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The Psychology of Jingoism

which supply the London 'dailies.' Most provincial papers take not only their news but their 'views,' with abject servility, from the London journal which they most admire.

In a very few instances, important provincial papers receive first-hand intelligence from special correspondents of their own by mail, but for all prompt intelligence they are absolutely dependent upon the sources above-mentioned. The otherwise miraculous agreement of the British press is, thus, first resolved into the agreement of a few journals, chiefly in London, and of two or three press agencies. We have next to ask from what sources do these latter get their information? On this point the case of the South African war is peculiarly instructive. All the leading London papers received their South African intelligence from correspondents who were members of the staff of newspapers in Cape-town and Johannesburg, supplemented in two instances last year by information from special travelling correspondents, who, in their turn, derived most of that information from newspaper offices in South Africa. In particular, the two London newspapers which exercised most influence upon the mind of the educated classes in this country, the Times and the

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