" "Wronged Wife Mars Rival's Beauty." "Society Woman
Gives Hundred-Dollar-Plate Dinner." "Scientist Claims Life Flickers in
Mummy." "Cocktails, Wine, Drug, Ruin for Lovely Girl of Sixteen."
"Financier Resigns After Sprightly Scene at Long Beach." Severance
developed a literary genius for excitant and provocative
word-combinations in the headings; "Love-Slave," "Girl-Slasher,"
"Passion-Victim," "Death-Hand," "Vengeance-Oath," "Lust-Fiend." The
articles chosen for special display were such as lent themselves, first,
to his formula for illustration, and next to captions which thrilled
with the sensations of crime, mystery, envy of the rich and conspicuous,
or lechery, half concealed or unconcealed. For facts as such he cared
nothing. His conception of news was as a peg upon which to hang a
sensation. "Love and luxury for the women: money and power for the men,"
was his broad working scheme for the special interest of the paper,
with, of course, crime and the allure of the flesh for general interest.
A jungle man, perusing one day's issue (supposing him to have been
competent to assimilate it), would have judged the civilization pictured
therein too grisly for his unaccustomed nerves and fled in horror back
to the direct, natural, and uncomplicated raids and homicides of the
decent wilds.
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