In 1935, British journalist James Agate admitted to obsession with a juicy but fundamentally parochial murder case, while from Quetta"€”now in Pakistan, then in the Raj"€”came news of a quake which had left 20,000 dead. He told readers of his diary, Ego: “This trial has moved me immensely, while the dreadful affair at Quetta makes no impression. The thousands who perished in that earthquake might be flies. I see no remedy for this, since one can’t order one’s feelings, and to pretend something different is merely hypocrisy.” (Alistair Cooke and Jacques Barzun ...