It is quite beside the question to ask which is the better. Neither
is. They are different things: that's all. The English newspaper is
designed to be read quietly, propped up against the sugar bowl of a
man eating a slow breakfast in a quiet corner of a club, or by a
retired banker seated in a leather chair nearly asleep, or by a
country vicar sitting in a wicker chair under a pergola. The American
paper is for reading by a man hanging on the straps of a clattering
subway express, by a man eating at a lunch counter, by a man standing
on one leg, by a man getting a two-minute shave, or by a man about to
have his teeth drawn by a dentist.
In other words, there is a difference of atmosphere. It is not
merely in the type and the lettering, it is a difference in the
way the news is treated and the kind of words that are used. In
America we love such words as "gun-men" and "joy-ride" and
"death-cell": in England they prefer "person of doubtful character"
and "motor travelling at excessive speed" and "corridor No. 6."
If a milk-waggon collides in the street with a coal-cart, we write
that a "life-waggon" has struck a "death-cart." We call a murderer
a "thug" or a "gun-man" or a "yeg-man." In England they simply call
him "the accused who is a grocer's assistant in Houndsditch." That
designation would knock any decent murder story to pieces.
Hence comes the great difference between the American "lead" or
opening sentence of the article, and the English method of
commencement.
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