It was the dull newspaper season, and the case had turned out to be a thoroughly "journalistic" one.

So they questioned and interviewed every one concerned, and after cleverly winnowing the chaff, which in this case meant the dull, from the gleanings, most of them gave several columns the next morning to the story.

Peter's speech was printed in full, and proved to read almost as well as it had sounded.

The reporters were told, and repeated the tales without much attempt at verification, that Peter had taken the matter up without hope of profit; had paid the costs out of his own pocket; had refused to settle "though offered nine thousand dollars:" had "saved the Dooley children's lives by sending them into the country;" and "had paid for the burials of the little victims." So all gave him a puff, and two of the better sort wrote really fine editorials about him.

At election time, or any other than a dull season, the case would have had small attention, but August is the month, to reverse an old adage, when "any news is good news." The press began, too, a crusade against the swill-milk dealers, and the men who had allowed all this to be possible.