" AN ORGANISED HYPOCRISY. "
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:] SIR,—With some little knowledge of the matter—although not from the inside—I am very much inclined to doubt " A Working Journalist's " version of the Daily News advertise. ment, and I question his attempt to whitewash Mr. George Cadbury at the expense of Mr. Ritzema. If "the control of the Daily News was solely in the hands of Mr. Ritzema " how does your correspondent explain away the intervention from "higher quarters" which, it was notorious in the newspaper world, compelled Mr. Ritzema to yield in the struggle with the London Society of Compositors when he had practically won the day. Mr. Ritzema at any rate made an honest and gallant attempt to abolish betting news in his own evening paper, but, unfortunately, the effect on its circulation was so disastrous that the experiment had to be abandoned. It should not be forgotten that there is a wide difference be- tween morning and evening papers in this respect. The former can be run without betting news. Evening papers, at any rate of the halfpenny class, which have to rely upon the masses of the people for support, cannot exist unless they give the betting news. It is unfortunate, but we must face the fact—at least in England, for in Scotland betting news is, happily, not so necessary. I have seen the experiment of abolishing betting news in evening papers tried more than once or twice. I have tried it myself. But the result has always been disastrous to the evening paper. We may deplore the fact, but there it is. Of course, this fact by no means justifies a newspaper proprietor in ostentatiously parading the exclusion of betting news from his morning papers—where it is not a necessity—while running it "for all it is worth" and with "tips," which can be done without, in his evening. Much honester is the frank avowal which is made by many evening newspaper owners—" we don't like betting news, but we give it because we must do that or stop the paper."—I am, Sir, &A,
ANOTHER WORKING JOURNALIST.
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