Strange Leading Articles

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17569, 20 June 1925, Page 17 (Supplement)

Strange Leading Articles

How Newspapers have startled their Readers. IX the last few weeks Italian newspapers have raged at the rigid censorship forced upon them bv Signor Mussolini. As a protest against this considered imposition. they adopted the measure m printing chapters of the Bible in the- columns usually devoted to the loading articles, says a writer in “ John ’o London’s Week] v. 55 The use of the Bible in this connection is hardlv an innovation, for leading articles of a- religious nature, and containing copious extracts from the Scriptures, were at one time comparatively frequent in the United States, especially among the Quaker group of journals. Even now the practice is by no means dead, for a great many without a few Biblical extracts in their Sunday editions. It is on record that the “ Chicago Times,” in 1891, braved public opinion by printing the whole of the revised version of the New Testament, while on Christmas Day, 1910, the “ Monmouthshire livening Post” blossomed forth with the ‘ £ Sermon on the Mount” as its leading article. Although leading articles in general cannot be said to err on the side of brevity, there have boon a few memorable occasions on which they hare amply fulfilled the axiom that brevity is .the soul, of wit.” Probably the most notable instance occurred some years ago, when the socalled Gorham case was dragging on month after month before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, until newspaper readers generally were heartily sick and tired of its very mention in the Press. A Colonial newspaper came out with the shortest leading article on record. It was headed in bold type, “ The Gorham Case,” and consisted of four small words printed beneath Curse the Gorham Case! ” It certainly ex-pressed-the feeling of both the Press and the Public at the time. Another gem, though somewhat sinister in tone, appeared during the M ar in “ Nationality,” at that time the organ of the Sinn Fein movement. Under the heading of ” Conscription” appeared the words: “England is again breathing forth threats of Conscription fur Ireland. Don’t worry!” Dub for concentrated sarcasm, the “leader” in a London evening newspaper (the . “ Star ”) on May 31. 1918 -—the subject being the German bombing of Paris after we had humanely refrained, at the special request of the Pope, front bombing Cologne at the time- of tho Corpus Christi procession—must bo awarded the palm. Ti simply rail; “ Blessed are- the merciless, for they shall obtain mercy.”