "joy-ride" and "death-cell": in England they
prefer "person of doubtful character" and "motor travelling at excessive
speed" and "corridor No. 6." If a milk-waggon collides in the
street with a coal-cart, we write that a "life-waggon" has struck a
"death-cart." We call a murderer a "thug" or a "gun-man" or a "yeg-man."
In England they simply call him "the accused who is a grocer's assistant
in Houndsditch." That designation would knock any decent murder story to
pieces.

Hence comes the great difference between the American "lead" or opening
sentence of the article, and the English method of commencement. In the
American paper the idea is that the reader is so busy that he must first
be offered the news in one gulp. After that if he likes it he can go
on and eat some more of it. So the opening sentence must give the whole
thing. Thus, suppose that a leading member of the United States Congress
has committed suicide. This is the way in which the American reporter
deals with it.

"Seated in his room at the Grand Hotel with his carpet slippers on his
feet and his body wrapped in a blue dressing-gown with pink insertions,
after writing a letter of farewell to his wife and emptying a bottle
of Scotch whisky in which he exonerated her from all culpability in his
death, Congressman Ahasuerus P. Tigg was found by night-watchman, Henry
T. Smith, while making his rounds as usual with four bullets in his
stomach."

Now let us suppose that a leading member of the House of Commons in
England had done the same thing. Here is the way it would be written up
in a first-class London newspaper.

The heading would be HOME AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. That is inserted so
as to keep the reader soothed and quiet and is no doubt thought better
than the American heading BUGHOUSE CONGRESSMAN BLOWS OUT BRAINS IN
HOTEL. After the heading HOME AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE the English
paper runs the subheading INCIDENT AT THE GRAND HOTEL. The reader still
doesn't know what happened; he isn't meant to. Then the article begins
like this:

"The Grand Hotel, which is situated at the corner of Millbank and
Victoria Streets, was the scene last night of a distressing in