18 JUNE 1910, Page 17

OVID AND THE "YELLOW PRESS."

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—An article dealing with the custom, which in the United States has become so general, of the " Yellow Press " through its reporters coming to the assistance of the police, sometimes outdistancing, sometimes hindering them in their pursuit of a picturesque fugitive from justice, recalls an earlier instance of such interference which is classical. Ovid sums it up in two lines : Persephone is the sought, Ceres the seeker :— " Forsitan ills dies erroris summa fuissot

Si non turbassent signs reports sues."

Roughly Englished :-

Haply too, that very day had seen the end of her wanderings

If the now found tracks had not been troubled by swine.