Baden-Powell of Mafeking

Excerpt from Baden-Powell of Mafeking It may well and fittingly be complained that of late years we English folk have shown an unpardonable spirit of curiosity about things which do not concern us. We have brought into being more than one periodical ... Read more

Excerpt from Baden-Powell of Mafeking It may well and fittingly be complained that of late years we English folk have shown an unpardonable spirit of curiosity about things which do not concern us. We have brought into being more than one periodical publication full of gossip about the private life and affairs of folk of eminence, and there are too many of us who are never so much pleased as when we are informed that a certain great artist abhors meat, or that a famous musician is inordinately fond of pickled salmon. There was a time when, to use a homely old phrase, people minded their own business and left that of their neighbours' alone - that day in some degree seems to have been left far behind, and most of us feel that we arc being defrauded of our just rights if we may not step across the threshold of my lady's drawing-room or set foot in the statesman's cabinet. The fact is that we have itching ears nowadays, and cherish a passion for gossip which were creditable to the old women of the open doorways. We want to know all - which is to say as much as chance will tell us - about the people of whom the street is talking, and the more we can hear of them, even of the things which appertain in reality to no one but themselves, the better we are pleased. But even here, in what is undoubtedly an evil, there is an element of possible good which under certain circumstances may be developed into magnificent results. Less