"O, how full"

The Moore mystery of a fortnight ago became more of a mystery last week. Both of the rumors about Alexander Pollock Moore, onetime (1923-25) U. S. Ambassador to Spain, came true. President Coolidge appointed him Ambassador to Peru five days after he had purchased two tabloids: the New York Daily Mirror and the Boston Advertiser. William Randolph Hearst, who had never before sold any profitable publication, was the seller. The price was considered too "personal" to be made public. People wondered how Mr. Moore intended to divide his time between solving Peruvian diplomacy and pleasing U. S. gum-chewers.

Mr. Moore hinted that he might make of the Mirror and Advertiser a buckle for a nation-wide chain of tabloids. When asked about contemplated negotiations, he said: "You don't have to negotiate. They are offered to you." Concerning the most important problem of a tabloid publisher, Mr. Moore weaseled his stand: "We do not make the news. If it happens to be sensational we will not eliminate it on that account. But I want to make a distinction between sensationalism and salaciousness. We will not tolerate the latter."

There were no startling changes during the first few days of the Moore regime. Photographs of girls with their legs crossed and dresses barely covering the hips continued to appear on the front pages; Elinor Glyn kept on writing about "It;" Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary ran along in pictorial form so that no gum-chewer could miss the point. In the Mirror were photographs of a Negro and a white baby, "brought together by fate" at the Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. The Negro infant got the caption:

GOSH, WOTTA WORLD!

William Shakespeare, bard, also contributed to the Mirror on the opening day of Mr. Moore's ownership. Said he at the top of the editorial page: "O, how full of briers is this working-day world!" Readers of the Mirror were offered $5 apiece for published letters answering the question: "If YOU were publishing the MIRROR, what sort of newspaper would you produce to meet your tastes and interests?"

The Mirror achieved its greatest notoriety under the editorship of Philip A. Payne, who ran bloated Harry K. Thaw out of town (TIME, Sept. 28, 1925), reopened the Hall-Mills case, finally perished in the Old Glory flight. Founded three and a half years ago, the Mirror was Mr. Hearst's reply to the challenge of the Daily News (Chicago Tribune-owned tabloid) for supremacy among the gum-chewers. Although the Mirror has today a circulation of 450,000 it lags far behind the Daily News, which has 1,225,000. The younger pornoGraphic of Bernarr Macfadden has 285,000.

The Boston Advertiser has 190,000 on weekdays; 510,000 on Sunday.