AMERICAN JOURNALISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13700, 17 March 1908, Page 4

AMERICAN JOURNALISM.

There has been (says a New York correspondent) not a little discussion, the substance of which has appeared as a protestin high-class American periodicals recently, concerning the '■ fantastic stories published here in sensational papers, finding their way into the English press. They make entertaining reading sometimes, but they produce an effect in well-informed circles that is calculated to excite ridicule rather than a wholesome regard for the home, or foreign journals which republish them. Here is one instance. About a month ago a wealthy Philadelphia banker gave a dinner and dance for his debut-ante daughter, the cost of which was declared in some of the journals I have in mind to have amounted to about £20,000. It was represented that butterflies had been imported from South America, the Far East, and Africa— from every conceivable butterfly quarter— to make the occasion a thing of beauty and a joy for ever to be remembered. 'the affair was called the " Butterfly Ball," and was described with extraordinary imagination. The dinner and dance really cost less than £1200, and the butterflies were made of papqr. Another case was that of the "Goldfish Ball." This affair also took place in Philadelphia, where it seems some of the reporters arc rivalling their I'ittsburg colleagues in the gentle art of "faking."' It was also a " coming-out" function for the daughter of a Philadelphia gentleman, who could ill-afford to spend a fortune upon such a joyful event. Yet he was represented as having arranged the affair at a cost of not less than £30,000. The guests angled for goldfish in a series of fountains, and so on. It is quite a disillusionment to learn that this gorgeous function actually cost less than £800, and that the half-dozen goldfish swam in the basin of a small fountain belonging to the hotel where the dinner and dance took place: