INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

AII'D PRESS CRITICISM. 163
main idea of most, and so the cry comes for
"padding." It is for this reason, and no other,
that such unnecessary detail and irrelevant
subjects are published. Omitting advertisements,
let anyone compare the time reqnired
to study the readable matter in most of our
daily papers with the amount of type exhibited.
~[ay we not, therefore, partly ascribe the assertion
that Englishmen in India are cold-blooded,
to this demand for padding ?-to this necessityof
filling up the usual number of square
feet of print 1-and that therefore this accusation
will assist this end, besides having a spice
of sensation in it to attract more attention. I
have said" partly," for no doubt some honest
public opinion holds the views just stated; and
no doubt it is to this opinion that the majority of
the improvements in the management of famines
is due. But it should also be remembered that
public opinion is expressed and criticised in a
more healthy form in the less frequently published
reviews, &c., than in the daily press.
It is not my province to show how public
opinion develops itself; to show how and why
it is that during particular stages of civilisa­
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