correspondent. He is often paid by space and thus is always open to the temptation , to which he sometimes yields, of making “ a
good story ." Details are elaborated, and unnecessary features are enlarged upon ; the errors of the special correspondent are not
so much those of commission and omission as they are those of an apparent lack of a sense of proportion . Here again the criticism People's Way of Writing is a Keen Satyr upon the credulity of the Age; and they take care to let the World know , that the English Nation are all BELIEVERS; for did they not think we
were credulous to a degree beyond all the POPERY that ever we pretended to quarrel with , they could never impose such
Trumpery for News, and such Forgeries for Intelligence," 46 and one of his biographers writes that " scarcely a week elapsed in which he did not complain of the contradictory and unreliable character of the pretended foreign News Letters , with which he
was compelled to deal.” 47 Another limitation on the authoritativeness of the press is that exerted by the advertiser. This is often thought to be a serious
limitation , and several well-known examples seem to bear out the contention . Yet the very publicity given such cases is an indication that they are exceptional. An examination of the press itself seems to lead to the same conclusion and it shows
where the pitfalls lie. The supposed limitation exerted by the advertiser does not prevent the curious anomalies found in polit
ical advertising. It is not unusual to find in editorial columns scathing denunciations of a politicalparty or organization whose
advertisements are found in the same issue. It does not prevent the best representatives of the press from expressing an honest opinion adverse to themerits of new books and at the same time carrying the advertising matter of the firms publishing these very books. The campaign carried on by the press itself for honesty in advertising is a clear indication that whatever the limitations
imposed by the advertiser have been in the past these limitations are on the wane. The guaranteed advertisement is not only a 46 W . Lee, Daniel Defoe, I, 305. 47 Idem .
