In affairs of public interest we often know, or fancy that we know, down to every exact detail, how a thing has been done,– who have given the bribes and who have taken them, — who has told the lie and who has pretended to believe it,– who has peculated and how the public purse has suffered,–who was in love with such a one’s wife and how the matter was detected, then smothered up, and condoned; but there is no official knowledge, and nothing can be done.
The “affair of public interest” Anthony Trollope is talking about is the attempted murder of a young man, the beloved fiancé of the eponymous character, by the eponymous character’s mother who hates him because he’s a working bloke, not an aristocrat. The young man, with a compassion the mother doesn’t deserve, tells her he will not report this incident to the police and the mother should keep quiet, too.
However, as Trollope says, the news leaks out, even in the form of wild rumor. I.e., misinformation.
As I read Trollope’s observation in his oddball 1874 novel, Lady Anna, I thought about the New York Times’ story I read on the Murdoch family fight.
I’m sitting here wondering whether things have changed that much since Trollope’s time. Yeah, in two ways: speed of info and misinformation, and the expansion of public participation/conversation to all of us.
Nowadays, we eventually do get official knowledge and if there’s something to be done, it is done.