ABSTRACT
One of the effective ways of damaging an opponent is to set some scandalous rumor in circulation about him. It is the safest form of attack because modern civilization provides no effective method of meeting it. Moreover, the victim must ask himself whether he can afford to let any slanderer put him on the defensive, whether he can afford the cost of time and irritation which the pursuit of slander involves. For the moment a person is known outside a circle of immediate triends, at that moment there begins to develop a legend. A good deal of the scandal about actresses betrays an unconscious desire on the part of the scandalmonger. Much of the foulness imputed to public men betrays a wish on the part of their opponents for the existence of something sufficiently damaging to destroy.
