CHAPTER VI.

THE "EVENING MOON" INDULGES IN A BOMBASTIC RETROSPECT, IN WHICH SOME VERY TALL AND VERY FINE WRITING WILL BE DETECTED BY THE OBSERVANT READER.

"In pursuance of the policy which we inaugurated some four years since by the romance known as 'Great Porter Square,' we now present our readers with a story of today, which we with confidence declare to be as strange and exciting as that thrilling mystery, which may be regarded as the starting-point of a new and captivating description of journalism for the people. We use the term 'romance' advisedly, and are prepared to justify it, although the incidents which we set before hundreds of thousands of readers were true in every particular, and occurred in a locality with which every Londoner is familiar. We recall with pride the extraordinary variety of opinions which our publication of that story of real life, and the means we pursued to get at the heart of it, elicited. By many we were inordinately praised, by some we were mercilessly condemned. There were critics who declared that it was derogatory to the legitimate functions of a newspaper to present any matter of public interest in the garb in which we clothed it; there were others who, with a juster sense of the altered conditions of society by which we are ruled, and to which we are compelled to submit, declared that the new departure we made in the Great Porter Square Mystery was, to the general mass of readers, as wholesome as it was entertaining. Judging by results, these latter critics were most certainly in the right. The public read with eager avidity the details of that remarkable case as we published them, in our own original fashion, from day to day. The demand for copies of our several editions was so great that we were absolutely unable to satisfy it, and we are afraid that thousands of newspaper readers were compelled to pay exorbitant prices to the ragamuffins who vend the daily journals in the public streets. We made strong endeavors to put a stop to this extortion, but our efforts were vain, chiefly because the people themselves were content to pay three and four times the established price of the Evening Moon rather than be deprived of the pleasure of reading the tempting morsels with which its columns were filled. Letters of congratulation poured in upon us from all quarters, written by persons occupying the highest positions in society, as well as by others moving in the lowest stations, and from that time the success of the Evening Moon, as a journal which had firmly fixed itself in the affections of the people, was assured. If any excuse is needed for the system of journalism of which we were the first bold exponents, we might find it in the trite axiom that the ends justify the means, but we deny that any excuse whatever is required. It was no sentimental experiment that we were trying; we had carefully watched the currents of public opinion, and we started on our crusade to satisfy a need. The present state of society is such that the public insist upon their right to be made acquainted with the innermost details of cases which are brought before the tribunals; the moment these cases come before the public they are public property. There was a time when seemly and closed doors were the rule, and under the cloak of that pernicious system the most flagrant wrongs were committed; it is not so in the present day, and it is right that it should not be so. Public matters belong to the people, and so long as a proper and necessary measure of decency is observed, so long as private characters are not defamed, so long as homes and those who occupy them are not made wretched by infamous innuendoes, so long as the pen of the literary journalist is not employed for the purpose of scandal and blackmail--too often, we regret to say, convertible terms--the people's rights in this respect must be observed.

"We point with justifiable pride to the manner in which our example has been followed. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and, we may add, also of approval, and the columns of numberless newspapers with which we have no connection testify to the approval which our new system of journalism has won. We mention no names, and have no intention of complaining because the credit of initiating the new system has been withheld from us; we accept the compliment which has been paid to us, and we wish our contemporaries good luck. At the same time we point out to our hundreds of thousands of readers that no journal has, up to this day, succeeded in presenting public news in as tempting a manner as we are enabled to do. The reason for this lies in the extraordinary intelligence of our staff. Our writers are picked men, who could earn celebrity in other channels than those of newspaper columns, but who are content to serve us because they are paid as capable journalists ought to be paid, with a liberality which other newspaper proprietors would deem excessive, but which we do not. This is one of the secrets of our astonishing and unprecedented success. Our editors, sub-editors, special correspondents, and reporters are zealous as no others are because they are devoted to our cause, because they have regular and tangible proof that our welfare is theirs, because they share in the profits of our enterprise. Thus it is that we are now in possession of particulars relating to 'The Mystery of Monsieur Felix,' which not one of our contemporaries has been able to obtain, and thus it is that we are in a position to present to our readers a romance as thrilling as any that has ever emanated from the printing press. It presents features of novelty and surprise which can be found in no other cause célèbre, and our readers may rest assured that we shall follow up every clew in our possession with an intelligence frequently wanting in the officials of Scotland Yard. And, moreover, we have every right to maintain, and we shall establish the fact, that what we do is done in the sacred cause of justice. The wronged shall be righted, and the mystery clearly brought to light, before we have finished with the case of M. Felix.

