Page:The Psychology of Jingoism.djvu/41

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CHAPTER II

BRUTALITY

The modern newspaper is a Roman arena, a Spanish bull-ring, and an English prize-fight rolled into one. The popularization of the power to read has made the press the chief instrument of brutality. For a halfpenny every man, woman, or child can stimulate and feed those lusts of blood and physical cruelty which it is the chief aim of civilization and of government to repress, and which, in their literal modes of realization, have been assigned by modern specialization to soldiers, butchers, sportsmen, and a few other trained professions. The business man, the weaver, the clerk, the clergyman, the shop assistant, can no longer satisfy these savage cravings, either in personal activity or in direct spectacular display; but the art of reading print enables them to indulge ad libitum in ghoulish gloating over scenes of human suffering, outrage, and destruction.

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