We shall not make any hypocritical profession of having minds
lofty and serene enough to be above the enticements of a cause cilibre. When the reports are set before us we read them. After all, they contain astounding truths about the follies, the baseness, the meanness and the recklessness of men and women. There is material here for the philosopher and the student, as well as for the cynic or the expert in crime. What we do say, however, is that the artificial working-up of these trials is thor- oughly injurious to public taste and public morals. In the mass of humanity the imitative faculty is strong.
Besides, is bred between class and class when the aberrations of abnormal people are made to appear typical. Perhaps, without seeming hypocritical, we may go so far as to assert that we would most willingly make any sacrifice there might be of the study of human nature in these trials for the benefit public morals would derive if the reports were made less deliberately alluring.
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