taking the place of Oriental morosa voluptas and of the unnatural practices—­Tribadism and so forth, still rare, we believe, in England.  How many hypocrites of either sex, who would turn away disgusted from the outspoken Tom Jones or the Sentimental Voyager, revel in and dwell fondly upon the sly romance or “study” of character whose profligacy is masked and therefore the more perilous.  And a paper like the (modern) Pall Mall Gazette which deliberately pimps and panders to this latent sense and state of aphrodisiac excitement, is as much the more infamous than the loose book as hypocrisy is more hateful than vice and prevarication is more ignoble than a lie.  And when such vile system is professionally practiced under the disguise and in the holy names of Religion and Morality, the effect is loathsome as that spectacle sometimes seen in the East of a wrinkled old eunuch garbed in woman’s nautchdress ogling with painted eyes and waving and wriggling like a young Bayadere.

There is much virtue in a nickname:  at all events it shows the direction whither the aura popularis sets.  The organ of Christian Chivalry is now universally known to Society as “The Gutter Gazette;” to the public as “The Purity-Severity Paper,” and the “Organ of the Social Pruriency Society,” and to its colleagues of the Press as “The Dirt Squirt.”  In the United States fulsomely to slander a man is “to Pall Mall Gazette him:”  “Just like your Pall Mall Gazette,” said an American to me when describing a disreputable print “over the water.”  And Mr. Stead, now self-constituted coryphaeus of the Reptile Press in Great Britain, has apparently still to learn that lying and slandering are neither Christian nor chivalrous.

The diminutive Echo of those days (October 13 and 14, ’85) followed suit of the Pall Mall Gazette and caught lightly the sounds as they fell from the non-melliferous lips of the charmer who failed to charm wisely.  The precious article begins by informing me that I am “always eager after the sensational,” and that on this occasion I “cater for the prurient curiosity of the wealthy few,” such being his synonym for “readiness to learn.”  And it ends with the following comical colophon:—­“Captain Burton may possibly imitate himself(?) and challenge us(!) to mortal combat for this expression of opinion.  If so, the writer of these lines will imitate himself(?) and take no notice of such an epistle.”  The poor scribe suggests the proverbial “Miss Baxter, who refused a man before he axed her.”  And what weapon could I use, composing-stick or dung-fork, upon an anonymous correspondent of the hawkers’ and newsboys’ “Hecker,” the favourite ha’porth of East London?  So I left him to the tender mercies of Gaiety (October 14, ’84):—­

     The Echo is just a bit wild,
          Its “par.” is indeed a hard hitter: 
     In fact, it has not drawn it mild
          ’Tis a matter of “Burton and bitter.”

I rejoice to subjoin that the Echo has now (1888) made a name for decent and sensible writing, having abandoned the “blatant” department to the Star (see, for the nonsense about a non-existent Alderman Waterlow, its issue of September 6, ’88).