Spoon River, like towns in all parts of the country, has become a standardized community, a metropolized town.

They atteſt facts vvhich they had heard vvhile they vvere yet heathens, and had they not found reaſon to believe them, they vvould ſtill have continued heathens, and have made no mention of them in their vvritings.

The appeals to the public were also expressed differently: that is to say, much less by fallacious argumenta ad populum that played on the fears of the addressees, than by an appeal to rational insights, humanity and democracy.

A ray of light amid all this nonsense was Gwyn Topham's piece in the Guardian, which was timely, measured, accurate and of appropriate tone. That this single report stood out so clearly as an exemplar is a scathing comment in itself on the volumes of drivel surrounding it.