"For a long period of time the term 'romance' has been misunderstood. Romance was supposed to lie outside the regions of the ordinary occurrences of everyday life. There was a glamour about the word, a kind of lustre which lifted it above and beyond the commonplace features of human struggle. It was, as it were, a castle built upon an eminence, with spires, and turrets, and gables, whose points shone brightly in the sun; it was, as it were, a species of ideal garden in which grew only rare flowers and stately trees; or a land of enchantment peopled by knights in silver armor, and by dainty ladies flinging kisses to their lords and lovers as they rode forth to the tournament or the battle. This was the bygone notion of Romance, the false idea which, thanks in a great measure to our efforts, is now utterly exploded. It has been found and proved that the truest regions of romance lie in humble courts and alleys, where the commonest flowers grow, where the air is not perfumed by odorous blossoms, where people dwell not in turreted castle or stately palace, but in the humblest homes and narrowest spaces, where common fustian and dimity, not glittering armor and silken sheen, are the ordinary wear; where faces are thin and anxious from the daily cares of toil, where the battle is not for vast tracts of country worth millions, but for the daily loaf of bread worth fourpence halfpenny. It has been found and proved that the police courts are a veritable hot-bed in which romance is forever springing up. When we contemplate the shattering of old false idols and ideals, it would almost seem as if we were living in an age of topsy-turvydom, but the sober fact is that the world is healthfully setting itself right, and is daily and hourly stripping off the veneer which lay thick upon what have been ridiculously called the good old times. We were the first to practically recognize this truth, and we have done our best to make it popular. It is from lowly annals that we culled the romance of 'Great Porter Square,' and it is from somewhat similar annals that we cull the present 'Mystery of M. Felix.' The story will be found as strange as it is true. All the passions of human nature are expressed in it, and there is one episode at least--even up to the point which it has already reached--so singular and startling as to be absolutely unique.

"We draw special attention to the words in our last sentence, 'even up to the point which it has already reached,' and we beg our readers to bear them well in mind. It may be in their remembrance that when we commenced to unravel the mystery of 'Great Porter Square' we had no knowledge of its conclusion. We held in our hands certain slight threads which we followed patiently up, and of which we kept firm hold, until we had woven them into a strand which villainy and duplicity could not break. We championed the cause of a man who, upon no evidence whatever--simply from the officious and mistaken zeal of a few policemen--was brought up to the police court on the suspicion of being in some undiscovered way connected with a crime with which all England was ringing. He was remanded day after day for the production of evidence which was never forthcoming, and day after day we protested against the injustice of which it was sought to make him a victim. The slender threads in our possession we held fast, as we have said, until at length we were rewarded with a gratifying success, until at length we brought the guilt home to the guilty parties. We ourselves were misled by the specious statements of one of the miscreants, a woman, we regret to say, who was one of the two principal actors in a plot which was very nearly successful, and which, indeed, did for a certain time succeed. We are in a similar position with respect to the 'Mystery of M. Felix.' The information already in our possession leads us to a point of great interest, and there strangely breaks off. But we pledge ourselves to pursue the story to an end, and to unearth what is at present hidden in darkness. Our agents are at work in this country and elsewhere, and we are satisfied that they will succeed in removing the veil from a mystery which is a common topic of conversation and discussion in all classes of society."