Many are the comments made to-day on "the art of reading the newspaper," and various is the advice tendered to the innocent reader. It is not intended here to endeavour to reach any general conclusion on the subject, but only to give one example from the interesting cases which can be found in our papers almost any day of the week.

Recently a leading New Zealand paper reported prominently in its cable news the serious development of strikes in U.S.A. For months it had said nothing about them, but now, as if to atone for a guilty silence, it came out boldly with emphatic and alarming news. It declared:

Several unrelated strikes in the textile industry are tending to spread.

An acute situation has developed in the bituminous coal districts of Pennsylvania.

In the coal areas some 30,000 miners were called out.

To-day there were clashes throughout the area.

Detachments of the militia were called out to preserve order.

One striker was killed and several were critically injured.

15,000 hosiery workers are striking for Union privileges.

There is much unrest in the far-flung lumber industry.

It is said that the strikers are being agitated by low wages, which in some cases are as little as five cents an hour for a twelve-hour day.

Dairymen in New York clashed with the State Police.

Batons and tear-gas were used freely by the officers.

Appalled at the news, and startled by this unusual frankness, I read the rest of the paper, and on another page of the same issue, I found the reassuring information for which, unconsciously, I was really looking. It was a local, and, reduced to anonymity, read as follows: