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-Project Gutenberg’s A Journalists Note-Book, by Frank Frankfort Moore
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you’ll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: A Journalists Note-Book
-
-Author: Frank Frankfort Moore
-
-Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51952]
-Last Updated: November 16, 2016
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A JOURNALISTS NOTE-BOOK ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger from page images generously
-provided by the Internet Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-A JOURNALISTS NOTE-BOOK
-
-By Frank Frankfort Moore
-
-Author of “Forbid the Banns,” “Daireen,’” “A Gray Eye or So,” etc.
-
-London: Hutchins On And Co., Paternoster Row
-
-1894
-
-[Illustration: 0001]
-
-[Illustration: 0008]
-
-[Illustration: 0009]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.--PAST AND PRESENT.
-
-
-_Odd lots of journalism--Respectability and its relation to
-journalism--The abuse of the journal--The laudation of the
-journalist--Abuse the consequence of popularity--Popularity the
-consequence of abuse--Drain-work and grey hairs--“Don’t neglect
-your reading for the sake of reviewing”--Reading for pleasure or
-to criticise--Literature--Deterioration--The Civil List Pension--In
-exchange for a soul._
-
-
-SOME years ago there was an auction of wine at a country-house in
-Scotland, the late owner of which had taken pains to gain a reputation
-for judgment in the matter of wine-selecting. He had all his life been
-nearly as intemperate as a temperance orator in his denunciation of
-whisky as a drink, hoping to inculcate a taste for vintage clarets upon
-the Scots; but he that tells the tale--it is not a new one--says that
-the man died without seriously jeopardizing the popularity of the
-native manufacture. The wines that he had laid down brought good prices,
-however; but, at the close of the sale, several odd lots were “put
-up,” and all were bought by a local publican. A gentleman who had been
-present called upon the publican a few days afterwards, and found
-him engaged in mixing into one huge cask all the “lots” that he had
-bought--Larose, Johannisberg, Château Coutet.
-
-“Hallo,” said the visitor, “what’s this mixture going to be, Rabbie?”
-
-“Weel, sir,” said the publican, looking with one eye into the cask and
-mechanically giving the contents a stir with a bottle of Sauterne which
-he had just uncorked--“Weel, sir, I think it should be port, but I’m no
-sure.”
-
-These odd lots of journalistic experiences and recollections may be
-considered a book, “but I’m no sure.”
-
-*****
-
-After all, “a book’s a book although”--it’s written by a journalist.
-Nearly every writer of books nowadays becomes a journalist when he has
-written a sufficient number. He is usually encouraged in this direction
-by his publishers.
-
-“You’re a literary man, are you not?” a stranger said to a friend of
-mine.
-
-“On the contrary, I’m a journalist,” was the reply.
-
-“Oh, I beg your pardon, I’m sure,” said the inquirer, detecting a
-certain indignant note in the disclaimer. “I beg your pardon. What a
-fool I was to ask you such a question!”
-
-“I hope he wasn’t hurt,” he added in an anxious voice when we were
-alone. “It was a foolish question; I might have known that he was a
-journalist, _he looked so respectable_.”
-
-We are all respectable nowadays. We belong to a recognised profession.
-We may pronounce our opinions on all questions of art, taste, religion,
-morals, and even finance, with some degree of diffidence: we are at
-present merely practising our scales, so to speak, upon our various
-“organs,” but there is every reason to believe that confidence will come
-in due time. Are not our ranks being recruited from Oxford? Some years
-ago men drifted into journalism; now it is looked on as a vocation.
-Journalism is taken seriously. In a word, we are respectable. Have
-we not been entertained by the Lord Mayor of London? Have we not
-entertained Monsieur Emile Zola?
-
-*****
-
-People have ceased to abuse us as they once did with great freedom: they
-merely abuse the journals which support us. This is a healthy sign; for
-it may be taken for granted that people will invariably abuse the paper
-for which they subscribe. They do not seem to feel that they get the
-worth of their subscription unless they do so. It is the same principle
-that causes people to sneer at a dinner at which they have been
-entertained. If we are not permitted to abuse our host, whom may we
-abuse? The one thing that a man abuses more than to-day’s paper is the
-negligence of the boy who omits to deliver it some morning. Only in one
-town where I lived did I find that a newspaper was popular. (It was
-not the one for which I wrote.) The fathers and mothers taught their
-children to pray, “God bless papa, mamma, and the editor of the
-_Clackmannan Standard_.”
-
-I met that editor some years afterwards. He celebrated a sort of
-impromptu Comminution Service against the people amongst whom he
-had lived. They had never paid for their subscriptions or their
-advertisements, and they had thus lowered the _Standard_ of Clackmannan
-and of the editor’s confidence in his fellow-men.
-
-*****
-
-The only newspaper that is in a hopeless condition is the one which is
-neither blessed at all nor cursed at all. Such a newspaper appeals to no
-section of the public. It has always seemed to me a matter of question
-whether a man is better satisfied with a paper that reflects (so far
-as it is possible for a paper to do so) his own views, or with one that
-reflects the views that he most abhors. I am inclined to believe that
-a man is in a better humour with those of his fellow-men whom he has
-thoroughly abused, than with the one whom he greets every morning on the
-top of his omnibus.
-
-It is quite a simple matter to abuse a newspaper into popularity. One
-of the Georges whose biographies have been so pleasantly and touchingly
-written by Thackeray and Mr. Justin M’Carthy, conferred a lasting
-popularity upon the man whom he told to get out of his way or he would
-kick him out of it.
-
-The moral of this is, that to be insulted by a monarch confers a greater
-distinction upon a man living in Clapham or even Brixton than to be
-treated courteously by a greengrocer.
-
-*****
-
-But though people continue to abuse the paper for which they subscribe,
-and for which they are usually some year or two in arrears in the matter
-of payment, still it appears to me that the public are slowly beginning
-to comprehend that newspapers are written (mostly) by journalists.
-Until recently there was, I think, a notion that journalists sat round
-a bar-parlour telling stories and drinking whisky and water while the
-newspapers were being produced. The fact is, that most of the surviving
-anecdotes of the journalists of a past generation smell of the
-bar-parlour. The practical jesters of the fifties and the punsters
-of the roaring forties were tap-room journalists. They died hard.
-The journalists of to-day do not even smile at those brilliant
-sallies--bequeathed by a past generation--about wearing frock-coats and
-evening dress, about writing notices of plays without stirring from the
-taproom, about the mixing up of criticisms of books with police-court
-reports. Such were the humours of journalism thirty or forty years ago.
-We have formed different ideas as to the elements of humour in these
-days. Whatever we may leave undone it is not our legitimate work.
-
-*****
-
-It was when journalism was in a state of transition that a youth,
-waiting on a railway platform, was addressed by a stranger (one of those
-men who endeavour to make religious zeal a cloak for impertinence)--“My
-dear young friend, are you a Christian?”
-
-“No,” said the youth, “I’m a reporter on the _Camberwell Chronicle_.”
-
-On the other hand, it was a very modern journalist whose room was
-invaded by a number of pretty little girls one day, just to keep him
-company and chat with him for an hour or so, as it was the day his
-paper--a weekly one--went to press. In order to get rid of them, he
-presented each of them with a copy of a little book which he had just
-published, writing on the flyleaf, “With the author’s compliments.” Just
-as the girls were going away, one of them spied a neatly bound Oxford
-Bible that was lying on the desk for editorial notice.
-
-“I should so much like that,” she cried, pouncing upon it.
-
-“Then you shall have it, my dear, if you clear off immediately,” said
-the editor; and, turning up the flyleaf, he wrote hastily on it, “_With
-the author’s compliments_.”
-
-Yes, he was a modern journalist, and took a reasonable view of the
-authoritative nature of his calling.
-
-*****
-
-Our position is, I affirm, becoming recognised by the world; but now and
-again I am made to feel that such recognition does not invariably extend
-to all the members of our profession. Some years ago I was getting my
-hair cut in Regent Street, and, as usual, the practitioner remarked in a
-friendly way that I was getting very grey.
-
-“Yes,” I said, “I’ve been getting a grey hair or so for some time. I
-don’t know how it is. I’m not much over thirty.” (I repeat that the
-incident occurred some years ago.)
-
-“No, sir, you’re not what might be called old,” said he indulgently.
-“Maybe you’re doing some brain-work?” he suggested, after a pause.
-
-“Brain-work?” said I. “Oh no! I work for a daily paper, and usually
-write a column of leading articles every night. I produce a book a year,
-and a play every now and again. But brain-work--oh no!”
-
-“Oh, in that case, sir, it must be due to something else. Maybe you
-drink a bit, sir.”
-
-I did not buy the bottle which he offered me at four-and-nine. I left
-the shop dissatisfied.
-
-This is why I hesitate to affirm that modern journalism is wholly
-understanded of the people.
-
-But for that matter it is not wholly understanded of the people who
-might be expected to know something about it. The proprietor of a
-newspaper on which I worked some years ago made use of me one day to
-translate a few lines of Greek which appeared on the back of an old
-print in his possession. My powers amazed him. The lines were from an
-obscure and little-known poem called the “Odyssey.”
-
-“You must read a great deal, my boy,” said he.
-
-I shook my head.
-
-“The fact is,” said I, “I’ve lately had so much reviewing to do that I
-haven’t been able to read a single book.”
-
-“That’s too hard on you,” said he gravely. “Get some of the others of
-the staff to help you. You mustn’t neglect your reading for the sake of
-reviewing.”
-
-I didn’t.
-
-Upon another occasion the son of this gentleman left a message for
-me that he had taken a three-volume novel, the name of which he had
-forgotten, from a parcel of books that had arrived the previous day,
-but that he would like a review of it to appear the next morning, as his
-wife said it was a capital story.
-
-He was quite annoyed when the review did not appear.
-
-*****
-
-But there are, I have reason to know, many people who have got no more
-modern ideas respecting that branch of journalism known as reviewing.
-
-“Are you reading that book for pleasure or to criticise it?” I was asked
-not so long ago by a young woman who ought to have known better. “Oh, I
-forgot,” she added, before I could think of anything sharp to say by way
-of reply--“I forgot: if you meant to review it you wouldn’t read it.”
-
-I thought of the sharp reply two days later.
-
-So it is, I say, that some of the people who read what we write from
-day to day, have still got only the vaguest notions of how our work is
-turned out.
-
-Long ago I used to wish that the reviewers would only read the books I
-wrote before criticising them; but now my dearest wish is that they will
-review them (favourably) without reading them.
-
-*****
-
-I heard some time ago of a Scot who, full of that brave sturdy spirit
-of self-reliance which is the precious endowment of the race of North
-Britons, came up to London to fight his way in the ranks of literature.
-The grand inflexible independence of the man asserted itself with such
-obstinacy that he was granted a Civil List Pension; and while in receipt
-of this form of out-door relief for poets who cannot sell their poetry,
-he began a series of attacks upon literature as a trade, and gave to the
-world an autobiography in a sentence, by declaring that literature and
-deterioration go hand in hand.
-
-This was surely a very nasty thing for the sturdy Scotchman, who had
-attained to the honourable independence of the national almshouse,
-to say, just as people were beginning to look on literature as a
-profession.
-
-But then he sat down and forthwith reeled off a string of doggerel
-verses, headed “The Dismal Throng.” In this fourth-form satirical
-jingle he abused some of the ablest of modern literary men for taking a
-pessimistic view of life. Now, who on earth can blame literary men for
-feeling a trifle dismal if what the independent pensioner says is true,
-and success in literature can only be obtained in exchange for a
-soul? The man who takes the most pessimistic view of the profession of
-literature should be the last to sneer at a literary man looking sadly
-on life.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.--THE OLD SCHOOL.
-
-
-_The frock-coat and muffler journalist--A doomed race--One of the
-specimens--A masterpiece---“Stilt your friend”--A jaunty emigrant--A
-thirsty knave--His one rival--Three crops--His destination--“The
-New Grub Street”--A courteous friend--Free lodgings--The foreign
-guest--Outside the hall door--The youth who found things--His ring--His
-watch--The fruits of modesty--Not to be imitated--A question for
-Sherlock Holmes--The liberty of the press--Deadheads._
-
-
-I HAVE come in contact with many journalists of the old school--the
-frock-coat and muffler type. The first of the class whom I met was for
-a few months a reporter on a newspaper in Ireland with which I was
-connected. He had at one time been a soldier, and had deserted. I tried,
-though I was only a boy, to get some information from him that I might
-use afterwards, for I recognised his value as the representative of a
-race that was, I felt, certain to become extinct. I talked to him as
-I talked--with the aid of an interpreter--to a Botjesman in the South
-African veldt: I wanted to learn something about the habits of a doomed
-type. I succeeded in some measure.
-
-The result of my researches into the nature of both savages was to
-convince me that they were born liars. The reporter carried a pair
-of stage whiskers and a beard with him when sent to do any work in a
-country district; the fact being that the members of the Royal Irish
-Constabulary in the country barracks are the most earnest students
-of the paper known as _Hue and Cry_, and the man said that, as his
-description appeared in every number of that organ, he should most
-certainly be identified by a smart country policeman if he did not wear
-a disguise. Years afterwards I got a letter from him from one of her
-Majesty’s gaols. He wanted the loan of some money and the gift of a hat.
-
-This man wrote shorthand admirably, and an excellent newspaper English.
-
-*****
-
-Another specimen of the race had actually attained to the dizzy eminence
-of editor of a fourth-class newspaper in a town of one hundred thousand
-inhabitants. In those days Mr. Craven Robertson was the provincial
-representative of Captain Hawtree in _Caste_, and upon the Captain
-Hawtree of Craven Robertson this “journalist” founded his style. He
-wore an eyeglass, a moustache with waxed ends, and a frock coat very
-carefully brushed. His hair was thin on the top--but he made the most of
-it. He was the sort of man whom one occasionally meets on the Promenade
-at Nice, wearing a number of orders on the breast of his coat--the order
-of Il Bacio di St. Judæus, the scarlet riband of Ste. Rahab di Jericho,
-the Brazen Lyre of SS. Ananias and Sapphira. He was the sort of man whom
-one styles “Chevalier” by instinct. He was the most plausible knave in
-the world, though how people allowed him to cheat them was a mystery to
-me. His masterpiece of impudence I have always considered to be a letter
-which he wrote to a brother-editor, from whom he had borrowed a sum of
-money, to be repaid on the first of the next month. When the appointed
-day came he chanced to meet this editor-creditor in the street, and
-asking him, with a smile as if he had been on the lookout for him, to
-step into the nearest shop, he called for a sheet of paper and a pen,
-and immediately wrote an order to the cashier of his paper to pay Mr. G.
-the sum of five pounds.
-
-“There you are, my dear sir,” said he. “Just send a clerk round to our
-office and hand that to the cashier. Meantime accept my hearty thanks
-for the accommodation.”
-
-Mr. G. lost no time in presenting the order; but, as might have been
-expected, it was dishonoured by the cashier, who declared that the
-editor was already eight months in advance in drawing his salary. Mr. G.
-hastened back to his own office and forthwith wrote a letter of furious
-upbraidings, in which I have good reason to suspect he expressed
-his views of the conduct of his debtor, and threatened to “take
-proceedings,” as the grammar of the law has it, for the recovery of his
-money.
-
-The next day Mr. G. received back his own letter unopened, but inside
-the cover that enclosed it to him was the following:--
-
-“My dear Mr. G.,--
-
-“You may perhaps be surprised to receive your letter with the seal
-unbroken, but when you come to reflect calmly over the unfortunate
-incident of your sending it to me, I am sure that you will no longer be
-surprised. I am persuaded that you wrote it to me on the impulse of
-the moment, otherwise it would not contain the strong language which,
-I think I may assume, constitutes the major portion of its contents.
-Knowing your natural kindness of disposition, and feeling assured that
-in after years the consciousness of having written such a letter to me
-would cause you many a pang in your secret moments, I am anxious that
-you should be spared much self-reproach, and consequently return your
-letter unopened. You will, I am certain, perceive that in adopting this
-course I am acting for the best. Do not follow the next impulse of your
-heart and ask my forgiveness. I have really nothing to forgive, not
-having read your letter.
-
-“With kindest regards, I remain
-
-“Still your friend
-
-“A. Swinne Dell.”
-
-If this transaction does not represent the high-water mark of
-knavery--if it does not show something akin to genius in an art that has
-many exponents, I scarcely know where one should look for evidence in
-this direction.
-
-Five years after the disappearance of Mr. A. Swinne Dell from the scene
-of this _coup_ of his, I caught a glimpse of him among the steerage
-passengers aboard a steamer that called at Madeira when I was spending
-a holiday at that lovely island. His frock-coat was giving signs (about
-the collar) of wear, and also (under the arms) of tear. I could not see
-his boots, but I felt sure that they were down at the heel. Still,
-he held his head jauntily as he pointed out to a fellow-passenger the
-natural charms of the landscape above Funchal.
-
-Another of the old school who pursued a career of knavery by the light
-of the sacred lamp of journalism was, I regret to say, an Irishman. His
-powers of absorbing drink were practically unlimited. I never knew but
-one rival to him in this way, and that was when I was in South Africa.
-We had left our waggon, and were crouching in most uncomfortable
-postures behind a mighty cactus on the bank of a river, waiting for the
-chance of potting a gemsbok that might come to drink. Instead of the
-graceful gemsbok there came down to the water a huge hippopotamus. He
-had clearly been having a good time among the native mealies, and had
-come for some liquid refreshment before returning to his feast. He did
-not plunge into the water, but simply put his head down to it and began
-to drink. After five minutes or so we noticed an appreciable fall in the
-river. After a quarter of an hour great rocks in the river-bed began to
-be disclosed. At the end of twenty minutes the broad stream had dwindled
-away to a mere trickle of water among the stones. At the end of half an
-hour we began to think that he had had as much as was good for him--we
-wanted a kettleful of water for our tea--so I put an elephant cartridge
-[‘577) into my rifle and aimed at the brute’s eye. He lifted up his head
-out of pure curiosity, and perceiving that men with rifles were handy,
-slouched off, grumbling like a professional agitator on being turned out
-of a public house.
-
-That hippopotamus was the only rival I ever knew to the old-school
-journalist whose ways I can recall--only he was never known to taste
-water. Like the man in one of H. J. Byron’s plays, he could absorb any
-“given”--I use the word advisedly--any given quantity of liquor.
-
-“Are you ever sober, my man?” I asked of him one day.
-
-“I’m sober three times a day,” he replied huskily. “I’m sober now. This
-is one of the times,” he added mournfully.
-
-“You were blind drunk this morning--I can swear to that,” said I.
-
-“Oh, yes,” he replied promptly. “But what’se good of raking up the past,
-sir? Let the dead past burits dead.” He took a step or two toward the
-door, and then returned. He carefully brushed a speck of dust off the
-rim of his hat. All such men wear the tallest of silk hats, and seem to
-feel that they would be scandalised by the appearance of a speck of dust
-on the nap. “D’ye know that I can take three crops out of myself in the
-day?” he inquired blandly.
-
-“Three crops?”
-
-“Three crops--I said so, of drunk. I rise in morn’n,--drunk before
-twelve; sleep it off by two, and drunk again by five; sleep it off by
-eight--do my work and go to bed drunk at two a.m. You haven’t such a
-thing as half-a-crown about you, sir? I left my purse on the grand piano
-before I came out.”
-
-I was under the impression that this particular man was dead years ago;
-and I was thus greatly surprised when, on jumping on a tramcar in a
-manufacturing town in Yorkshire quite recently, I recognised my old
-friend in a man who had just awakened in a corner, and was endeavouring
-to attract the attention of the conductor. When, after much incipient
-whistling and waving of his arms, he succeeded in drawing the conductor
-to his side, he inquired if the car was anywhere near the Wilfrid Lawson
-Temperance Hotel.
-
-“I’ll let you down when we come to it,” said the conductor.
-
-“Do,” said the other in his old husky tones.
-
-“Lemme down at the Wellfed Laws Tenpence Otell.”
-
-In another minute he was fast asleep as before.
-
-*****
-
-At present no penal consequences follow any one who calls himself a
-literary man. It is taken for granted, I suppose, that the crime brings
-its own punishment.
-
-One of the most depressing books that any one straying through the
-King’s Highway of literature could read is Mr. George Gissing’s “The New
-Grub Street.” What makes it all the more depressing is the fact of its
-carrying conviction with it to all readers. Every one must feel that
-the squalor described in this book has a real existence. The only
-consolation that any one engaged in a branch of literature can have on
-reading “The New Grub Street,” comes from the reflection that not one of
-the poor wretches described in its pages had the least aptitude for the
-business.
-
-In a town of moderate size in which I lived, there were forty men and
-women who described themselves for directory purposes as “novelists.”
- Not one of them had ever published a volume; but still they all
-believed themselves to be novelists. There are thousands of men who
-call themselves journalists even now, but who are utterly incapable of
-writing a decent “par.” I have known many such men. The most incompetent
-invariably become dissatisfied with life in the provinces, and hurry
-off to London, having previously borrowed their train fare. I constantly
-stumble upon provincial failures in London. Sometimes on the Embankment
-I literally stumble upon them, for I have found them lying in shady
-nooks there trying to forget the world’s neglect in sleep.
-
-Why on earth such men take to journalism has always been a mystery to
-me. If they had the least aptitude for it they would be earning money by
-journalism instead of trying to borrow half-crowns as journalists.
-
-*****
-
-I knew of one who, several years ago, migrated to London. For a long
-time I heard nothing about him; but one night a friend of mine mentioned
-his name, and asked me if I had ever known him.
-
-“The fact is,” said he, “I had rather a curious experience of him a few
-months ago.”
-
-“You were by no means an exception to the general run of people who have
-ever come in contact with him,” said I. “What was your experience?”
-
-“Well,” replied he, “I came across him casually one night, and as he
-seemed inclined to walk in my direction, I asked him if he would mind
-coming on to my lodgings to have a bottle of beer. He found that his
-engagements for the night permitted of his doing so, and we strolled
-on together. I found that there was supper enough for two adults in
-the locker, and our friend found that his engagements permitted of his
-taking a share in the humble repast. He took fully his share of the
-beer, and then I offered him a pipe, and stirred up the fire.
-
-“We talked until two o’clock in the morning, and, as he told me he
-lived about five miles away--he didn’t seem quite sure whether it was
-at Hornsey or Clapham--I said he could not do better than occupy a spare
-truckle that was in my bedroom. He said he thought that I was right, and
-we retired. We breakfasted together in the morning, and then we walked
-into Fleet Street, where we parted. That night he overtook me on my way
-to my lodgings, and in the friendliest manner possible accompanied me
-thither. Here the programme of the night before was repeated. The third
-night I quite expected to be overtaken by him; but I was mistaken. I was
-not overtaken by him: he was sitting in my lodgings waiting for me.
-He gave me a most cordial welcome--I will say that for him. The night
-following I had a sort of instinct that I should find him waiting for me
-again in my sitting-room. Once more I was mistaken. He was not waiting
-for me; he had already eaten his supper--_my supper_, and had gone to
-bed--_my bed_; but with his usual thoughtfulness, he had left a short
-note for me upbraiding me, but in a genial and quite a gentlemanly way,
-for staying out so late, and begging me not to awake him, as he was very
-tired, and--also genially--inquiring if it was absolutely necessary
-for me to make such a row in my bath in the mornings. He was a light
-sleeper, he said, and a little noise disturbed him. I did not awake him;
-but the next morning I was distinctly cool towards him. I remarked that
-I thought it unlikely that I should be at home that night. He begged
-of me not to allow him to interfere with my plans. When I returned that
-night, I found him sitting at my table playing cards with a bleareyed
-foreigner, whom he courteously introduced as his friend Herr Vanderbosch
-or something.
-
-“‘Draw your chair to the table, old chap, and join in with us. I’ll see
-that you get something to drink in a minute,’ said he.
-
-“I thanked him, but remarked that I had a conscientious objection to all
-games of cards.
-
-“‘Soh?’ said the foreigner. ‘Das is yust var yo makes ze mistook. Ze
-game of ze gards it is grand--soblime!’
-
-“He added a few well-chosen sentences about sturm und drang or
-something; and in about five minutes I found myself getting a complete
-slanging for my narrow-minded prejudices, and for my attempt to curtail
-the innocent recreation of others. I will say this for our friend,
-however: he never for a moment allowed our little difference on what was
-after all a purely academic question, to interfere with his display of
-hospitality to myself and Herr Vanderbosch. He filled our tumblers, and
-was lavish with the tobacco jar. When I rose to go to bed he called me
-aside, and said he had made arrangements for me to sleep in the truckle
-for the night, in order to admit of his occupying my bed with Herr
-Vanderbosch--the poor devil, he explained to me with many deprecating
-nods, had not, he feared, any place to sleep that night. But at this
-point I turned. I assured him that I was constitutionally unfitted for
-sleeping in a truckle, or, in fact, in any bed but my own.
-
-“‘All right,’ he cried in a huff, ‘I’ll sleep in the truckle, and I’ll
-make up a good fire for him to sleep before on the sofa.’
-
-“Well, we all breakfasted together, and the next night the two gentlemen
-appeared once more at the door of the house. They were walking in as
-usual, when the landlady asked them where they were going.
-
-“‘Why, upstairs, to be sure,’ said our friend. “‘Oh no!’ said the
-landlady, ‘you’re not doing that. Mr. Plantagenet has left his rooms
-and gone to the country for a month--maybe two--and the rooms is let
-to another gent.’ “Well, our friend swore that he had been treated
-infernally, and Herr Vanderbosch alluded to me as a schweinhund--I heard
-him. I fancy the word must be a term of considerable opprobrium in the
-German tongue. Anyhow, they didn’t get past the landlady,--she takes a
-large size in doors,--and after a while our friend’s menaces dwindled
-down to a request to be permitted to remove his luggage.
-
-“‘I’ll bring it down to you,’ said the landlady; and she shut the hall
-door very gently, leaving them on the step outside. When she brought
-down the luggage--it consisted of three paper collars and one cuff with
-a fine carbuncle stud in it--they were gone.
-
-“Our friend told some one the other day of the disgraceful way I had
-treated him and his foreign associate. But he says he would not have
-minded so much if the landlady had not shut the door so gently.”
-
-*****
-
-Another remarkable pressman with whom I came in contact several years
-ago was a member of the reporting staff of an Irish newspaper. One day I
-noticed him wearing what appeared to me to be an extremely fine ring.
-It was set with an antique polished intaglio surrounded by diamonds. The
-ring was probably unique, and would be worth perhaps £70 to a collector.
-I have seen very inferior mediaeval intaglios sold for that sum. I
-examined the diamonds with a lens, and then inquired of the youth where
-he had bought it, and if he was anything of a collector.
-
-“I picked it up going home one wet night,” he replied. “I advertised for
-the owner in all the papers for a week--it cost me thirty shillings in
-that way,--but no one ever came forward to claim it. I would gladly have
-sold the thing for thirty shillings at the end of a month; but then I
-found that it was worth close upon a hundred pounds.”
-
-“You’re the luckiest chap I ever met,” said I.
-
-In the course of a short time another of the reporters asked me if I had
-ever seen the watch that the same youth habitually wore. I replied that
-I had never seen it, but should like to do so. The same night I was
-in the reporters’ room, when the one who had mentioned the watch to me
-asked the wearer of the article if ten o’clock had yet struck. The youth
-forthwith drew out of his pocket one of the most charming little watches
-I ever saw. The back was Italian enamel on gold, both outside and
-within, and the outer case was bordered with forty-five rubies. A black
-pearl about the size of a pea was at the bow, right round the edge of
-the case were diamonds, and in the rim for the glass were twenty-five
-rubies and four stones which I fancied at a casual glance were pale
-sapphires. I examined these stones with my magnifier, and I thought I
-should have fainted when I found that they were blue diamonds.
-
-                   “Le Temps est pour l’Homme,
-
-                   L’Eternité est pour l’Amour”
-
-was the inscription which I managed to make out on the dial.
-
-I handed back the watch to the reporter--his salary was £120 per
-annum--and inquired if he had found this article also.
-
-“Yes,” he said, with a laugh. “I picked that up, curiously enough,
-during a trip that I once made to the Scilly Islands. I advertised it in
-the Plymouth papers the next day, for I believed it to have been dropped
-by some wealthy tourist; but I got no applicant for it; and then I came
-to the conclusion that the watch had been among the treasures of some of
-the descendants of the smugglers and wreckers of the old days. It keeps
-good enough time now, though a watchmaker valued the works at five
-shillings.”
-
-“Any time you want a hundred pounds--a hundred and fifty pounds,” said
-I, “don’t hesitate to bring that watch to me. Have you found many other
-articles in the course of your life?” I asked, as I was leaving the
-room.
-
-“Lots,” he replied. “When I was in Liverpool I lived about two miles
-from my office, and through getting into a habit of keeping my eyes
-on the ground, I used to come across something almost every week.
-Unfortunately, most of my finds were claimed by the owners.”
-
-“You have no reason to complain,” said I.
-
-I was set thinking if there might not be the potentialities of wealth in
-the art of walking with one’s eyes modestly directed to the ground; and
-for three nights I was actually idiot enough to walk home from my
-office with looks, not “commercing with the skies,” but--it was purely
-a question of commerce--with the pavements. The first night I nearly
-transfixed a policeman with my umbrella, for the rain was coming down
-in torrents; the second, I got my hat knocked into the mud by coming in
-contact with the branch of a tree overhanging the railings of a square,
-and the third I received the impact of a large-boned tipsy man, who was,
-as the idiom of the country has it, trying to walk on both sides of the
-road at once.
-
-I held up my head in future.
-
-The reporter left the newspaper in the course of a few months, and I
-never saw him again. But quite recently I was reading Miss Dougall’s
-novel “Beggars All,” and when I came upon the account of the reporter
-who carries out several adroit schemes of burglary, the recollection of
-the remarkable “finds” of the young man whose ring and watch had
-excited my envy, flashed across my mind; and I began to wonder if it
-was possible that he had pursued a similar course to that which Miss
-Dougall’s hero found so profitable. I should like to consult Mr.
-Sherlock Holmes on this point when he returns from Switzerland--we
-expect him every day.
-
-At any rate, it is certain that the calling of a reporter would afford
-many opportunities to a clever burglar, or even an adroit pickpocket.
-A reporter can take his walks abroad at any hour of the night without
-exciting the suspicion of a policeman; or, should such suspicion be
-aroused, he has only to say “Press,” and he may go anywhere he pleases.
-The Press rush in where the public dare not tread; and no one need be
-surprised if some day a professional burglar takes to stenography as an
-auxiliary to the realisation of his illegitimate aims.
-
-*****
-
-One of the countless St. Peter stories has this privilege of the Press
-for its subject, and a reporter for its hero. This gentleman was walking
-jauntily through the gate of him “who keeps the keys,” but was stopped
-by the stern janitor, who inquired if he had a ticket.
-
-“Press,” said the reporter, trying to pass.
-
-“What do you mean by that? You know you can’t be admitted anywhere
-without a ticket.”
-
-“I tell you that I belong to the Press; you don’t expect a reporter to
-pay, do you?”
-
-“Why not? Why shouldn’t you be treated the same as the rest of the
-people? I can’t make flesh of one and fish of another,” added St. Peter,
-as if a professional reminiscence had occurred to him.
-
-The reporter suddenly brightened up. “I don’t want exceptional
-treatment,” said he. “Now that I come to think of it, aren’t they all
-_deadheads_ who come here?”
-
-I fancy that reporter was admitted.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.--THE EDITOR OF THE PAST.
-
-
-_Proprietary rights--Proprietary wrongs--Exclusive rights--The
-“leaders” of a party--The fossil editor--The man and the dog and the
-boar--An unpublished history--The newspaper hoax--A premature obituary
-notice--The accommodating surgeon--A matter of business--The death of
-Mr. Robinson--The quid pro quo_’.
-
-IT is only within the past few years that the Editor has obtained
-public recognition as a personality; previously his personality was
-merged in the proprietor, and when his efforts were successful in
-keeping a Corporation from making fools of themselves--this is assuming
-an extreme case of success--or in exposing some attempted fraud that
-would have ruined thousands of people, he was compelled to accept his
-reward through the person of the proprietor. The proprietor was made
-a J.P., and sometimes even became Mayor or Chairman of the Board of
-Guardians, when the editor succeeded in making the paper a power in the
-county. Latterly, however, the editors of some provincial journals have
-been obtaining recognition.
-
-They have been granted the dubious honour of knighthood; and the public
-have discovered that the brains which have dictated a policy that
-has influenced the destinies of a Ministry, may be entrusted with the
-consideration of sewage and main drainage questions on a Town Council,
-or with the question of the relative degrees of culpability of a man who
-jumps upon his wife’s face and is fined ten shillings, and the boy
-who steals a raw turnip and is sent to a reformatory for five years--a
-period quite insufficient for the adequate digestion of that comestible,
-which it would appear boys are ready to sacrifice years of their liberty
-to obtain.
-
-I must say that, with one exception, the proprietors whom I have met
-were highly competent business men--men whose judgment and public
-spirit were deserving of that wide recognition which they nearly
-always obtained from their fellow-citizens. One, and one only, was not
-precisely of this type. He used to write with a blue pencil across an
-article some very funny comments.
-
-I have before me at this moment a letter in which he asked me to
-abbreviate something; and he gave me an example of how to do it by
-cutting out a letter of the word--he spelt it _abrievate_.
-
-He had a perfect passion for what he called “exclusives.” The most
-trivial incident--the overturning of a costermonger’s barrow, and the
-number of the contents sustaining fatal injuries; the blowing off of
-a clergyman’s hat in the street, with a professional opinion as to the
-damage done; the breaking of a window in a private house--he regarded as
-good foundation for an “exclusive”; and indeed it must be said that the
-information given to the public by the organ of which he was proprietor
-was rarely ever to be found in a rival paper. At the same time, upon
-no occasion of his obtaining a really important piece of news did he
-succeed in keeping it from the others. This annoyed him extremely He was
-in great demand as chairman of amateur reciting classes--a distinction
-that was certainly dearly purchased. I never knew of one of these
-reciting entertainments being refused a full report in his newspaper
-upon any occasion when he presided. He also aspired to the chairmanship
-of small political meetings, and once when he found himself in such a
-position, he said he would sing the audience a song, and he carried out
-his threat. His song was probably more convincing than his speech would
-have been. He had a famous story for platform use. It concerned a donkey
-that he knew when they were both young.
-
-He said it made people laugh, and it surely did. At a public dinner he
-formulated the plausible theory that to be a good player of golf was to
-be a gentleman. He was a poor golfer himself.
-
-*****
-
-Now, regarding London editors I have not much to say. I am not
-personally acquainted with any one of them. But for twelve years I
-read every political article that appeared in each of the six principal
-London daily papers; I also read a report of every speech made in the
-House of Commons, and of every speech made by a statesman of Cabinet
-rank outside Parliament; and I am prepared to say that the great
-majority of these speeches bore the most unmistakable evidence of
-being--well, not exactly inspired by, but certainly influenced by some
-leading article. In one word, my experience is that what the newspapers
-say in the morning the statesmen say in the evening.
-
-Of course Mr. Gladstone must not be included in the statesmen to whom
-I refer. His inspiration comes from another direction. That is how he
-succeeds in startling so many people.
-
-The majority of provincial editors include, I have good reason to know,
-some of the best men in the profession. Only here and there does one
-meet with a fossil of journalism who is content to write a column of
-platitudes over a churchwarden pipe and then to go home to sleep.
-
-With only one such did I come in contact recently. He was connected with
-a newspaper which should have had unbounded influence in its district,
-but which had absolutely none. The “editor” was accustomed to enter his
-room about noon, and he left it between seven and eight in the evening,
-having turned out a column of matter of which he was an earnest reader
-the next morning. And yet this same newspaper received during the night
-sometimes twelve columns of telegraphic news and verbatim reports of the
-chief speeches in Parliament.
-
-The poor old gentleman had never been in London, and never could see
-why I should be so constantly going to that city. He was under the
-impression that George Eliot was a man, and he one day asked me what
-the Royal Academy was. Having learned that it was a place where pictures
-that richly deserved exposure were hung, he shortly afterwards
-assumed that the French Academy was a gallery in which naughty French
-pictures--he assumed that everything French was naughty--were exhibited.
-He occasionally referred to the _Temps_ phonetically, and up to the
-day of his death he never knew why I laughed when I first heard his
-pronunciation of the name of that organ.
-
-The one dread of his life was that I might some time inadvertently
-suggest that I was the editor of the paper. As if any sane human being
-would have such an aspiration! His opportunity came at last. A cabinet
-photograph of a man and a dog arrived at the office one day addressed
-to the editor. He hastened to the proprietor and “proved” that the
-photograph represented me and my dog, and that it had been addressed “to
-the editor.” The proprietor was not clever enough to perceive that
-the features of the portrait in no way resembled those with which I
-am obliged to put up, and so I ran a chance of being branded as a
-pretender.
-
-Fortunately, however, the fascinating little daughter of the proprietary
-household contrived to see the photograph, and on being questioned as
-to its likeness to a member of the staff, declared that there was no one
-half so goodlooking connected with the paper. On being assured that the
-original had already been identified, she expressed her willingness to
-stake five pounds upon her opinion; and the injured editor accepted her
-offer.
-
-Now, all this time I had never been applied to by the disputants, though
-I might have been expected to know something of the matter,--people
-generally remember a visit to their photographer or their
-stockbroker,--but just as the young lady was about to appeal to me as
-an unprejudiced arbiter on the question at issue, the manager of the
-advertisement department sent to inquire if any one on the editorial
-staff had come upon a photograph of a man and a collie. An advertisement
-for a lost collie had, he said, been appearing in the paper, and a
-postcard had just been received from the owner stating that he had
-forwarded a photograph of the animal, in order that, should any one
-bring a collie to the office and claim the reward, the advertising
-department would be in a position to see that the animal was the right
-one.
-
-The young lady got her five pounds, and, having a considerable interest
-in the stocking of a farm, purchased with it an active young boar which,
-in an impulse of flattery, she named after me, and which, so far as I
-have been able to gather, is doing very well, and has already seen his
-children’s children.
-
-When I asked the young lady why she had called the animal after me, she
-said it was because he was a bore. She had a graceful wit.
-
-In a weak moment this editor confided to me that he was engaged in
-writing a book--“A History of the Orange” was to be the title, he told
-me; and he added that I could have no idea of the trouble it was causing
-him; but there he was wrong. After this he was in the habit of writing
-a note to me about once a week, asking me if I would oblige him by doing
-his work for him, as all his time was engrossed by his “History.”
- It appears to me rather melancholy that the lack of enterprise among
-publishers is so great that this work has not yet been given a chance
-of appearing. I looked forward to it to clear up many doubtful points of
-great interest. Up to the present, for instance, no intelligent effort
-has been made to determine if it was the introduction of the orange
-into Great Britain that brought about the Sunday-school treat, or if the
-orange was imported in order to meet the legitimate requirements of this
-entertainment.
-
-*****
-
-Human nature---and there is a good deal of it in a large manufacturing
-centre--could not be restrained in the neighbourhood of such a relic of
-a past generation, and, consequently, that form of pleasantry known
-as the hoax was constantly attempted upon him. One morning the
-correspondence columns, which he was supposed to edit with scrupulous
-care, appeared headed with an account of the discovery of some ancient
-pottery bearing a Latin inscription--the most venerable and certainly
-the most transparent of newspaper hoaxes.
-
-It need scarcely be said that there was an extraordinary demand for
-copies of the issue of that day; but luckily the thing was discovered
-in time to disappoint a large number of those persons who came to the
-office to mock at the simplicity of the good old soul, who fancied he
-had found a congenial topic when he received the letter headed with an
-appeal to archæologists.
-
-Is there a more contemptible creature in the world than the newspaper
-hoaxer? The wretch who can see fun in obtaining the publication of some
-filthy phrase in a newspaper that is certain to be read by numbers of
-women, should, in my mind, be treated as the flinger of a dynamite bomb
-among a crowd of innocent people. The sender of a false notice of a
-marriage, a birth, or a death, is usually difficult to bring to justice,
-but when found, he--or she--should be treated as a social leper. The
-pain caused by such heartless hoaxes is incalculable.
-
-*****
-
-Sometimes a careless reporter, or foreman printer, is unwittingly the
-means of causing much annoyance, and even consternation, by allowing an
-obituary notice to appear prematurely. On every well-managed paper there
-is a set of pigeon-holed obituaries of eminent persons, local as well as
-national. When it is almost certain that one of them is at the point of
-death, the sketch is written up to the latest date, and frequently put
-in type, to be ready in case the news of the death should arrive when
-the paper is going to press. Now, I have known of several cases in which
-the “set-up” obituary notice contrived to appear before the person
-to whom it referred had breathed his last. This is undoubtedly a very
-painful occurrence, and in some cases it may actually precipitate the
-incident which it purports to record. Personally, I should not consider
-myself called on to die because a newspaper happened to publish an
-account of my death; but I know of at least one case in which a
-man actually succumbed out of compliment to a newspaper that had
-accidentally recorded his death.
-
-That person was not made of the same fibre as a certain eminent surgeon
-with whom I was well acquainted. He was thoughtful enough to send for
-a reporter on one Monday evening, and said that as he did not wish
-the pangs of death to be increased by the reflection that a ridiculous
-sketch of his career would be published in the newspapers, he thought
-he would just dictate three-quarters of a column of such a character
-as would allow of his dying without anything on his mind. Of course the
-reporter was delighted, and commenced as usual:--
-
-“It is with the deepest regret that we have to announce this morning the
-decease of one of our most eminent physicians, and best-known citizens.
-Dr. Theobald Smith, M.Sc., F.R.C.S.E., passed peacefully away at o’clock
-{last night/this morning} at his residence, Pharmakon House, surrounded
-by the members of the family to whom he was so deeply attached, and to
-whom, though a father, he was still a friend.”
-
-“Now, sir,” said the reporter, “I’ve left a space for the hour, and I
-can strike out either ‘last night,’ or ‘this morning,’ when I hear of
-your death.”
-
-“That’s right,” said the doctor. “Now, I’ll give you some particulars of
-my life.”
-
-“Thanks,” said the reporter. “You will not exceed three-quarters of a
-column, for we’re greatly crushed for space just now. If you could put
-it off till Sunday, I could give you a column with leads, as Parliament
-doesn’t sit on Saturday.”
-
-It seemed a tempting offer; but the doctor, after pondering for a few
-moments, as if trying to recollect his engagements, shook his head, and
-said he would be glad to oblige, but the matter had really passed beyond
-his control.
-
-“But there’ll surely be time for you to see a proof?” cried the
-reporter, with some degree of anxiety in his voice.
-
-“I’ll take good care of that,” said the doctor. “You can send it to me
-in the morning. I think I’ll die between eleven and twelve at night.”
-
-“That would suit us exactly,” said the reporter genially. “We could then
-send the obituary away in the first page at one o’clock. The foreman
-grumbles if he has to put obituaries on page 5, which goes down to the
-machine at half-past three.”
-
-The doctor said that of course business was business, and he should do
-his best to accommodate the foreman.
-
-He died that night at twenty minutes past eleven.
-
-*****
-
-I have suggested the possibility of the record of a death in a public
-print having a disastrous effect upon a sick man, and the certainty
-of its causing pain to his relatives. This view was not taken by the
-eccentric proprietor to whom I have already alluded. Upon one occasion
-he heard casually that a man named Robinson had just died. He hastened
-to his office, found a reporter, and told him to write a paragraph
-regretting the death of Mr. Richard Robinson. He assumed that it was
-Richard Robinson who was dead, but it so happened that it was Mr. Thomas
-Robinson, although Mr. Richard Robinson had been in feeble health for
-some time. Now, when the son of the living Mr. Robinson called upon the
-proprietor the next day to state that his father had read the paragraph
-recording his death, and that the shock had completely prostrated him,
-the proprietor turned round upon him, and said that Mr. Robinson and
-his family should rather feel extremely grateful for the appearance of
-a paragraph of so complimentary a character. Young Mr. Robinson, fearing
-that the next move on the part of the proprietor would be to demand
-payment for the paragraph at scale rates, begged that his intrusion
-might be pardoned; and hurried away congratulating himself at having
-escaped very easily.
-
-*****
-
-Editors are always supposed to know nearly everything, and they
-nearly always do. In this respect they differ materially from the
-representatives of other professions. If you were to ask the average
-clergyman--if there is such a thing as an average clergyman--what he
-thought of the dramatic construction of a French vaudeville, he would
-probably feel hurt; but if an editor failed to give an intelligent
-opinion on this subject, as well as upon the tendencies to Socinianism
-displayed in the sermon of an eminent Churchman, he would be regarded
-as unfit for his business. You can get an intelligent opinion from
-an editor on almost any subject; but you are lucky if you can get an
-intelligent opinion on any one subject from the average professional
-man--a lawyer, of course, excepted.
-
-But undoubtedly curious specimens of editors might occasionally have
-been found in the smaller newspaper offices in the provinces long ago.
-More than twenty years have passed since the sub-editor of a rather
-important paper in a town in the Midlands interviewed, on a matter of
-professional etiquette, the editor--he was an Irishman--of a struggling
-organ in the same town.
-
-It appeared that the chief reporter of the sub-editor’s paper had given
-some paragraph of news to a brother on the second paper, and yet when
-the latter was respectfully asked for an equivalent, he refused it;
-hence the need for diplomatic representations.
-
-“I say that our reporters must have a _quid pro quo_ in every case where
-they have given a par. to yours,” said the sub-editor, who was entrusted
-with the negotiations.
-
-“Must have a what?” asked the Irish editor. “A _quid pro quo_,” said the
-sub-editor. “Now I’ve come here for the _quid_ and I don’t mean to go
-until I get it.”
-
-The editor looked at him, then felt for something in his waistcoat
-pocket. Producing a piece of that sort of tobacco known as Limerick
-twist, he bit it in two, and offered one portion to the sub-editor,
-saying, “There’s your quid for you; but, so help me Gad, I’ve only got
-what you see in my mouth to last me till morning.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.--THE UNATTACHED EDITOR.
-
-
-_The “casual” word--The mighty hunter--The retort discourteous--How the
-editor’s chair was broken--An explanation on a clove--The master of
-a system--A hitch in the system--The two Alhambras--A parallel--The
-unattached parson--Another system--A father’s legacy--The sermon--The
-imagination and its claims--The evening service--Saying a few
-words--Antique carved oak--How the chaplain’s doubts were dispersed--A
-literary tinker--A tinker’s triumph--The two Joneses._
-
-
-THE “scratch” editor also may now and again be found to possess
-some eccentricities. He is the man who is taken on a newspaper in an
-emergency to fill the place of an editor who may perhaps be suffering
-from a serious illness, or who may, in an unguarded moment, have died.
-There is a class of journalists with whom being out of employment
-amounts almost to a profession in itself. But the “unattached” editor is
-usually no more brilliant a man than the unattached gentleman “in holy
-orders”--the clergyman who appears suddenly at the vestry door carrying
-a black bag, and probably with his nose a little red (the result of a
-cold railway journey), and who introduces himself to the sexton as ready
-to do duty for the legitimate, but temporarily incapacitated, incumbent,
-whose telegram he had received only the previous day.
-
-As the congregation are glad to get any one who can read the prayers
-with an air of authority in the absence of their pastor, so the
-proprietors of a newspaper are sometimes pleased to welcome the
-“scratch,” or casual, editor.
-
-I have met with a few of the class, but never with one whose chronic
-unattached condition I could not easily account for, before we had been
-together long. Most of them hated journalism---and everything else
-(with one important exception). All of them boasted of their feats as
-journalists. A fine crusted specimen was accustomed to declare nightly
-that he had once kept hunters; another that he had not always been
-connected with such a miserable rag as the journal on which he was
-temporarily employed.
-
-“I’ve been on the best papers in the three kingdoms,” he shouted one
-night.
-
-“That’s only another way of saying that you’ve been kicked off the most
-influential organs in the country,” remarked a bystander.
-
-“If you don’t look out you’ll soon be kicked off another.”
-
-No verbal retort is possible to such brutality of language. None was
-attempted.
-
-When I was explaining, the next day, to the proprietor how the chair in
-the editor’s room came to be broken, and also how the silhouette of an
-octopus came to be executed so boldly in ink upon the wall of the
-same apartment, the “scratch” editor (his appellation had a double
-significance this day) entered suddenly. He said he had come to explain
-something.
-
-Now when a literary gentleman appears with long strips of sticking
-plaster loosely adhering to one side of his face, as white caterpillars
-adhere to a garden wall, and when, moreover, the perfume that floats on
-the air at his approach is that of a peppermint lozenge that has been
-preserved from decay in alcohol, any explanation that he may offer
-in regard to a preceding occurrence is likely to be received with
-suspicion, if not with absolute distrust. In this case, however, no
-opportunity was given the man for justifying any claim that he might
-advance to be credited.
-
-The proprietor assured him that he had already received an account of
-the deplorable occurrence of the night before, and that he hoped mutual
-apologies would be made in the course of the day, so that, in diplomatic
-language, the incident might be considered closed before night.
-
-The “scratch” man breathed again--heavily, alcoholically,
-peppermintally. And before night I managed to sticking-plaster up a
-peace between the belligerents.
-
-At the end of a month some busybody outside the paper had the bad taste
-to point out to the proprietor that one of the leading articles--the one
-contributed by the “scratch” man--in a recent issue of the paper, was
-to a word identical with one which had appeared a fortnight before in a
-Scotch paper of some importance. The “scratch” man explained--on alcohol
-and a clove--that the Scotch paper had copied his article. But the
-proprietor expressed his grave doubts on this point, his chief reason
-for adopting this course being that the Scotch paper with the article
-had appeared ten days previously. Then the “scratch” man said the matter
-was a singular, but by no means unprecedented, coincidence.
-
-The proprietor opened the office door.
-
-*****
-
-One of the most interesting of these “casuals” had been a clergyman (he
-said). I never was quite successful in finding out with what Church he
-had been connected, nor, although pressed for a reply, would he ever
-reveal to me how he came to find himself outside the pale of his
-Church--whatever it was. He had undoubtedly some of the mannerisms of a
-clergyman who is anxious that every one should know his profession, and
-he could certainly look out of the corners of his eyes with the best of
-them. Like the parson who is so very “low” that he steadily refuses to
-cross his t’s lest he should be accused of adopting Romish emblems, he
-declined to turn his head without moving his whole body.
-
-He wore rusty cloth gloves.
-
-He was also the most adroit thief whom I ever met; and I have lived
-among some adroit ones in my time.
-
-I never read such brilliant articles as he wrote nightly--never, until I
-came upon the same articles in old files of the London newspapers, where
-they had originally appeared. The original articles from which his were
-copied _verbatim_ were, I admit, quite as brilliant as his.
-
-His _modus operandi_ was simplicity itself. He kept in his desk a
-series of large books for newspaper cuttings, and these were packed with
-articles on all manner of subjects, clipped from the best newspapers.
-Every day he spent an hour making these extracts, by the aid of a pot of
-paste, and indexing them on the most perfect system of double entry that
-could be conceived.
-
-At night I frequently came down to my office and found that he had
-written two columns of the most delightful essays. One might, perhaps,
-be on the subject of Moresco-Gothic Architecture and its influence
-on the genius of Velasquez, another on Battueshooting and the
-Acclimatisation of the Bird of Paradise in English coverts; but both
-were treated with equal grace. That such erudition and originality
-should be associated with cloth gloves astonished me. One day, however,
-the man wrote a column upon the decoration of one of the courts of the
-Alhambra, and a more picturesque article I never read--up to a certain
-point; and this point was reached when he commenced a new paragraph as
-follows:--
-
-“Alas! that so lovely a piece of work should have fallen a prey to the
-devastating element that laid the whole structure in ruins, and eclipsed
-the gaiety, if not of nations, at any rate of the people of London, who
-were wont to resort nightly to this Thespian temple of Leicester Square,
-feeling certain that under the liberal management of its enterprising
-_entrepreneur_ some brilliant stage spectacle would be brought before
-their eyes. Now, however, that the company for the restoration of the
-building has been successfully floated, we may hope for a revival of the
-ancient glories of the Alhambra.”
-
-I inquired casually of the perpetrator of the article if he had ever
-heard of the Alhambra?
-
-“Why, I wrote of it yesterday,” he said.
-
-“I’ve been in it; it’s in Leicester Square.”
-
-“Did you ever hear of another Alhambra?”
-
-I asked blandly.
-
-“Yes; there’s one in Glasgow.”
-
-“Did you ever hear of one that wasn’t a music-hall?”
-
-“Never. Maybe the temperance people give one of their new-fashioned
-coffee places the name to attract sinners on false pretences.”
-
-“Did you ever hear of an Alhambra in Spain?”
-
-“You don’t mean to say that they have music-halls in Spain? But why
-shouldn’t they? Spaniards are fond of dancing, I believe.”
-
-“Why not indeed?” said I.
-
-The next day he had an explanation to offer to the chief of the staff.
-In the evening he told me that he was going to leave the paper.
-
-“How is that?” I inquired.
-
-“I don’t like it,” he replied. “My ideas are cribbed, cabined, and
-confined here.”
-
-“They are certainly cribbed,” said I. “Did you never hear of the Alhambra
-at Grenada?”
-
-“Never; that’s what played the mischief with the article. You’ll see how
-the mistake arose. There was a capital article in the _Telegraph_ about
-the Alhambra--I see now that it must have referred to the one in
-Spain--about four years ago; well, I cut it out and indexed it. A year
-ago, when the Alhambra in Leicester Square was about to re-open, there
-was an article in the _Daily News_. I found it in my index also, and
-incorporated the two articles in mine. How the mischief was I to know
-that one referred to Grenada and the other to London? These writer chaps
-should be more explicit. What do they get their salaries for, anyway?”
-
-*****
-
-I have referred to a certain resemblance existing between the unattached
-parson and the unattached editor. This resemblance is the more impressed
-on me now that, after recalling a memory of an appropriator of another
-man’s literary work by the “casual” editor, I can recollect how I lived
-for some years next door to a “casual” parson, who had annexed a bagful
-of sermons left by his father, one of which he preached whenever he
-obtained an engagement. It was said that on receiving the usual telegram
-from a disabled rector on Saturday evening, he was accustomed to go to
-the sermon-sack, and, putting his hand down the mouth, take out a sermon
-with the same ease and confidence as are displayed by the professional
-rat-catcher in extracting from his bag one of its lively contents for
-the gratification of a terrier. It so happened, however, that upon
-a fine Sunday morning, he set out to do duty for a clergyman at a
-distance, having previously felt about the sermon-sack until he found
-a good fat roll of manuscript, which he stuffed into his pocket. He
-reached the church--in which, it should be mentioned, he had never
-before preached--and, bustling through the service with his accustomed
-celerity, ascended the pulpit and flattened out with a slap or two
-the sermon on the cushion in front of him. The sermon proved to be the
-valedictory one preached by his father in the church of which he had
-been rector for half a century. It was unquestionably a very fine
-effort, but it might seem to some people to lack local colour. Delivered
-in a church to which the preacher was a complete stranger, it had a
-certain amount of inappropriateness about it which might reasonably be
-expected to diminish from its effect.
-
-“It is a solemn moment for us all, my dear, dear friends. It is a solemn
-moment for you, but ah! how much more solemn for me! Sunday after Sunday
-for the past fifty years I have stood in the pulpit where I stand to-day
-to preach the Gospel of Truth. I see before me now the well-known faces
-of my flock. Those who were young when I first came among you are now
-well stricken in years. Some whom I baptised as infants, have brought
-their infants to me to be baptised; these in turn have been spared to
-bring their infants to be admitted into the membership of the Church
-Militant. For fifty years have I not taken part in your joys and your
-sorrows, and now who shall say that the hour of parting should not be
-bitter? I see tears on the faces before me----”
-
-And the funny part of the matter was that he did. No one present
-seemed to see anything inappropriate in the sermon; and at the pathetic
-references to the hour of parting, there was not a dry eye in the
-church--except the remarkably bright pair possessed by a female scoffer,
-who told the story to me. It was not to be expected that the clergyman
-would become aware of the mistake--if it was a mistake--that he had
-made: he had for years been a preaching machine, and had become as
-devoid of feeling as a barrel organ; but it seemed to me incredible that
-only one person in the church should discover the ludicrous aspect of
-the situation.
-
-So I remarked to my informant, and she said that it was all the same a
-fact that the people were weeping copiously on all sides.
-
-“I asked the doctor’s wife the next day what she thought of the sermon,”
- added my informant, “and she replied with a sigh that it was beautifully
-touching; and when I put it straight to her if she did not think it was
-queer for a clergyman who was a total stranger to us to say that he had
-occupied the pulpit for fifty years, she replied, ‘Ah, my dear, you’re
-too matter of fact: sermons should not be taken too literally. _You
-should make allowance for the parsons imagination_.’”
-
-It is told of the same “casual” that an attempt was made to get the
-better of him by a parsimonious set of churchwardens upon the occasion
-of his being engaged to do duty for the regular parson of the parish.
-The contract made with the “casual” was to perform the service and
-preach the sermon in the morning for the sum of two guineas. He turned
-up in good time on the Sunday morning and performed his part of the
-contract in a business-like way. In the vestry, after he had preached
-the sermon, he was waited on by the senior churchwarden, who handed him
-his fee and expressed the great satisfaction felt by the churchwardens
-at the manner in which the work had been executed. He added that as the
-clergyman’s train would not leave the village until half-past eight at
-night, perhaps the reverend gentleman would not mind dining with him,
-the senior churchwarden, and performing a short evening service at six
-o’clock.
-
-“That will suit me very well indeed,” said the reverend gentleman. “I
-thank you very much for your hospitable offer. I charge thirty shillings
-for an evening service with sermon.”
-
-The hospitable churchwarden replied that he feared the resources of the
-church would not be equal to such a strain upon them. He thought that
-the clergyman might not object under the circumstances to give his
-services gratis.
-
-“Do you dispose of your excellent cheeses gratis?” asked the clergyman
-courteously. The churchwarden was in the cheese business.
-
-“Well, no, of course not,” laughed the churchwarden. “But still--well,
-suppose we say a guinea for the evening service?”
-
-“That’s my charge for the service, leaving out the sermon,” said the
-clergyman.
-
-He explained that it was the cheapest thing in the market at the time.
-It was done with only the smallest margin of profit. Allowing for the
-wear and tear, it left hardly anything for himself.
-
-The churchwarden shook his head. He feared that they would not be able
-to trade on the terms, he said. Suddenly, however, he brightened up.
-Could the reverend gentleman not give them a good, sound, second quality
-sermon? he inquired. They did not expect an A-1, copper-fastened,
-platinum-tipped, bevelled-edged, full-calf sermon for the money; but
-hadn’t the reverend gentleman a sound, clump-soled, celluloid-faced,
-nickel-plated sermon--something evangelical that would do very well for
-one evening?
-
-The clergyman replied that he had nothing of the sort in stock.
-
-“Well, at any rate, you will say a few words to the congregation--not
-a sermon, you know--after the service, for the guinea?” suggested the
-churchwarden.
-
-“Oh, yes, I’ll say a few words, if that’s all,” said the clergyman.
-
-And he did.
-
-When he had got to that grand old Amen which closes the Evening Service,
-he stood up and said,--
-
-“Dear brethren, there will be no sermon preached here this evening.”
-
-*****
-
-Having entered upon the perilous path that is strewn with stories of
-clergymen, I cannot leave it without recalling certain negotiations
-which a prelate once opened with me for the purchase of an article
-of furniture that remained at the palace when he was translated (with
-footnotes in the vernacular by local tradesmen) to a new episcopate. I
-have always had a weakness for collecting antique carved oak, and the
-prelate, being aware of this, called my attention to what he termed an
-“antique carved oak cabinet,” which occupied an alcove in the hall. He
-said he thought that I might be glad to have a chance of purchasing it,
-for he himself did not wish to be put to the trouble of conveying it to
-his new home--if a palace can be called a home. Now, there had been a
-three days’ auction at the palace where the antiquity remained, and,
-apparently, all the dealers had managed to resist the temptation that
-was offered them of acquiring a rare specimen of old oak; but, assuming
-that the dignitary had placed a high reserve price upon it from which
-he might now be disposed to abate, I replied that it would please me
-greatly to buy the cabinet if it was not too large. By appointment
-I accompanied a seemingly meek domestic chaplain to the dis-.mantled
-palace; and there, sure enough, in a dark alcove of the long and narrow
-hall--for the palace was not palatial--I saw (dimly) a huge thing like
-a wardrobe with pillars, or it might have been a loose box, or perhaps a
-bedstead gone wrong, or a dismantled hearse.
-
-“That’s a dreadful thing,” I remarked to the meek chaplain.
-
-“Dreadful, indeed,” he replied. “But it’s antique carved oak, so I
-suppose it’s a treasure.”
-
-“Have you a match about you?” I asked, for the place was very dark.
-
-The meek chaplain looked scandalised--it was light enough to allow of
-my seeing that--at the suggestion that he carried matches. He said he
-thought he knew where some might be had. He walked to the end of the
-passage, and I saw him take out a box of matches from a pocket. He came
-back, saying he recollected having seen the box on a ledge “down there.”
- I struck a match and held the light close to the fabric. I gave a
-portion of it a little scrape with my knife, and then tested the carving
-by the same implement.
-
-“How did his lordship describe this?” I inquired.
-
-“He said it was antique carved oak,” said the meek chaplain.
-
-“Did you ever hear of Cuvier and the lobster?” I inquired further.
-
-He said he never had.
-
-“That being so, I may venture to say that his lordship’s description
-of this thing is an excellent one,” I remarked; “only that it is not
-antique, it is not carved, and it is not oak.”
-
-“What do you mean?” asked the meek chaplain..
-
-I struck another match, and showed him the white patch that I had
-scraped with my knife, and he admitted that old oak was not usually
-white beneath the surface. I showed him also where the carving had
-sprung up before the point of my knife, making plain the ‘fact that the
-carving had been glued to the fabric.
-
-“His lordship got that made by a local carpenter twenty-five years ago,”
- said I; “and yet he tries to sell it to me for antique carved oak. It
-strikes me that in Wardour Street he would find a congenial episcopate.”
-
-The meek chaplain stroked his chin reflectively; then, putting his
-umbrella under one arm, he joined the tips of his fingers, saying,--
-
-“Whatever unworthy doubts I may once have entertained on the difficult
-subject of Apostolic succession are now, thank God, set at rest.”
-
-“What do you mean?” I inquired.
-
-“Is it possible,” he asked, “that you do not perceive how strong an
-argument this incident furnishes in favour of our Church’s claim to the
-Apostolic succession of her bishops?”
-
-I shook my head.
-
-“St. Peter was a Jew,” said the meek chaplain.
-
-*****
-
-Another of the casual ward of editors who appears on the tablets of my
-memory was a gentleman who came from Wales--and a large number of other
-places. He had a rooted objection to write anything new; but he was the
-best literary tinker I ever met. In Spitzhagen’s story, “Sturmfluth,”
- there is a most amusing account of the sculptor who made the statues of
-distinguished Abstractions, which he had carved in his young days, do
-duty for memorial commissions of lately-departed heroes. A bust of Homer
-he had no difficulty in transforming into one of Germania weeping for
-her sons killed in the war, and so forth. The sculptor’s talent was the
-same as that of the editor. He had the draft of about fifty articles,
-and three obituary notices. These he managed to tinker up, chipping a
-bit off here and there, and giving prominence to other portions, until
-his purpose of the moment was served. I have seen him turn an article
-that purported to show the absurdity of free trade, into an attack upon
-the Irish policy of the Government; and in the twinkling of an eye upon
-another occasion he made one on the Panama swindle do duty for one on
-the compulsory rescue of Emin by Stanley. With only a change of a line
-or, two, the obituary notice of Gambetta was that which he had used for
-Garibaldi; and yet when the Emperor Frederick died, it was the same
-article that was furbished up for the occasion. Every local medical man
-who died was dealt with in the appreciative article which he had written
-some years before on the death of Sir William Gull; and the influence of
-the career of every just deceased local philanthropist was described in
-the words (slightly altered to suit topography) that had been written
-for the Earl of Shaftesbury.
-
-It was really little short of marvellous how this system worked. It was
-a tinker’s triumph.
-
-I must supplement my recollections of these worthies by a few lines
-regarding a man of the same type who, I believe, never put pen to paper
-without being guilty of some extraordinary error. A high compliment was
-paid to me, I felt, when I had assigned to me, as part of my duties,
-the reading of his proof sheets nightly. In everyone that I ever read
-I found some monstrous mistake; and as he was old enough to be my
-grandfather, and extremely sensitive besides, I was completely exhausted
-by my expenditure of tact in pointing out to him what I called his
-“little inaccuracies.” One night he laid his proof sheet before me,
-saying triumphantly, “You’ll not find any of the usual slips in that,
-I’m thinking. I’ve managed to write one leader correct at last.”
-
-I read the thing he had written. It referred to a letter which Mr. Bence
-Jones had contributed to _The Times_ on the subject of the Irish Land
-League Agitation. After commenting on this letter, he wound up by
-saying that Mr. Bence Jones had proved himself to be as practical an
-agriculturalist as he was an expert painter.
-
-“Are you certain that Bence Jones is a painter?” I asked.
-
-“As certain as I can be of anything,” was the reply. “I’ve seen his work
-referred to dozens of times. I believe there’s a picture of his in
-the Grosvenor Gallery this very year. I thought you knew all about
-contemporary art,” he added, with a sneer.
-
-“Art is long,” said I, searching for a Grosvenor Gallery catalogue,
-which I knew I had thrown among my books. “Now, will you just turn up
-the picture you say you saw noticed, and I’ll admit that you know more
-than I do?”
-
-I handed him the catalogue. He adjusted his spectacles, looked at the
-index, gave a triumphant “Ha! I have you now,” and forthwith turned up
-“The Golden Stair,” by E. _Burne_ Jones.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.--THE SUB-EDITORS.
-
-_The old and the new--The scissors and paste auxiliaries--A night’s
-work--“A dorg’s life”--How to communicate with the third floor--A modern
-man in the old days--His migration--Other migrants--Some provincial
-correspondents--Forgetful of a Town Councillor--The Plymouth Brother
-as a sub-editor--A vocal effort--“Summary” justice--Place aux Dames--A
-ghost story--Suggestions of the Crystal Palace--The presentation._
-
-IT would give me no difficulty to write a book about sub-editors
-with illustrations from those whom I have met. It is, perhaps, in this
-department of a newspaper office that the change from the old _regime_
-is most apparent. The young sub-editors are frequently graduates of
-universities; but, in spite of this, most of them are well abreast
-of French and German as well as English literature. They bear out my
-contention, that journalism is beginning to be taken seriously. The new
-men have chosen journalism as their profession; they have not, as was
-the case with the men of a past age, merely drifted into journalism
-because they were failures in banks, in tailors’ shops, in the drapery
-line, and even in the tobacco business--one in which failure is almost
-impossible.
-
-I have met in the old days with specimens of such men--men who fancied,
-and who got their employers to fancy also, that because they had failed
-in occupations that demanded the exercise of no intellectual powers for
-success, they were bound to succeed in something that they termed “a
-literary calling.” They did not succeed as a rule. They glanced over
-their column or two of telegraphic news,--in those days few provincial
-papers contained more than a double column of telegrams,--they glanced
-through the country correspondence and corrected such mistakes in
-grammar as they were able to detect: it was with the scissors and paste,
-however, that their most striking intellectual work was done. In this
-department the brilliancy of the old sub-editor’s genius had a chance
-of being displayed. It coruscated, so to speak, on the rim of the paste
-pot, and played upon the business angle of the scissors, as the St.
-Elmo’s light gleams on the yard-arms.
-
-“Ah!” said one of them to me, with a glow of proper pride upon his face,
-as he ran the closed scissors between the pages of the _Globe_. “Ah,
-it’s only when it comes to a question of cutting out that your true
-sub-editor reveals himself.”
-
-And he forthwith annexed the “turn-over,” without so much as acquainting
-himself with the nature of the column.
-
-“Do you never read the thing before you cut it out?” I inquired timidly.
-
-He smiled the smile of the professor at the innocent question of a tyro.
-
-“Not likely, young fellow,” he replied. “It’s bad enough to have to read
-all the cuttings when they appear in our next issue, without reading
-them beforehand.”
-
-“Then how do you know whether or not the thing that you cut out is
-suitable for the paper?” I asked.
-
-“That’s where the instinct of your true subeditor comes in,” said he.
-“I put in the point of the scissors mechanically and the right thing is
-sure to come between the blades.”
-
-In a few minutes he had about thirty columns of cuttings ready for the
-foreman printer.
-
-I began to feel that I had never done full justice to the sub-editor or
-the truffle hunter.
-
-*****
-
-I have said that in those old days not more than two columns of wired
-news ever came to any provincial paper--_The Scotsman_, the _Glasgow
-Herald_, and a Liverpool and Manchester organ excepted. The private wire
-had not yet been heard of. In the present day, however, I have seen
-as many as sixteen columns of telegraphic news in a very ordinary
-provincial paper. I myself have come into my office at ten o’clock to
-find a speech in “flimsy,” of four columns in length, on some burning
-question of the moment. I have read through all this matter, and placing
-it in the printers’ hands by eleven, I have written a column of comment
-(about one thousand eight hundred words), read a proof of this column
-and started for home at half-past one. I may mention that while waiting
-for the last slips of my proof, I also made myself aware of the contents
-of the _Times_, the _Telegraph_, the _Standard_, and the _Morning Post_,
-which had arrived by the midnight train.
-
-I suppose there are hundreds of editors throughout the provinces to whom
-such a programme is habitually no more a thing to shrink from than it
-was to me for several years of my life. But I am sure that if any one
-of the sub-editors of the old days had been required to read even five
-columns of a political speech, and eight of parliament, he would have
-talked about slave-driving and a “dorg’s life” until he had fallen
-asleep--as he frequently did--with his arms on his desk and the
-“flimsies” on the floor.
-
-Some time ago I was in London, and had written an article at my rooms,
-with a view of putting it on the special wire at the Fleet Street end
-for transmission to the newspaper on which I was then employed. It so
-happened, however, that I was engaged at other matters much longer than
-I expected to be that night, so that it was past one o’clock in the
-morning when I drove to the office in Fleet Street. The lower door was
-shut, and no response was given to my ring. I knew that the editor had
-gone home, but of course the telegraph operator was still in his room--I
-could see his light in the topmost window--and I made up my mind to
-rouse him, for I assumed that he was taking his usual sleep. After
-ringing the bell twice without result, it suddenly occurred to me that
-I might place myself in connection with him by some other means than the
-bell-wire. I drove to the Central Telegraph Office, and sent a telegram
-to the operator at the Irish end of the special wire, asking him to
-arouse the Fleet Street operator and tell him to open the street door
-for me.
-
-When I returned to Fleet Street I found the operator waiting for me
-at the open door. In other words, I found that my easiest plan of
-communicating with the third floor from the street was by means of an
-office in Ireland.
-
-I do not think that any of the old-time subeditors would have been
-likely to anticipate the arrival of a day when such an incident would be
-possible.
-
-*****
-
-The only modern man of the old school, so to speak, with whom I came in
-contact at the outset of my journalistic life, now occupies one of the
-highest places on the London Press. I have never met so able a man since
-I worked by his side, nor have I ever met with one who was so accurate
-an observer, or so unerring a judge of men. He was everything that
-a subeditor should be, and if he erred at all it was on the side of
-courtesy. I have known of men coming down to the office with an action
-for libel in their hearts, and bitterness surpassing the bitterness of
-a Thomson whose name has appeared with a p, in the account of the
-attendance at a funeral, and yet going back to their wives and families
-quite genial, owing to the attitude adopted toward them by this
-subeditor; yes, and without any offer being made by him to have the
-mistake, of which they usually complained, altered in the next issue.
-
-He was one of the few men whom I have known to go to London from the
-provinces with a doubt on his mind as to his future success. Most of
-those to whom I have said a farewell that, unfortunately, proved to
-be only temporary, had made up their minds to seek the metropolis on
-account of the congenial extent of the working area of that city. A
-provincial town of three hundred thousand inhabitants had a cramping
-effect upon them, they carefully assured me; the fact being that any
-place except London was little better than a kennel--usually a good deal
-worse..
-
-I have come to the conclusion, from thinking over this matter, that,
-although self-confidence may be a valuable quality on the part of a
-pressman, it should not be cultivated to the exclusion of all other
-virtues.
-
-The gentleman to whom I refer is now managing editor of his paper, and
-spends a large portion of his hardly-purchased leisure hours answering
-letters that have been written to him by literary aspirants in his
-native town. One of them writes a pamphlet to prove that there never has
-been and never shall be a hell, and he sends it to be dealt with on the
-following morning in a leader in the leading London newspaper. He,
-it seems, has to be written to--kindly, but firmly. Another wishes a
-poem--not on a death in the Royal Family--to be printed, if possible,
-between the summary and the first leader; a third reminds the managing
-editor that when sub-editor of the provincial paper eleven years before,
-he inserted a letter on the disgraceful state of the footpath on one of
-the local thoroughfares, and hopes that, now that the same gentleman
-is at the head of a great metropolitan organ, he will assist him, his
-correspondent, in the good work which has been inaugurated. The footpath
-is as bad as ever, he explains. But it is over courteously repressive
-letters to such young men--and old men too--as hope he may see his way
-to give them immediate and lucrative employment on his staff, that most
-of his spare time and all his spare stamps are spent.
-
-Ladies write to him by the hundred--for it seems that any one may become
-a lady journalist--making valuable suggestions to him by means of which
-he may, if he chooses, obtain daily a chatty column with local social
-sketches, every one guaranteed to be taken from life.
-
-He doesn’t choose.
-
-The consequence is that the ladies write to him again without the loss
-of a post, and assure him that if he fancies his miserable paper is
-anything but the laughing-stock of humanity, he takes an absurdly
-optimistic view of the result of his labours in connection with it.
-
-*****
-
-About five years after he had left the town where we had been located
-together, I met a man who had come upon him in London, and who had
-accepted his invitation to dinner.
-
-“We had a long talk together,” said the man, recording the transaction,
-“and I was surprised to find how completely he has severed all his
-former connections and old associations. I mentioned casually the names
-of some of the most prominent of the people here, but he had difficulty
-in recalling them. Why, actually--you’ll scarcely believe it--when I
-spoke of Sir Alexander Henderson, he asked who was he! It’s a positive
-fact!”
-
-Now Sir Alexander Henderson was a Town Councillor.
-
-*****
-
-The provincial successor to the sub-editor just referred to was
-undoubtedly a remarkable man. He was a Plymouth Brother, and without
-guile. He was, for some reason or other, very anxious that I should
-join “The Church” also. I might have done so if I had succeeded in
-discovering what were the precise doctrines held by the body. But it
-would seem that the theology of the Plymouth Brethren is not an exact
-science. A Plymouth Brother is one who accepts the doctrines of the
-Plymouth Brethren. So much I learned, and no more.
-
-He possessed a certain amount of confidence in the correctness of his
-views--whatever they may have been, and he never allowed any pressman to
-enter his room without writing a summary on some subject; for which, it
-may be mentioned, he himself got credit in the eyes of the proprietor.
-He had no singing voice whatsoever, but his views on the Second Advent
-were so deep as to force him to give vocal expression to them thus:--
-
-“Parlando. The Lord shall come. Will you write me a bit of a summary?”
-
-[Illustration: 0092]
-
-The request to anyone who chanced to be in the room with him, following
-so hard upon the vocal assertion of the most solemn of his theological
-tenets, had a shocking effect; more especially as the newspaper offices
-in those old days were constantly filled with shallow scoffers and
-sceptics; and, of course, persons were not wanting who endeavoured to
-evade their task by assuring him that the Sacred Event was not one that
-could be legitimately treated within a lesser space than a full column.
-
-He usually offered to discuss with me at 2 a.m. such subjects as the
-Immortality of the Soul or the Inspiration of Holy Writ. When he would
-signify his intention of proving both questions, if I would only wait
-for four hours.
-
-I was accustomed to adopt the attitude of the schoolboy who, when the
-schoolmaster, after drawing sundry lines on the blackboard, asserted
-that the square described upon the diagonal of a double rectangular
-parallelogram was equal to double the rectangle described upon the other
-two sides, and offered to prove it, said, “Pray don’t trouble yourself,
-sir; I don’t doubt it in the least.”
-
-I assured the sub-editor that there was nothing in the somewhat
-extensive range of theological belief that I wouldn’t admit at 2 a.m.
-after a long night’s work.
-
-*****
-
-The most amusing experience was that which I had with the same gentleman
-at the time of the Eastern crises of the spring of 1878. During the
-previous year he had accustomed himself to close his nightly summary of
-the progress of the war between Russia and Turkey and the possibility of
-complications arising with England, with these words:--“Fortunate
-indeed it is that at the present moment we have at our Foreign Office so
-sagacious and far-seeing a statesman as Earl Derby. Every confidence may
-be reposed in his judgment to avert the crisis which in all probability
-is impending.”
-
-Certainly once a week did this summary appear in the paper, until I
-fancy the readers began to tire of it. As events developed early in the
-spring, the paragraph was inserted with feverish frequency. He was at it
-again one night--I could hear him murmur the words to himself as he went
-over the thing--but the moment he had given out the copy I threw down in
-front of him a telegram which I had just opened.
-
-“That will make a good summary,” I said. “The Reserves are called out
-and Lord Derby has resigned.”
-
-He sprang to his feet, exclaiming, like the blameless George,
-“What--what--what?”
-
-“There’s the flimsy,” said I. “It’s a good riddance. He never was worth
-much. The idea of a conscientious Minister at the Foreign Office! Now
-Beaconsfield will have a free hand. You’d better write that summary.”
-
-“I will--I will,” he said. “But I think I’ll ask you to dictate it to
-me.”
-
-“All right,” said I. “Heave ahead. ‘The news of the resignation of Earl
-Derby will be received by the public of Great Britain with feelings akin
-to those of relief.... The truth is that for several months past it was
-but too plain to even the least sagacious persons that Lord Derby at the
-Foreign Office was the one weakness in the _personnel_ of the Ministry.
-In colloquial, parlance he was the square peg in the round hole. Now
-that his resignation has been accepted we may say farewell, a long
-farewell, to a feeble and vacillating Minister of whose capacity at such
-a serious crisis we have frequently thought it our duty to express our
-grave doubts.’”
-
-He took a shorthand note of this stuff, which he transcribed, and
-ordered to be set up in place of the first summary. For the next three
-months that original metaphor of the square peg and the round hole
-appeared in relation to Lord Derby once a week in the political summary.
-
-*****
-
-Among the minor peculiarities of this subeditor of the old time was
-an apparently irresistible desire for the companionship of his wife at
-nights. Perhaps, however, I am doing him an injustice, and the evidence
-available on this point should only be accepted as indicating the desire
-of his wife for the companionship of her husband. At any rate, for some
-reason or other, the lady occupied an honoured place in her husband’s
-room certainly three nights every week.
-
-The pair never exchanged a word for the six or seven hours that
-they remained together. Perhaps here again I am doing one of them an
-injustice, for I now remember that during at least two hours out of
-every night the door of the room was locked on the inside, so they
-may have been making up their arrears of silence by discussing the
-immortality of the soul, or other delicate theological points, during
-this “close” season.
-
-The foreman printer was the only one in the office who was in the habit
-of complaining about the presence of the lady in the sub-editor’s room.
-He was the rudest-voiced man and the most untiring user of oaths ever
-known even among foremen printers, and this is saying a great deal. He
-explained to me in language that was by no means deficient in force,
-that the presence of the lady had a cramping and enervating effect upon
-him when he went to tell the sub-editor that he needn’t send out any
-more “copy,” as the paper was overset. How could any conscientious
-foreman do himself justice under such circumstances? he asked me.
-
-*****
-
-The same sub-editor had a ghost story. He was the only man whom I ever
-met who believed in his own ghost story. I have come in contact with
-several men who had ghost stories in their _répertoire_, but I never met
-any but this one who was idiot enough to believe in the story that he
-had to tell. I am sorry that I cannot remember its many details. But
-the truth is that it made no more impression on me than the usual ghost
-story makes upon a man with a sound digestion. As a means of earning a
-livelihood the journalistic “spook” occupies a legitimate place among
-the other devices of modern enterprise to effect the same praiseworthy
-object; but a personal and unprofessional belief in the possibility of
-the existence in visible form of a “ghost” is the evidence either of
-a mind constitutionally adapted to the practice of imposture, or of a
-remarkable capacity for being imposed upon. My friend the sub-editor had
-not a heart for falsehood framed, so I believed that he believed that
-he had seen the spirit of his father make an effective exit from
-the apartment where the father had died. This was, I recollect, the
-foundation of his story. I remember also that the spirit took the form
-of a small but compact ball of fire, and that it rolled up the spout--on
-the outside--and then broke into a thousand stars.
-
-The description of the incident suggested a lesser triumph of Messrs.
-Brock at the Crystal Palace rather than the account of the solution of
-the greatest mystery that man ever has faced or ever can face. When I
-had heard the story to the end--up to the moment that the old nurse came
-out of the house crying, “He’s gone, he’s gone!” preparatory to throwing
-her apron over her head--I merely asked,--
-
-“How many nights did you say you had been watching by your father?”
-
-“Three,” he replied. “But I don’t think that I said anything to you
-about watching.” Neither had he. Like the witness at the mysterious
-murder trial who didn’t think it worth while mentioning to the police
-that he had seen a man, who had a grudge against the deceased, leaving
-the room where the body was found, and carrying in one hand a long knife
-dripping with blood, my friend did not think that the circumstance
-of his having had no sleep for three nights had any bearing upon the
-question of the accuracy of his eyesight.
-
-Of course I merely said that the story was an extraordinary one.
-
-I have noticed that Plymouth Brotherhood, vegetarianism, soft hats, bad
-art, and a belief in at least one ghost usually are found associated.
-
-This sub-editor emigrated several years ago to the South Sea Islands
-with evangelistic intentions. On his departure his colleagues made him
-a graceful and appropriate gift which could not fail to cause him to
-recall in after years the many pleasant hours they had spent together.
-
-It took the form of an immense marble chimney-piece clock, weighing
-about a hundredweight and a half, and looking uncomfortably like an
-eighteenth-century mural tomb. It was such a nice present to make to an
-evangelist in the neophyte stage, every one thought; for what the gig
-was in the forties as a guarantee of all that was genteel, the massive
-marble clock was in the eyes of the past generation of journalists. I
-happen to know something about the sunny islands of the South Pacific
-and their inhabitants, and it has often occurred to me that the
-guarantees of gentility which find universal acceptance where the
-hibiscus blooms, may not be wholly identical with those that were in
-vogue among journalists long ago. Should these unworthy doubts which now
-and again occur to me when I am alone, be well founded, I fear that the
-presentation to my friend may repose elsewhere than on a chimney-piece
-of Upolu or Tahiti.
-
-As a matter of fact, I read a short time ago an account of a remarkable
-head-dress worn by a native chief, which struck me as having many points
-in common with a massive dining-room marble clock.
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI--THE SUB-EDITORS (continued).
-
-
-_The opium eater--A babbler o’ green fields--The “Brither Scots”--A
-South Sea idyl--St. Andrew Lang Syne--An intelligent community--The
-arrival of the “Bonnie Doon,” Mackellar, master--Captain Mackellar “says
-a ‘sweer’”--A border raid on a Newspaper--It pays--A raid of the wild
-Irish--Naugay Doola as a Newspaper editor--An epic--How the editor
-came to buy my emulsion--The constitutionially quarlsome sub-editor--The
-melancholy man--Not without a cause--The use of the razor._
-
-
-ANOTHER remarkable type of the subeditor of the past was a middle-aged
-man whom it was my privilege to study for some months. No one could
-account for a curious _distrait_ air which he frequently wore; but I had
-only to look at his eyes to become aware of the secret of his life. I
-had seen enough of opium smokers in the East to enable me to pronounce
-decisively on this “case.” He was a most intelligent and widely-read
-man; but he had wrecked his life over opium. He could not live without
-it, and with it he was utterly unfit for any work. Night after night
-I did the wretched man’s work while he lay in a corner of the room
-wandering through the opium eater’s paradise. After some months he
-vanished, utterly from the town, and I never found a trace of him
-elsewhere.
-
-*****
-
-He was much to be preferred to a curious Scotsman who succeeded him. It
-was not the effects of opium that caused this person to lie in a
-corner and babble o’ green fields upon certain occasions, such as the
-anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, the anniversary of the death
-of the same poet, the celebration of the Annual Festival of St. Andrew,
-the Annual Dinner of the Caledonian Society, the Anniversary Supper
-of the Royal Scottish Association, the Banquet and Ball of the Sons
-of Scotia, the “Nicht wi’ Our Ain Kin,” the Ancient Golf Dinner, the
-Curlers’ Reunion, the “Rink and Drink” of the “Free Bowlers”--a local
-festival--the Pipe and Bagpipe of the Clans Awa’ Frae Harne--another
-local club of Caledonians. Each of these celebrations of the
-representatives of his nation, which took place in the town to which he
-came--I need scarcely say it was not in Scotland--was attended by him;
-hence the babbling o’ green fields between the hours of one and three
-a.m. He babbled once too often, and was sent forth to fresh fields by
-his employer, who was not a “brither Scot.” I daresay he is babbling up
-to the present hour.
-
-In spite of the well-known and deeply-rooted prejudices of the Scottish
-nation against the spirit of what may be termed racial cohesion, it
-cannot be denied that they have been known now and again to display a
-tendency--when outside Scotland--to localise certain of their national
-institutions. They do so at considerable self-sacrifice, and the result
-is never otherwise than beneficial to the locality operated on. No more
-adequately attested narrative has been recorded than that of the
-two Shanghai merchants--Messrs. Andrew Gareloch and Alexander
-MacClackan--who were unfortunate enough to be wrecked on the voyage to
-England. They were the sole survivors of the ship’s company, and
-the island upon which they found themselves was in the middle of the
-Pacific, and about six miles long by four across. In the lagoon were
-plenty of fish, and on the ridge of the slope cocoanuts, loquats,
-plantains, and sweet potatoes were growing, so that there was no
-question as to their supplies holding out. After a good meal they
-determined that their first duty was to name the island. They called it
-St. Andrew Lang Syne Island, and became as festive and brotherly--they
-pronounced it “britherly”--as was possible over cocoanut milk: it was
-a long time since either of them had tasted milk. The second day they
-founded a local Benevolent Society of St. Andrew, and held the inaugural
-dinner; the third day they founded a Burns Club, and inaugurated the
-undertaking with a supper; the fourth day they started a Scottish
-Association, and with it a series of monthly reunions for the discussion
-of Scotch ballad literature; the fifth day they laid out a golf links
-with the finest bunkers in the world, and instituted a club lunch
-(strictly non-alcoholic); the sixth day they formed a Curling Club--the
-lagoon would make a braw rink, they said, if it only froze; if it didn’t
-freeze, well, they could still have the annual Curlers’ supper--and they
-had it; the Seventh Day they _kept_. On the evening of the same day a
-vessel was sighted bearing up for the island; but, of course, neither
-of the men would hoist a signal on the Seventh Day, and they watched the
-craft run past the island, though they were amazed to find that she
-had only her courses and a foresail set, in spite of the fact that
-the breeze was a light one. The next morning, when they were sitting
-together at breakfast discussing whether they should lay the foundation
-stone--with a commemorative lunch--of a free kirk, a U.P. meeting-house,
-or an Auld Licht meeting-house--they had been fiercely discussing the
-merits of each at every spare moment during the previous twenty years at
-Shanghai--they saw the vessel returning with all sail set and a signal
-flying. To run up one of their shirts to a pole at the entrance to the
-lagoon was a matter of a moment, and they saw that their signal was
-responded to. Sail was taken off the ship, she was steered by signals
-from the shore through the entrance to the lagoons and dropped anchor.
-
-She turned out to be the _Bonnie Doon_, of Dundee, Douglas Mackellar,
-master. He had found portions of wreckage floating at sea, and had
-thought it possible that some of the survivors of the wreck might want
-passages “hame.”
-
-“Nae, nae,” said both the men, “we’re no in need o’ passages hame just
-the noo. But what for did ye no mak’ for the passage yestere’en in the
-gloaming?”
-
-“Ay,” said Captain Mackellar, “I ran by aboot the mirk; but hoot
-awa’--hoot awa’, ye wouldn’t hae me come ashore on the Sawbath Day.”
-
-“Ye shortened sail, tho’,” remarked Mr. MacClackan.
-
-“Ay, on Saturday nicht. I never let her do more than just sail on the
-Sawbath. Why the eevil didn’t ye run up a bit signal, ye loons, if ye
-spied me sae weel?”
-
-“Hoot awa’--hoot awa’, ye wouldn’t hae us mak’ a signal on the Sawbath
-day.”
-
-“Na’, na’, no regular signal; but ye might hae run up a wee bittie--just
-eneugh tae catch my e’en. Ay, an’ will ye nae come aboard?”
-
-“We’ll hae to talk owre it, Captain.”
-
-Well; they did talk over the matter, cautiously and discreetly, for a
-few hours, for Captain Mackellar was a hard man at a bargain, and he
-would not agree to give them a passage at anything less than two pound
-a head. At last negotiations were concluded, the men got aboard the
-_Bonnie Doon_ and piloted her out of the lagoon. They reached the Clyde
-in safety, having on the voyage found that Captain Mackellar was a
-religious man and never used any but the most God-fearing of oaths at
-his crew.
-
-“Weel, ma freends,” said he, as they approached Greenock--“Weel, I’m in
-hopes that ye’ll be paying me the siller this e’en.”
-
-“Ay, mon, that we will, certes,” said the passengers. “In the meantime,
-we’d tak’ the liberty o’ calling your attention to a wee bit claim we
-hae japped doon on a bit slip o’ paper. It’s three poon nine for
-harbour dues that ye owe us, Captain Mackellar, and twa poon ten
-for pilotage--it’s compulsory at yon island, so maybe ye’ll mak’
-it convenient to hand us owre the differs when we land. Ay, Douglas
-Mackellar, ye shouldn’a try to get the better o’ brither Scots.”
-
-Captain Douglas Mackellar was a God-fearing man, but he said “Dom!”
-
-I once had some traffic with a newspaper office that had suffered from
-a border raid. In the month of June a managing editor had been imported
-from the Clyde, and although previously no “hand” from north of the
-Tweed had ever been located within its walls, yet before December had
-come, to take a stroll through any department of that office was like
-taking a walk down Sauchiehall Street, or the Broomielaw. The foreman
-printer used weird Scotch oaths, and his son was the “devil”--pronounced
-_deevil_. His brother-in-law was the day foreman, and his
-brother-in-law’s son was a junior clerk. The stereotyper was the
-stepson of the night foreman’s mother, and he had a nephew who was
-the machinist, with a brother for his assistant. The managing editor’s
-brother was sub-editor, and the man to whom his wife had been engaged
-before she married him, was assistant-editor. The assistant-editor’s
-uncle became the head of the advertising department, and he had three
-sons; two of them became clerks with progressive salaries, and the third
-became the chief reporter, also with a progressive salary. In fact, the
-paper became a one-family show--it was like a “nicht wi’ Burns,”--and no
-paper was ever worked better. It never paid less than fifteen per cent.
-
-A rather more amusing experience was of the overrunning of a newspaper
-office by the wild Irishry. The organ in question had a somewhat
-chequered career during the ten months that it existed. At one
-period--for even as long as a month--it was understood to pay its
-expenses; but when it failed to pay its expenses, no one else paid them;
-hence in time it came to be looked upon as a rather unsound property.
-The original editor, a man of ability and culture, declined to be
-dictated to in some delicate political question by the proprietor, and
-took his departure without going through the empty formality--it was,
-after all, only a point of etiquette--of asking for the salary that was
-due to him. For some weeks the paper was run--if something that scarcely
-crawled could be said to be run--without an editor; then a red-headed
-Irishman of the Namgay Doola type appeared--like a meteor surrounded
-by a nimbus of brogue--in the editor’s room. His name was O’Keegan, but
-lest this name might be puzzling to the English nation, he weakly gave
-in to their prejudices and simplified it into O’Geogheghoiran. He was a
-Master of Arts of the Royal University in Ireland, and a winner of gold
-medals for Greek composition, as well as philosophy. He said he had
-passed at one time at the head of the list of Indian Civil Service
-candidates, but was rejected by the doctor on account of his weak lungs.
-When I met him his lungs had apparently overcome whatever weakness they
-may once have had. He had a colloquial acquaintance with Sanscrit, and
-he had also been one of the best billiard markers in all Limerick.
-
-I fancy he knew something about every science and art, except the
-art and science of editing a daily newspaper on which the payment of
-salaries was intermittent. In the course of a week a man from Galway
-had taken the vacant and slightly injured chair of the sub-editor, a man
-from Waterford said he had been appointed chief of the reporting staff,
-a man from Tipperary said he was the new art editor and musical critic,
-and a man from Kilkenny said he had been invited by his friend Mr.
-O’Geogheghoiran to “do the reviews.” I have the best of reasons for
-knowing that he fancied “doing the reviews” meant going into the park
-upon military field-days, and reporting thereupon.
-
-In short, the newspaper _staff_ was an Irish blackthorn.
-
-It began to “behave as sich.”
-
-The office was situated down a court on my line of route homeward; and
-one morning about three o’clock I was passing the entrance to the court
-when I fancied I heard the sound of singing. I paused, and then, out of
-sheer curiosity, moved in the direction of the newspaper premises.
-By the time I had reached them the singing had broadened into
-recrimination. I have noticed that singing is usually the first step
-in that direction. The members of the literary staff had apparently
-assembled in the reporters’ room, and, stealing past the flaring gas jet
-on the very rickety stairs, I reached that window of the apartment which
-looked upon the lobby. When I rubbed as much dust and grime off one of
-the panes as admitted of my seeing into the room, I learned more
-about fighting in five minutes than I had done during a South African
-campaign.
-
-A dozen or so bottles of various breeds lay about the floor, and a
-variety of drinking vessels lay about the long table at the moment of my
-glancing through the window. Only for a moment, however, for in another
-second the editor had leapt upon the table, and with one dexterous
-kick--a kick that no amount of Association play could cause one to
-acquire; a kick that must have been handed down, so to speak, from
-father to son, unto the third and fourth generations of backs--had
-sent every drinking vessel into the air. One--it was a jug--struck
-the ceiling, and brought down a piece of plaster about the size of a
-cart-wheel; but before the mist that followed this transaction had risen
-to obscure everything, I saw that a tumbler had shot out through the
-window that looked upon the court. I heard the crash below a moment
-afterwards. A mug had caught the corresponding portion of the anatomy of
-the gentleman from Waterford, and it irritated him; a cup crashed at the
-open mouth of the reviewer from Kilkenny, and, so far as I could see,
-he swallowed it; a tin pannikin carried away a portion of the ear of
-the musical critic from Tipperary--it was so large that he could easily
-spare a chip or so of it, though some sort of an ear is essential to the
-conscientious discharge of the duties of musical critic.
-
-For some time after, I could not see very distinctly what was going on
-in the room, for the dust from the dislodged plaster began to rise,
-and “friend and foe were shadows in the mist.” Now and again I caught
-a glimpse of the red-head of the Master of Arts and Gold Medallist
-permeating the mist, as the western sun permeates the smoke that hangs
-over a battle-field; and wherever that beacon-fire appeared devastation
-was wrought. The subeditor had gone down before him--so much I could
-see; and then all was dimness and yells again--yells that brought down
-more of the plaster and a portion of the stucco cornice; yells that
-chipped flakes off the marble mantelpiece and sent them quivering
-through the room; yells that you might have driven tenpenny nails home
-with.
-
-Then the dust-cloud drifted away, and I was able to form a pretty good
-idea of what was going on. The meeting in mid-air of the ten-light
-gasalier, which the dramatic critic had pulled down, and the iron
-fender, which the chief of the reporting staff had picked up when he saw
-that his safety was imperilled, was epic. The legs of chairs and stools
-flying through the air suggested a blackboard illustration of a shower
-of meteors; every now and again one crashed upon a head and cannoned off
-against the wall, where it sometimes lodged and became a bracket
-that you might have hung a coat on, or else knocked a brick into the
-adjoining apartment.
-
-The room began to assume an untidy appearance after a while; but I
-noticed that the editor was making praiseworthy efforts to speak. I
-sympathised with the difficulty he seemed to have in that direction.
-It was not until he had folded in two the musical critic and the chief
-reporter, and had seated himself upon them without straightening them
-out, that his voice was heard.
-
-“Boys,” he cried, “if this work goes on much longer I fear there’ll be
-a breach of the peace. Anyhow, I’m thirsty. I’ve a dozen of porter in my
-room.”
-
-The only serious accident of the evening occurred at this point. The
-reviewer got badly hurt through being jammed in with the other six in
-the door leading to the editor’s room.
-
-The next morning the paper came out as usual, and the fact that the
-leaders were those that had appeared on the previous day, and that
-the Parliamentary report had been omitted, was not noticed. I met the
-red-haired editor as he came out of a chemist’s shop that afternoon. I
-asked, as delicately as possible, after his health.
-
-“I’d be well enough if it wasn’t for the sense of responsibility that
-sometimes oppresses me,” said he. “It’s a terrible weight on a single
-man’s shoulders that a daily paper is, so it is.”
-
-“No doubt,” said I. “Do you feel it on your shoulders now?”
-
-“Don’t I just?” said he. “I’ve been buying some emulsion inside to see
-if that will give me any ease.”
-
-He then told me a painfully circumstantial story of how, when walking
-home early in the morning, he was set upon by some desperate miscreant,
-who had struck him twice upon his left eye, which might account, he
-said, for any slight discolouration I might notice in the region of that
-particular organ if I looked closely at it.
-
-“But what’s the matter with your hair?”
-
-I inquired. “It looks as if it had been powdered.”
-
-“Blast it!” said he, taking off his hat, and disclosing several
-hillocks of red heather with a patch of white sticking-plaster on their
-summits--like the illustration of the snow line on a geological model
-of the earth’s surface. “Blast it! It must have been the ceiling. It’s a
-dog’s life an editor’s is, anyhow.”
-
-I never saw him again.
-
-*****
-
-Of course, the foregoing narrative is only illustrative of the
-exuberance of the Irish nature under depressing circumstances; but I
-have also come in contact with sub-editors who were constitutionally
-quarrelsome. They were nearly as disagreeable to work with as those who
-were perpetually standing on their dignity--men who were never without a
-complaint of being insulted. I bore with one of this latter class longer
-than any one else would have done. He was the most incompetent man whom
-I ever met, so that one night when he growled out that he had never been
-so badly treated by his inferiors as he was just at that instant, I had
-no compunction in saying,--
-
-“By whom?”
-
-“By my inferiors in this office,” he replied.
-
-“I’d like to know where your inferiors are,” said I. “They’re not in
-this office--so much I can swear. I doubt if they are in any other.”
-
-He asked me if I meant to insult him, and I assured him that I
-invariably made my meaning so plain when I had occasion to say anything,
-there was no excuse for asking what I meant.
-
-He never talked to me again about being insulted.
-
-*****
-
-Another curious specimen of an extinct animal was subject to remarkable
-fits of depression and moroseness. He offered to make me a bet one night
-that he would not be alive on that day week. I took him up promptly, and
-offered to stake a five-pound note on the issue, provided that he did
-the same. He said he hadn’t a five-pound note in the world, though he
-had been toiling like a galley slave for twenty years. I pitied the poor
-fellow, though it was not until I saw his wife--a mass of black
-beads and pomatum--that I recognised his right to the consolation
-of pessimism. I believe that he was only deterred from suicide by an
-irresistible belief in a future state. He had heard a well-meant but
-injudicious sermon in which the statement was made that husband and
-wife, though parted by death, would one day be reunited. Believing this
-he lived on. What was the use of doing anything else?
-
-*****
-
-I met with another sub-editor on whom for a period I looked with some
-measure of awe, being _in statu pupillari_ at the time.
-
-Every night he used to take a razor out of his press and lay it beside
-his desk, having opened it with great deliberation and a hard look upon
-his haggard face. I believed that he was possessed of strong suicidal
-impulses, and that he was placing the razor where it would be handy in
-case he should find it necessary to make away with himself some night or
-in the early hours of the morning.
-
-I held him in respect for just one month. At the end of that time I saw
-him sharpening his pencil with the razor, and I ventured to inquire if
-he usually employed the instrument for that purpose.
-
-“I do,” he replied. “I lost six penknives in this room within a
-fortnight; those blue-pencilled reporters use up a lot of knives, and
-they never buy any, so I brought down this old razor. They’ll not steal
-that.”
-
-And they didn’t.
-
-But I lost all respect for that sub-editor.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.--SOME EXTINCT TYPES.
-
-
-_A perturbed spirit--The loss of a fortune--A broken bank--A study
-in bimetallism--Auri sacra fames--A rough diamond--A friend of the
-peerage--And of Dublin stout--His weaknesses--The Quarterly Review--The
-dilemma--An amateur hospital nurse--A terrible night--Benvenuto
-Cellini--A subtle jest--The disappearance of the jester--An appropriated
-leaderette--An appropriated anecdote--An appropriated quatrain._
-
-
-ONCE I saw a sub-editor actually within easy reach of suicide. It was
-not the duplicating of a five-column speech in flimsy, nor was it that
-the foreman printer had broken his heart. It was that he had been the
-victim of a heartless theft. His savings of years had been carried off
-in the course of a single night. So he explained to me with “tears in
-his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,” when I came down to the office one
-evening. He was walking up and down his room, with three hours’ arrears
-of unopened telegrams on his desk and a _p.p.c._ note from the foreman
-beneath a leaden “rule,” used as a paper weight; for the foreman, being,
-as usual, a conscientious man, invariably promised to hand in his notice
-at sundown if kept waiting for copy.
-
-“What on earth is the matter?” I inquired.
-
-“Is it neuralgia or----”
-
-“It’s worse--worse!” he moaned. “I’ve lost all my money--all--all!
-there’s the tin I kept it in--see for yourself if there’s a penny left
-in it.” He threw himself into his chair and bowed down his head upon his
-hands.
-
-Far off a solitary (speaking) trumpet blew.
-
-“If the hands are to go home you’ve only got to say so and I release
-them,” was the message that was delivered into my ear when I went to the
-end of the tube communicating with the foreman.
-
-“Three columns will be out inside half an hour,” I replied. Then I
-turned to the sobbing sub-editor. “Come,” said I, “bear it like a man.
-It’s a terrible thing, of course, but still it must be faced. Tell me
-how many pounds you’ve lost, and I’ll put the matter into the hands of
-the police.”
-
-He looked up with a vacant white face.
-
-“How many--there were a hundred and forty pence in the tin when I went
-home last night. See if there’s a penny left.”
-
-A cursory glance at the chocolate tin that lay on the table was quite
-sufficient to convince me that it was empty.
-
-“Cheer up,” I said. “A hundred and forty pence. It sounds large in
-pence, to be sure, but when you think of it from the standard of the
-silver currency it doesn’t seem so formidable. Eleven and eightpence. Of
-course it’s a shocking thing. Was it all in pence?”
-
-“All--all--every penny of it.”
-
-“Keep up your heart. We may be able to trace the money. I suppose you
-are prepared to identify the coins?”
-
-He ran his fingers through his hair, and I could see that he was
-striving manfully to collect his thoughts.
-
-“Identify? I could swear to them if I saw them in the lump--one hundred
-and forty--one--hundred--and--forty--pence! Yes, I’ll swear that I could
-swear to them in the lump. But singly--oh, I’ll never see them again!”
-
-“Tell me how it came about that you had so much money in this room,”
- said I, beginning to open the telegrams. “Man, did you not think of the
-terrible temptation that you were placing in the way of the less opulent
-members of the staff? Eleven and eight in a disused chocolate tin! It’s
-a temptation like this that turns honest men into thieves.”
-
-Then it was that he informed me on the point upon which I confess I was
-curious--namely, how he came to have this fortune in copper.
-
-His wife, he said, was in the habit of giving him a penny every rainy
-night, this being his tramcar fare from his house to his office. But--he
-emphasised this detail--she was usually weak enough not to watch to see
-whether he got into the tramcar or not, and the consequence was that,
-unless the night was very wet indeed, he was accustomed to walk the
-whole way and thus save the penny, which he nightly deposited in the
-chocolate tin: he could not carry it home with him, he said, for his
-wife would be certain to find it when she searched his waistcoat pockets
-before he arose in the morning.
-
-“For a hundred and forty times you persevered in this course of
-duplicity for the sake of the temporary gain!” said I. “It is this
-craving to become quickly rich that is the curse of the nineteenth
-century. I thought that journalists were free from it; I find that they
-are as bad as Stock Exchange gamblers or magazine proprietors. Oh,
-gold! gold! Go on with your work or there’ll be a blue-pencilled row
-to-morrow. Don’t fancy you’ll obtain the sympathy of any human being in
-your well-earned misfortune. You don’t deserve to have so good a wife.
-A penny every rainy night--a penny! Oh, I lose all patience when I think
-of your complaining. Go on with your work.”
-
-He went on with his work.
-
-Some months after this incident he thought it necessary to tell me that
-he was a Scotchman.
-
-It was not necessary; but I asked him if his wife was one too.
-
-“Not exactly,” said he argumentatively. “But she’s a native of
-Scotland--I’ll say that much for her.”
-
-I afterwards heard that he had become the proprietor of that very
-journal upon which he had been sub-editor.
-
-I was not surprised.
-
-*****
-
-My memories of the sub-editor’s room include a three months’ experience
-of a remarkable man. He imposed upon me for nearly a week, telling me
-anecdotes of the distinguished persons whom he had met in the course of
-his career. It seemed to me--for a week--that he was the darling of the
-most exclusive society in Europe. He talked about noble lords by their
-Christian names, and of noble ladies with equal breezy freedom. Many
-of his anecdotes necessitated a verbatim report of the replies made by
-marquises and countesses to his playful sallies; and I noticed that,
-so far as his recollection served him, they had always addressed him as
-George; sometimes--but only in the case of over-familiar daughters of
-peers--Georgie. I felt--for a week--that journalism had made a sensible
-advance socially when such things were possible. Perhaps, I thought,
-some day the daughter of a peer may distort my name, so that I may not
-die undistinguished.
-
-I have seen a good many padded peeresses and dowdy duchesses since those
-days, and my ambition has somehow drifted into other channels; but while
-the man talked of his intimacies with peers, and his friendship--he
-assured me on his sacred word of honour (whatever that meant) that it
-was perfectly Platonic--with peeresses.
-
-I was carried away--for a week.
-
-He was an undersized man, with a rooted prejudice against soap and the
-comb. He spoke like a common man, and wore clothes that were clearly
-second-hand. He posed as the rough diamond, the untamed literary lion,
-the genius who refuses to be trammelled by the usages--most of them
-purely artificial--of society, and on whom society consequently dotes.
-
-What he doted on was Dublin stout. If he had acquired during his
-intercourse with the aristocracy their effete taste in the way of
-drinking, he certainly managed to chasten it. He drank six bottles of
-stout in the course of a single night, and regretted that there was not
-a seventh handy.
-
-For a month he did his work moderately well, but at the end of that time
-he began to put it upon other people. He made excuse after excuse to
-shirk his legitimate duties. One night he came down with a swollen face.
-He was suffering inexpressible agony from toothache, he said, and if
-he were to sit down to his desk he really would not guarantee that some
-shocking mistake would not occur. He would, he declared, be serving the
-best interests of the paper if he were to go home to his bed. He only
-waited to drink a bottle of stout before going.
-
-A few days after his return to work he entered the office enveloped in
-an odoriferous muffler, and speaking hoarsely. He had, he said, caught
-so severe a cold that the doctor was not going to allow him to leave his
-house; but so soon as he got his back turned, he had run down to tell
-us that it was impossible for him to do anything for a night or two. He
-wanted to bind us down in the most solemn way not to let the doctor know
-that he came out, and we promised to let no one know except the manager.
-This assurance somehow did not seem to satisfy him. But he drank a
-bottle of porter and went away.
-
-The very next week he came to me in confidence, telling me that he had
-just received the proofs of his usual political article in the
-_Quarterly_, and that the editor had taken the trouble to telegraph to
-him to return the proofs for press without fail the next day. Now, the
-only question with him was, should he chuck up the _Quarterly_, for
-which he had written for many years, or the humble daily paper in the
-office of which he was standing.
-
-I did not venture to suggest a solution of the problem.
-
-He did.
-
-“Maybe you wouldn’t mind taking a squint”--his phraseology was that
-of the rough genius--“through the telegrams for to-night,” said he. “I
-don’t like to impose on a good-natured sonny like you, but you see how
-I’m situated. Confound that _Quarterly!_”
-
-“Do you do the political article for the _Quarterly?_” I asked.
-
-“Man, I’ve done it for the past eleven years,” said he. “I thought every
-one knew that. It’s editor of the _Quarterly_ that I should be to-day
-if William Smith hadn’t cut me out of the job. But I bear him no
-malice--bless your soul, not I. You’ll go over the flimsies?”
-
-I said I would, and he wiped a bath sponge of porter-froth off his beard
-in order to thank me.
-
-I knew that he was telling me a lie about the _Quarterly_, but I did his
-work.
-
-Less than a week after, he entered my room to express the hope that I
-would be able to make arrangements to have his work done for him once
-again, the fact being that he had just received a message from Mrs.
-Thompson--the wife of young Thompson, the manager for Messrs. Gibson,
-the shippers--to ask him for heaven’s sake to help her to look after her
-husband that night. Young Thompson had been behaving rather wildly of
-late, it appeared, and was suffering from an attack of that form of
-heredity known as _delirium tremens_. He had been held down in the bed
-by three men and Mrs. Thompson the previous night, my informant said,
-and added that he himself would probably be one of a fresh batch on whom
-a similar duty would devolve inside an hour or so.
-
-He had scarcely left the office--after refreshing himself by the
-artificial aid of Guinness--before a knock came to my door, and the next
-moment Mr. Thompson himself quietly entered. I saw that the poker was
-within easy reach, and then asked him how he was.
-
-“I’m all right,” he replied. “I merely dropped in to borrow the _Glasgow
-Herald_ for a few minutes. I heard to-day that a ship of ours was
-reported as spoken, but I can’t find it in any paper that has come to
-us.”
-
-“You can have the _Herald_ with pleasure,” said I. “You didn’t go to the
-concert last night?”
-
-“No,” said he. “You see it was the night of our choir practice, and I
-had to attend it to keep the others up to their work.”
-
-The next night I asked the sub-editor how his friend Mr. Thompson was,
-and if he had experienced much difficulty in keeping him from making an
-onslaught upon the snakes.
-
-He shook his head solemnly, as if his experiences of the previous night
-were too terrible to be expressed in ordinary colloquialisms.
-
-“Sonny,” said he, “pray that you may never see all that I saw last
-night.”
-
-“Or all that Thompson saw,” said I. “Was he very bad?”
-
-“As bad as they make them,” he replied. “I sat on his head for hours at
-a stretch.”
-
-“When he was off his head you were on it?”
-
-“Ay; but every now and again he would, by an almost superhuman effort,
-toss me half way up to the ceiling. Man, it was an awful night! It’s
-heartless of me not being with the poor woman now; but I said I’d do a
-couple of hours’ work before going.”
-
-“All right,” said I. “Maybe Thompson will call here and you can walk up
-with him.”
-
-“Thompson call? What the blue pencil do you mean?”
-
-“Just what I say. If you had waited for five minutes last night you
-might have had his company up to that pleasant little _séance_ in which
-you turned his head into a chair. He called to see the _Glasgow Herald_
-before you could have reached the end of the street.”
-
-He gave a little gasp.
-
-“I didn’t say Thompson, did I?” he asked, after a pause.
-
-“You certainly did,” said I.
-
-“I’ll be forgetting my own name next,” said he. “The man’s name is
-Johnston--he lives in the corner house of the row I lodge in.”
-
-“Anyhow, you’ll not see him to-night,” said I.
-
-*****
-
-The fellow failed to exasperate me even then. But he succeeded early the
-next month. He came to me one night with a magazine in his hand.
-
-“I wonder if the boss”--I think I mentioned that he was a rough
-diamond--“would mind my inserting a column or so of extracts from this
-paper of mine in the _Drawing Room_ on Benvenuto Cellini?” He pronounced
-the name “Selliny.”
-
-“On whom is the paper?” I inquired.
-
-“Selliny--Benvenuto Selliny. I’ve made Selliny my own--no man living can
-touch me there. I knocked off the thing in a hurry, but it reads very
-well, though I say it who shouldn’t.”
-
-“Why shouldn’t you say it?” I inquired.
-
-“Well when you’ve written as much as me,”--he was a rough
-diamond--“maybe you’ll be as modest,” he cried, gaily. “When you can
-knock off a paper----”
-
-“There’s one paper that you’ll not knock off, but that you’ll be pretty
-soon knocked off,” said I; “and that paper is the one that you are
-connected with just now. If lies were landed property you’d be one of
-the largest holders of real estate in the world. I never met such a liar
-as you are. You never wrote that article on Benvenuto Cellini--you don’t
-even know how to pronounce the man’s name.”
-
-“The boy’s mad--mad!” he cried, with a laugh that was not a laugh. “Mr.
-Barton,”--the managing editor had entered the room,--“this fair-haired
-young gentleman is a bit off his head, I’m thinking.”
-
-“I’m not off my head in the least,” said I. “Do you mean to say, in the
-presence of Mr. Barton, that you wrote that paper in the _Drawing Room_
-on Benvenuto Cellini?”
-
-“Do you want me to take my oath that I wrote it?” said he. “What makes
-you think that I didn’t write it?”
-
-“Nothing beyond the fact that I wrote it myself, and that this slip
-of paper which I hold in my hand is the cheque that was sent to me
-in payment for it, and that this other slip is the usual form of
-acknowledgment--you see the title of the article on the side--which I
-have to post to-morrow.”
-
-There was a silence in the room. The managing editor had seated himself
-in my chair and was scribbling something at the desk.
-
-“My fair-haired friend,” said the sub-editor, “I thought that you would
-have seen from the first the joke I was playing on you. Why, man, the
-instant I read the paper I knew it was by you. Don’t you fancy that I
-know your fluent style by this time?”
-
-“I fancy that there’s no greater liar on earth than yourself,” said I.
-
-“Look here,” he cried, assuming a menacing attitude. “I can stand a lot,
-but----”
-
-“And so can I,” said the managing editor, “but at last the breaking
-strain is reached. That paper will allow of your drawing a
-month’s salary to-morrow,”--he handed him the paper which he had
-scribbled,--“and I think that as this office has done without you for
-eleven nights during the past month, it will do without you for the
-twelfth. Don’t let me find you below when I am going away.”
-
-He didn’t.
-
-*****
-
-I cannot say that I ever met another man connected with a newspaper
-quite so unscrupulous as the man with whom I have just dealt. I can
-certainly safely say that I never again knew of a journalist laying
-claim to the authorship of anything that I wrote, either in a daily
-paper, where everything is anonymous, or in a magazine, where I employed
-a pseudonym. No one thought it worth his while doing so. A man who
-was not a journalist, however, took to himself the honour and glory
-associated with the writing of a leaderette of mine on the excellent
-management of a local library. The man who was idiot enough to do so was
-a theological student in the Presbyterian interest. He began to frequent
-the library without previously having paid his fare, and on being
-remonstrated with mildly by the young librarian, said that surely it was
-not a great concession on the part of the committee to allow him the
-run of the building after the article he had written in the leading
-newspaper on the manner in which the institution was conducted. It so
-happened, however, that the librarian had, at my request, furnished me
-with the statistics that formed the basis of the leaderette, and he
-had no hesitation in saying of the divinity student at his leisure what
-David said of all men in his haste. But after being thrust out of the
-library and called an impostor, the divinity student went home and wrote
-a letter signed “Theologia,” in which he made a furious onslaught upon
-the management of the library, and had the effrontery to demand its
-insertion in the newspaper the next day.
-
-He is now a popular and deservedly respected clergyman, and I hear that
-his sermon on Acts v., 1-11 is about to be issued in pamphlet form.
-
-*****
-
-Curiously enough quite recently a man in whose chambers I was
-breakfasting, pointed out to me what he called a good story that had
-appeared in a paper on the previous evening.
-
-The paragraph in which it was included was as follows:--
-
-“A rather amusing story is told by the _Avilion Gazettes_ Special
-Commissioner in his latest article on ‘Ireland as it is and as it would
-be.’ It is to the effect that some of the Irish members recently wished
-to cross the Channel for half-a-crown each, and to that end called on a
-boat agent, a Tory, who knew them, when the following conversation took
-place:--
-
-“‘Can we go across for half-a-crown each?’
-
-“‘No, ye can’t, thin.’
-
-“‘An’ why not?’
-
-“‘Because’tis a cattle boat.’
-
-“‘Nevermind that, sure we’re not particular.’
-
-“‘No, but the cattle are.’”
-
-That was the entire paragraph..
-
-“It’s a bit rough on your compatriots,” said my host. “You look as if
-you feel it.”
-
-“I do,” said I; “I feel it to be rather sad that a story that a fellow
-takes the trouble to invent and to print in a pamphlet, should be picked
-up by an English correspondent in Dublin, printed in one of his letters
-from Ireland, and afterwards published in a London evening paper without
-any acknowledgment being made of the source whence it was derived.”
-
-And that is my opinion still. The story was a pure invention of my own,
-and it was printed in an anonymous skit, only without the brogue. It
-was left for the English Special Commissioner to make a feature of the
-brogue, of which, of course, he had become a master, having been close
-upon two days in Dublin.
-
-But the most amusing thing to me was to find that the sub-editor of the
-newspaper with which I was connected had actually cut the paragraph out
-of the London paper and inserted it in our columns. He pointed it out to
-me on my return, and asked me if I didn’t think it a good story.
-
-I said it was first rate, and inquired if he had ever heard the story
-before. He replied that he never had.
-
-That was, I repeat, the point of the whole incident which amused me
-most; for I had made the sub-editor a present of the original pamphlet,
-and he said he had enjoyed it immensely.
-
-He also hopes to be one day an ordained clergyman.
-
-*****
-
-When in Ireland during the General Election of 1892, I got a telegram
-one night informing me that Mr. Justin M’Carthy had been defeated in
-Derry that day by Mr. Ross, Q.C.
-
-It occurred to me that if a quatrain could be made upon the incident it
-might be read the next day. The following was the result of the great
-mental effort necessary to bring to bear upon the task:--
-
-               “That the Unionists Derry can win
-
-                   Is a matter to-day beyond doubt;
-
-               For Ross the Q.C. is just in,
-
-                   And the one that’s Justin is just out.”
-
-I put my initials to this masterpiece, and I need scarcely say that I
-was dizzy with pride when it appeared at the head of a column the
-next morning. Now, that thing kept staring me in the face out of every
-newspaper, English as well as Irish, that I picked up during the next
-fortnight, only it appeared without my initials, but in compensation
-bore as preface, lest the reader might be amazed at coming too suddenly
-upon such subtle humour, these words:--
-
-“The following epigram by a Dublin wit is being widely circulated in the
-Irish metropolis.” Some months afterwards, when I chanced to pay a visit
-to Dublin, the author of the epigram was pointed out to me.
-
-“So it was he who wrote that thing about just in and just out?” I
-remarked.
-
-“It was,” said my friend. “I’d introduce you to him only, between
-ourselves, though a nice enough fellow before he wrote that, _he hasn’t
-been very approachable since_.”
-
-I felt extremely obliged to the gentleman. I thought of Mary Barton,
-the heroic lady represented by Miss Bateman long ago, who had accused
-herself of the crime committed by another.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.--MEN, MENUS, AND MANNERS.
-
-
-_A humble suggestion--The reviewer from Texas--His treatment of the
-story of Joseph and his Brethren--A few flare-up headings--The
-Swiss pastor--Some musical critics--“Il Don Giovanni”--A subtle
-point--Newspaper suppers--Another suggestion--The bitter cry of the
-journalist--The plurality of porridge--An object lesson superior to
-grammatical rules--The bloater as a supper dish--Scarcely an unequivocal
-success._
-
-
-I HOPE I may not be going too far when I express the hope in this place
-that any critic who finds out that some of my jottings are ancient will
-do me the favour to state where the originals are to be found. I have
-sufficient curiosity to wish to see how far the jottings deviate from
-the originals.
-
-In the preparation of stories for the Press it is, I feel more impressed
-every day, absolutely necessary to bear in mind the authentic case of
-the young sailor’s mother who abused him for telling her so palpably
-impossible a yarn about his having seen fish rise from the water and fly
-along like birds, but who was quite ready to accept his account of the
-crimson expanse of the Red Sea. Some of the most interesting incidents
-that have actually come under my notice could not possibly be published
-if accuracy were strictly observed as to the details. They are “owre
-true” to obtain credence..
-
-In this category, however, I do not include the story about the
-gentleman from Texas who, after trying various employments in Boston to
-gain a dishonest livelihood, represented himself at a newspaper office
-as a journalist, and only asked for a trial job. The editor, believing
-he saw an excellent way of getting rid of a parcel of books that had
-come for review, flung him the lot and told him to write three-quarters
-of a column of flare-up head-lines, and a quarter of reviews, and maybe
-some fool might be attracted to the book column. Now, at the top of the
-batch there chanced to be the first instalment of a new Polyglot Bible,
-after the plan so successfully adopted by Messrs. Bagster, about to
-be issued in parts, and the reviewer failed to recognise the Book of
-Genesis, which he accordingly read for fetching head-lines. The result
-of his labours by some oversight appeared in the next issue of the
-paper, and attracted a considerable amount of interest in religious
-circles in Boston.
-
-[Illustration: 0136]
-
-The remaining quarter of a column was occupied by a circumstantial
-and highly colloquial account of the incidents recorded in the Book of
-Genesis, and it very plainly suggested that the work had been published
-by Messrs. Hoskins as a satire upon the success of the Hebrew race in
-the New England States. The reviewer even made an attempt to identify
-Joseph with a prominent Republican politician, and Potiphar’s wife with
-the Democratic party, who were alleged to be making overtures to the
-same gentleman.
-
-But I really did once meet with a sub-editor who had reviewed “The Swiss
-Family Robinson” as a new work. He commenced by telling the readers
-of the newspaper that the book was a wholesome story of a worthy Swiss
-pastor, and so forth.
-
-I also knew a musical critic who, on being entrusted with the duty of
-writing a notice of _Il Don Giovanni_, as performed by the Carl Rosa
-Company, began as follows: “Don Giovanni, the gentleman from whom the
-opera takes its name, was a licentious Spanish nobleman of the past
-century.” The notice gave some account of the _affaires_ of this
-newly-discovered reprobate, glossing over the Zerlina business rather
-more than Mozart thought necessary to do, but being very bitter against
-Leporello, “his valet and confidant,” and finally expressing the opinion
-somewhat dogmatically that “few of the public would be disposed to say
-that the fate which overtook this callous scoundrel was not well earned
-by his persistence in a course of unjustifiable vice. The music is
-tuneful and was much encored.”
-
-Upon the occasion of this particular representation I recollect that I
-wrote, “An Italian version of a Spanish story, set to music by a German,
-conducted by a Frenchman, and interpreted by a Belgian, a Swiss, an
-Irishman and a Canadian--this is what is meant by English Opera.”
-
-My notice gave great offence; but the other was considered excellent.
-
-The moral tone that pervaded it was most praiseworthy, the people said.
-
-And so it was.
-
-I have got about five hundred musical jottings which, if provoked, I
-may one day publish; but, meantime, I cannot refrain from giving one
-illustration of the way in which musical notices were managed long ago.
-
-Madame Adelina Patti had made her first (and farewell) appearance in the
-town where I was located. I was engaged about two o’clock in the morning
-putting what I considered to be the finishing touches to the column
-which I had written about the diva’s concert, when the reporter of the
-leading paper burst into the room in which I was writing. He was in
-rather a dishevelled condition, and he approached me and whispered that
-he wanted to ask me a question outside--there were others in the room. I
-went through the door with him and inquired what I could do for him.
-
-“I was marked for that blessed concert, and I went too, and now I’m
-writing the notice,” said he. “But what I want to know is this--_Is
-Patti a soprano or a contralto?_”
-
-*****
-
-I have just now discovered that it would be unwise for me to continue
-very much farther these reminiscences of editors and sub-editors, the
-fact being that I have some jottings about every one of the race whom
-I have ever met, and when one gets into a desultory vein of anecdotage
-like that in which I now find myself for the first time in my life,
-one is liable to exhaust a reader’s forbearance before one’s legitimate
-subject has become exhausted. I think it may be prudent to make a
-diversion at this period from the sub-editors of the past to the suppers
-of the newspaper office. Gastronomy as a science is not drawn out to its
-finest point within these precincts. There is still something left to be
-desired by such persons as are fastidious. I have for long thought that
-it would be by no means extravagant to expect every newspaper office to
-be supplied with a kitchen, properly furnished, and with the “good plain
-cook,” who so constantly figures in the columns (advertising), at hand
-to turn out the suppers for all departments engaged in the production of
-the paper.
-
-It is inconvenient for an editor to be compelled to cook his own supper
-at his gas stove, while the flimsies of the speech upon which he is
-writing are being laid on his desk by the sub-editor, and the foreman’s
-messenger is asking for them almost before they have ceased to flutter
-in the cooling draught created by opening the door. Equally inconvenient
-is it for the sub-editor and the reporters to get something to prevent
-them from succumbing to starvation. The compositors in some offices
-have lately instituted a rule by which they “knock off” for supper at
-half-past ten; but what sort of a meal do they get to sustain them until
-four in the morning? I have no hesitation in pronouncing it to be almost
-as indifferent as that upon which the editor is forced to subsist for,
-perhaps, the same period. I have seen the compositors--some of them
-earning £5 a week--crouching under their cases, munching hunches
-(the onomatopæia is Homeric) of bread, while their cans of tea--that
-abomination of cold tea warmed up--were stewing over their gas burners.
-
-In the sub-editors’ room, and the reporters’ room, tea was also being
-cooked, or bottles of stout drunk, the accompanying, comestibles being
-bread or biscuits. After swallowing tea that has been stewing on its
-leaves for half-an-hour, and eating a slab of office bread out of one
-hand while the other holds the pen, the editor writes an article on
-the grievances of shopmen who are only allowed an hour for dinner and
-half-an-hour for tea; or, upon the slavery of a barmaid; or, perhaps,
-composes a nice chatty half-column on the progress of dyspepsia and the
-necessity for attending carefully to one’s diet.
-
-Now, I affirm that no newspaper office should be without a kitchen. The
-compositors should be given a chance of obtaining all the comforts of
-home at a lesser cost than they could be provided at home; and later on
-in the night the reporters, sub-editors, and editor should be able to
-send up messages as to the hour they mean to take supper, and the dish
-which they would like to have. Here is an opportunity for the Institute
-of Journalists. Let them take sweet counsel together on the great
-kitchen question, and pass a resolution “that in the opinion of the
-Institute a kitchen in complete working order should form part of every
-morning newspaper office; and that a cook, holding a certificate from
-South Kensington, or, better still, Mrs. Marshall, should be regarded as
-essential to the working staff as the editor.”
-
-I do not say that a box of Partagas, or Carolinas, should be provided
-by the management for every room occupied by the literary staff; though
-undoubtedly a move in the right direction, yet I fear that public
-feeling has not yet been sufficiently aroused by the bitter cry of the
-journalist, to make the cigar-box and the club chair probable; but I do
-say that since journalism has become a profession, those who practise it
-should be treated as if they were as deserving of consideration as the
-salesmen in drapers’ shops. Surely, as we have sent the bitter cry into
-all the ends of the earth on behalf of others, we might be permitted the
-luxury of a little bitter cry on our own account.
-
-*****
-
-This brings me down to the recollections I retain of the strange ideas
-that some of the staff of journals with which I have been connected,
-possessed as to the most appropriate menu for supper. One of these
-gentlemen, for instance, was accustomed to make oatmeal porridge in a
-saucepan for himself about two o’clock in the morning. When accused of
-being a Scotchman, he indignantly denied that he was one. He admitted,
-however, that he was an Ulsterman, and this was considered even worse
-by his accusers. He invariably alluded to the porridge in the plural,
-calling it “them.” I asked him one night why the thing was entitled to
-a plural, and he said it was because no one but a blue-pencilled fool
-would allude to it as otherwise. I had the curiosity to inquire farther
-how much porridge was necessary to be in the saucepan before it became
-entitled to a plural; if, for instance, there was only a spoonful,
-surely it would be rather absurd to still speak of it as “them.” He
-replied, after some thought, that though he had never considered the
-matter in all its bearings, yet his impression was that even a spoonful
-was entitled to a plural.
-
-“Did you ever hear any one allude to brose as ‘it’?” he asked.
-
-I admitted that I never had.
-
-“Then if you call brose ‘them,’ why shouldn’t you call stirabout
-‘them’?” he asked, triumphantly.
-
-“I must confess that I never had the matter brought so forcibly before
-me,” said I.
-
-As he was going to “sup them,” as he termed the operation of ladling the
-contents of the saucepan into his mouth, I hastily left the room. I have
-eaten tiffin within easy reach of a dozen lepers on Robben Island in
-Table Bay, I have taken a hearty supper in a tent through which a camel
-every now and again thrust its nose, I have enjoyed a biltong sandwich
-on the seat of an African bullock waggon with a Kaffir beside me, I have
-even eaten a sausage snatched by the proprietor from the seething panful
-in the window of a shop in the Euston Road--I did so to celebrate the
-success of a play of mine at the Grand Theatre--but I could not remain
-in the room while that literary gentleman partook of that simple supper
-of his.
-
-On my return when he had finished I never failed to allow in the most
-cordial way the right of the preparation to a plural. It was to be
-found in every part of the room; the table, the chairs, the floor, the
-fireplace, the walls, the ceiling--all bore token to the fact that it
-was not one but many.
-
-In the hands of a true Ulsterman stirabout “are” a terrible weapon.
-
-As a mural decorative medium “they” leave much to be desired.
-
-*****
-
-Only one man connected with the Press did
-
-I ever know addicted to the bloater as a supper dish. The man came among
-us like a shadow and disappeared as such, after a week of incompetence;
-but he left a memory behind him that not all the perfumes of Arabia can
-neutralise. It was about one o’clock in the morning--he had come on duty
-that night--that there floated through the newspaper office a dense blue
-smoke and a smell--such a smell! It was of about the same density as
-an ironclad. One felt oneself struggling through it as though it were a
-mass of chilled steel plates, backed with soft iron. On the upper floor
-we were built in by it, so to speak. It arose on every side of us like
-the wall of a prison, and we kept groping around it for a hole large
-enough to allow of our crawling through. Two of us, after battering at
-that smell for a quarter of an hour, at last discovered a narrow passage
-in it made by a current of air from an open window, and having squeezed
-ourselves through, we ran downstairs to the sub-editors’ room.
-
-Through the crawling blue smoke we could just make out the figure of
-a man standing in his shirt sleeves in front of the fire using a large
-two-pronged iron fork as a toothpick. On a plate on the table lay the
-dislocated backbone of a red herring (_harengus rufus_).
-
-The man was perfectly self-possessed. We questioned him closely about
-the origin of the smoke and the smell, and he replied that, without
-going so far as to pronounce a dogmatic opinion on the subject, and
-while he was quite ready to accept any reasonable suggestion on
-the matter from either of us, he, for his part, would not be at all
-surprised if it were found on investigation that both smoke and smell
-were due to his having openly cooked a rather bloated specimen of the
-Yarmouth bloater. He always had one for his supper, he said; critically,
-when not too pungent--he disliked them too pungent--he considered that
-a full-grown bloater, well preserved for its years and considering the
-knocking about that it must have had, was fully equal to a beefsteak.
-There was much more practical eating in it, he should say, speaking as
-man to man. And it was so very simple--that was its great charm.
-
-For himself, he never could bear made-up dishes; they were, he thought,
-usually rich, and he had a poor-enough digestion, so that he could not
-afford to trifle with it.
-
-Just then the foreman loomed through the dense smoke, and, being
-confronted with the hydra-headed smell, he boldly grappled with it, and
-after a fierce contest, he succeeded in strangling one of the heads and
-then set his foot on it. He hurriedly explained to the subeditor that
-all the hands who had lifted the copy that had been sent out were
-setting it up with bowls of water beside them to save themselves the
-trouble of going to the water-tap for a drink.
-
-The next day the clerks in the mercantile department were working with
-bottles of carbolic under their noses, and every now and again a note
-would be brought in from a subscriber ordering his paper to be stopped
-until a new consignment of printers’ ink should arrive, in which the
-chief ingredient was not so pungent.
-
-At the end of a week the sub-editor was given a month’s salary and an
-excellent testimonial, and was dismissed. The proprietor of the journal
-had the sub-editors’ room freshly painted and papered, and made the
-assistant-editor a present of two pounds to buy a new coat to replace
-the one which, having hung in the room for an entire night, had to be
-burnt, no cleaner being found who would accept the risk of purifying it.
-The cleaners all said that they would not run the chance of having all
-the contents of their vats left on their hands. They weren’t as a rule
-squeamish in the matter of smells; they only drew the line at creosote,
-and the coat was a long way on the other side.
-
-Seven years have passed since that sub-editor partook of that simple
-supper, and yet I hear that every night drag-hounds howl at the door of
-the room, and strangers on entering sniff, saying,--
-
-“Whew! there’s a barrel of red herrings somewhere about.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.--ON THE HUMAN IMAGINATION.
-
-
-_Mr. Henry Irving and the Stag’s Head--The sense of smell--A personal
-recollection--Caught “tripping”--The German band--In the pre-Wagnerian
-days--Another illustration of a too-sensitive imagination--The doctor’s
-letter--Its effects--A sudden recovery--The burial service is postponed
-indefinitely_.
-
-
-IT might be as well, I fancy, to accept with caution the statement made
-in the last lines of the foregoing chapter. At any rate, I may frankly
-confess that I have always done so, knowing how apt one is to be carried
-away by one’s imagination in some matters. Mr. Henry Irving told me
-several years ago a curious story on this very point, and in regard also
-to the way in which the imagination may be affected through the sense of
-smell.
-
-When he was very young he was living at a town in the west of England,
-and in one of the streets there was a hostelry which bore a swinging
-sign with a stag’s head painted upon it, with a sufficient degree of
-legibility to enable casual passers-by to know what it was meant to
-simulate. But every time he saw this sign, he had a feeling of nausea
-that he could overcome only by hurrying on down the street. Mr. Irving
-explained to me that it did not appear to him that this nausea was
-the result of an offended artistic perception owing to any indifferent
-draughtsmanship or defective _technique_ in the production of the sign.
-It actually seemed to him that the painted stag possesses some influence
-akin to the evil eye, and it was altogether very distressing to him.
-After a short time he left the town, and did not revisit it until he had
-attained maturity; and then, remembering the stag’s head and the curious
-way in which it had affected him long before, he thought he would look
-up the old place, if it still existed, and try if the evil charm of
-the sign had ceased to retain its potency upon him. He walked down the
-street; there the sign was swinging as of old, and the moment he saw it
-he had a feeling of nausea. Now, however, he had become so impregnated
-with the investigating spirit of the time, that he determined to search
-out the origin of the malign influence of the neighbourhood; and then he
-discovered that the second house from the hostelry was a soap and candle
-factory, on a sufficiently extensive scale to make a daily “boiling”
- necessary. It was the odour arising from this enterprise that induced
-the disagreeable sensation which he had experienced years before, and
-from which few persons are free when in the neighbourhood of tallow in a
-molten state.
-
-I do not think that this story has been published. But even if it has
-appeared elsewhere it scarcely requires an apology.
-
-*****
-
-Though wandering even more widely than usual from my text--after all,
-my texts are only pretexts for unlimited ramblings--I will give another
-curious but perfectly authentic case of the force of imagination. In
-this case the imagination was reached through the sense of hearing.
-
-At one time I lived in a town at the extremity of a very fine bay, at
-the entrance to which there was a small village with a little bay of
-its own and a long stretch of sand, the joy of the “tripper.” I was
-a “tripper” of six in those days, and during the summer months
-an excursion by steamer on the bay was one of the most joyous of
-experiences. But the steamer was a very small one, and apt to yield
-rather more than is consistent with modern ideas of marine stability
-to the pressure of the waves, which in a north-easterly wind--the
-prevailing one--were pretty high in our bay. The effect of this
-instability was invariably disastrous to a maiden aunt who was supposed
-to share with me the enjoyment of being caught “tripping.” With the
-pertinacity of a man of six carrying a model of a cutter close to his
-bosom, I refused to “go below” under the circumstances, with my groaning
-but otherwise august relative, and she was usually extremely unwell.
-It so happened, however, that the proprietors of the steamboat were
-sufficiently enterprising to engage--perhaps I should say, to permit--a
-German band to drown the groans of the sufferers in the strains of the
-beautiful “Blue Danube,” or whatever the waltz of the period may have
-been--the “Blue Danube” is the oldest that I can remember. Now, when
-the “season” was over, and the steamer was laid up for the winter, the
-Germans were accustomed to give open-air performances in the town; so
-that during the winter months we usually had a repetition on land of
-the summer’s _répertoire_ at sea. The first bray that was given by the
-trombone in the region of the square where we lived was, however, quite
-enough to make my aunt give distinct evidence of feeling “a little
-squeamish”; by the time the oboe had joined hands, so to speak, with the
-parent of all evil, the trombone, she had taken out her handkerchief and
-was making wry faces beneath her palpably false scalpet. But when the
-wry-necked fife, and the serpent--the sea-serpent it was to her--were
-doing their worst in league with, but slightly indifferent to, the
-cornet and the Saxe-horn, my aunt retired from the apartment amid the
-derisive yells of the young demons in the schoolroom, and we saw her no
-more until the master of the music had pulled the bell of the hall-door,
-and we had insulted him in his own language by shouting through the
-blinds “schlechte musik!--sehr schlechte musik!” We were ready enough to
-learn a language for insulting purposes, just as a parrot which declines
-to acquire the few refined words of its mistress, will, if left within
-the hearing of a groom, repeat quite glibly and joyously, phrases
-which make it utterly useless as a drawing-room bird in a house where a
-clergyman makes an occasional call. For years my aunt could never hear
-a German band without emotion, since the crazy little steamer had danced
-to their strains. In this case, it must also be remarked, the feeling
-was not the result of a highly-developed artistic temperament. The
-blemishes of the musical performances were in no way accountable for
-my relative’s emotions, though I believe that the average German band
-frequenting what theatrical-touring companies call “B. towns,” might
-reasonably be regarded as sufficient to precipitate an incipient
-disorder. No, it was the force of imagination that brought about my
-aunt’s disaster, which, I regret to say, I occasionally purchased, when
-I felt that I owed myself a treat, for a penny, for this was the lowest
-sum that the _impresario_ would take to come round our square and make
-my aunt sick. The sum was so absurdly low, considering the extent of the
-results produced, I am now aware that no really cultured musician, no
-_impresario_ with any self-respect, would have accepted it to bring
-his band round the corner; but when one reflects that the sum on the
-original _scrittura_ was invariably doubled--for my aunt sent a penny
-out when her sufferings became intense, to induce the band to go
-away--the transaction assumes another aspect.
-
-We hear of the enormous increase in the salaries paid to musical artists
-nowadays, and as an instance of this I may mention that a friend of mine
-a few months ago, having occasion for the services of a German band--not
-for medicinal purposes but for a philological reason--was forced to pay
-two shillings before he could effect his object! Truly the conditions
-under which art is pursued have undergone a marvellous change within a
-quarter of a century. I could have made my aunt sick twenty-four times
-for the sum demanded for a single performance nowadays. And in the
-sixties, it must also be remembered, Wagner had not become a power.
-
-*****
-
-Strong-minded persons, such as the first Lord Brougham, may take a
-sardonic delight in reading their own obituary notices, and such persons
-would probably scoff at the suggestion made in an earlier chapter, that
-the shock of reading the record of his death in a newspaper might have a
-disastrous effect upon a man, but there is surely no lack of evidence to
-prove the converse of “_mentem mortalia tangunt_.”
-
-I heard when in India a story which seemed to me to be, as an
-illustration of the effects of imagination, quite as curious as the
-well-known case of the sailor who became cured of scurvy through
-fancying that the clinical thermometer with which the surgeon took his
-temperature was a drastic remedy. A young civil servant at Colombo felt
-rather fagged after an unusually long stretch of work, and made up his
-mind to consult the best doctor in the place. He did so, and the doctor
-went through the usual probings and stethoscopings, and then looked
-grave and went over half the surface again. He said he thought that
-on the whole he had better write his opinion of the “case” in all its
-particulars and send it to the patient.
-
-The next morning the patient received the following letter:--
-
-“My dear Sir,--I think it only due to the confidence which you have
-placed in me to let you know in the plainest words what is the result of
-my diagnosis of your condition. Your left lung is almost gone, but
-with care you might survive its disappearance. Unhappily, however,
-the cardiac complications which I suspected are such as preclude the
-possibility of your recovery. In brief, I consider it to be my duty to
-advise you to lose no time in carrying out any business arrangements
-that demand your personal attention. You may of course live for some
-weeks; but I think you would do wisely to count only on days.
-
-“Meantime, I would suggest no material change in your diet, except the
-reduction of your brandy pegs to seven per diem.”
-
-This letter was put into the hands of the unfortunate man when he
-returned from his early ride the next morning. Its effect was to
-diminish to an appreciable degree his appetite for breakfast. He sat
-motionless on his chair out on the verandah and stared at the letter--it
-was his death-warrant. After an hour he felt a difficulty in breathing.
-He remembered now that he had always been uneasy about his lungs--his
-left in particular. He put his hand over the place where he supposed
-his heart to lie concealed. How could he have lived so many years in the
-world without becoming aware of the fact that as an every-day sort of an
-organ--leaving the higher emotions out of the question altogether--his
-heart was a miserable failure? Sympathy, friendship, love, emotion,--he
-would not have minded if his heart were incapable of these, if it only
-did its business as a blood pump; but it was perfectly plain from the
-manner in which it throbbed beneath his hand, that it was deserving of
-all the reprobation the doctor had heaped upon it.
-
-His difficulty of respiration increased, and with this difficulty he
-became conscious of an acute pain under his ribs. He found when he
-attempted to rise that he could only do so with an effort. He managed
-to totter into his bedroom, and when he threw himself on his bed, it was
-with the feeling that he should never rise from it again.
-
-His faithful Khânsâmah more than once inquired respectfully if the
-Preserver of the Poor would like to have the Doctor Sahib sent for, and
-if the Joy of the Whole World would in the meantime drink a peg. But the
-Preserver of the Poor had barely strength to express the hope that the
-disappearance of the Doctor Sahib might be effected by a supernatural
-agency, and the Joy of the Whole World could only groan at the
-suggestion of a peg. The pain under his ribs was increasing, and he
-had a general nightmare feeling upon him. Toward evening he sank into a
-lethargy, and at this point the Khânsâmah made up his mind that the time
-for action had come; he went for the doctor himself, and was fortunate
-enough to meet him going out in his buggy to dine.
-
-“What on earth have you been doing with yourself?” he inquired, when he
-had felt the pulse of the patient. “Why, you’ve no pulse to speak of,
-and your skin--What the mischief have you been doing since yesterday?”
-
-“How can you expect a chap’s pulse to be anything particular when he has
-no heart worth speaking of?” gasped the patient.
-
-“Who has no heart worth speaking of?”
-
-The patient looked piteously up at him.
-
-“That’s kicking a man when he’s down,” he murmured.
-
-“What’s the matter with you anyway?” said the doctor. “Your heart’s all
-right, I know--at least, it was all right yesterday. Is it your liver?
-Let me have a look at your eyes.”
-
-He certainly did let the doctor have a look at his eyes. He lay staring
-at the good physician for some minutes.
-
-“No, your liver is no worse than it was yesterday,” said the doctor,
-
-“Do you mean to say that your letter was only a joke?” said the patient,
-still staring.
-
-“A joke? Don’t be a fool. Do you fancy that I play jokes upon my
-patients? I wrote to you what was the exact truth. I flatter myself I
-always tell the truth even to my patients.”
-
-“Oh,” groaned the patient. “And after telling me that I hadn’t more than
-a few days to live you now say my heart’s all right.”
-
-“You’re mad, my good fellow, mad! I said that you must go without the
-delay of a day for a change--a sea voyage if possible--and that in a
-week you’d be as well as you ever were. Where’s the letter?”
-
-It was lying on the side of the bed. The patient had read it again after
-he had thrown himself down.
-
-“My God!” cried the doctor, when he had brought it over to the lamp. “An
-awful thing has happened. This is the letter that I wrote to Lois Perez,
-the diamond merchant, who visited me yesterday just before you came.
-My assistant must have put the letter that was meant for Perez into the
-envelope addressed to you, and your letter into the other cover. Great
-heavens!”
-
-The patient was sitting up in the bed.
-
-“You mean to say that--that--I’m all right?” he gasped.
-
-“Of course you’re all right. You told me you wanted a sea voyage, and
-naturally I prescribed one for you to give you a chance of getting your
-leave without any trouble.”
-
-The patient stared at the doctor for another minute and then fell back
-upon his pillow, turned his face to the wall, and wept.
-
-Only for a few minutes, however; then he suddenly sprang from the bed,
-caught the doctor by the collar of his coat, looked around for a weapon
-of percussion, picked up the pillow and forthwith began to belabour the
-physician with such vehemence that the Khânsâmah, who hurried into the
-room hearing the noise of the scuffle, fled from the compound, being
-certain that the Joy of the Whole World had become a maniac.
-
-After the lapse of about a minute the doctor was lying on the floor with
-the tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks and on to his disordered
-shirt-front, while the patient sat limp on a chair yelling with
-laughter--a trifle hysterically, perhaps. At the end of five minutes
-both were sitting over a bottle of champagne--not too dry--discussing
-the extraordinary effect of the imagination upon the human frame.
-
-“But, by Jingo! I mustn’t forget poor Lois Perez,” cried the doctor,
-starting up. “You may guess what a condition he is in when you know that
-the letter you read was meant for him.”
-
-“By heavens, I can make a good guess as to his condition,” said the
-patient. “I was within measurable distance of that condition half an
-hour ago. But I’m hanged if you are going to make any other poor devil
-as miserable as you made me. Let the chap die in peace.”
-
-“There’s something in what you say,” said the doctor. “I believe that
-I’ll take your advice; only I must rescue your letter from him. If it
-were found among his effects after his death next week, I’d be set down
-as little better than a fool for writing that he was generally sound but
-in need of a long sea voyage.”
-
-He drove off to the house of the Portuguese dealer in precious stones,
-and on inquiring for him, learned that he had left in the afternoon by
-the mail steamer to take the voyage that the doctor had recommended.
-He meant to call at the Andamans, and then go on to Rangoon, the man in
-charge of the house said.
-
-“There’ll be an impressive burial service aboard that steamer before it
-arrives at the Andaman Islands,” said the doctor to his wife as he told
-her what had occurred. The doctor was in a very anxious state lest
-the letter which the Portuguese had received should be found among his
-papers. His wife, however, took a more optimistic view of the situation.
-And she was right; for Lois Perez returned in due course from Rangoon
-with a very fine collection of rubies; and five years afterwards he had
-still sufficient strength left to get the better of me in the sale of a
-cat’s-eye to which he perceived I had taken a fancy that was not to be
-controlled.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X--THE VEGETARIAN AND OTHERS.
-
-
-_“Benjamin’s mess”--An alluring name--Scarcely accurate--A frugal
-supper--Why the sub-editor felt rather unwell--“A man should stick
-to plain homely fare”--Two Sybarites--The stewed lemon as a
-comestible--The midnight apple--The roasted crabs--The Zenana
-mission--The pibroch as a musical instrument--A curious blunder--The
-river Deccan--Frankenstein as the monster--The outside critics--A
-critical position--The curate as critic--A liberal-minded
-clergyman--Bound to be a bishop--The joy-bells._
-
-
-TO return to the sub-editors and their suppers, I may say that I never
-met but one vegetarian pressman. He was particularly fond of a supper
-dish to which the alluring name of Benjamin’s Mess was given by the
-artful inventor. I do not know if the editor of this compilation had any
-authority--Biblical or secular--for assuming that its ingredients were
-identical with those with which Joseph, with the best of intentions, no
-doubt, but with very questionable prudence, heaped upon the dish of
-his youngest brother. I am not a profound Egyptologist, but I have a
-distinct recollection of hearing something about the fleshpots of Egypt,
-and the longing that the mere remembrance of these receptacles created
-in the hearts of the descendants of Joseph and his Brethren, when
-undergoing a course of enforced vegetarianism, though somewhat different
-in character from that to which, at a later period, Nebuchadnezzar--the
-most distinguished vegetarian that the world has ever known--was
-subjected. Therefore, I think it is only scriptural to assume that the
-original mess of Benjamin was something like a glorified Irish stew, or
-perhaps what yachtsmen call “lobscouce,” and that it contained at least
-a neck of mutton and a knuckle of ham--the prohibition did not exist in
-those days, and if the stew did not contain either ham or corned beef
-it would not be worth eating. But the compilation of which my friend was
-accustomed to partake nightly, and to which the vegetarian cookery book
-arrogates the patriarchal title, was wholly devoid of flesh-meat. It
-consisted, I believe, of some lentils, parsnips, a turnip, a head of
-cabbage or so, a dozen of leeks, a quart of split peas, a few vegetable
-marrows, a cucumber, a handful of green gooseberries, and a diseased
-potato to give the whole a piquancy that could not be derived from the
-other simple ingredients.
-
-I was frequently invited by the sub-editor to join him in his frugal
-supper, but invariably declined. I told him that I had no desire to
-convert my frame into a costermonger’s barrow.
-
-Upon one occasion the man failed to come down to the office when he
-was due. He appeared an hour later, looking very pale. His features
-suggested those of an overboiled cauliflower that has not been
-sufficiently strained after being removed from the saucepan. He
-explained to me the reason of his delay and of his overboiled
-appearance.
-
-“The fact is,” said he, “that I did not feel at all well this morning.
-For my breakfast I could only eat one covered dishful of peasepudding,
-a head or two of celery and a few carrots, with a tureen of lentil soup
-and a raw potato salad; so my wife thought she would tempt me with
-a delicacy for my dinner. She made me a bran pie all for
-myself--thirty-two Spanish onions and four Swedish turnips, with
-a beetroot or two for colouring, and a thick paste of oatmeal and
-bran--that’s why it’s called a bran pie. Confound the thing! It’s too
-fascinating. I can never resist eating it all, and scraping the stable
-bucket in which it is cooked. I did so to-day, and that’s why I’m late.
-Well, well, perhaps I’ll gain sense late in life. I don’t feel quite
-myself even yet. Oh, confound all those dainty dishes! A man should
-stick to plain homely fare when he has work to do.”
-
-But on reflection I think that the most peculiar supper menus of the
-sub-editorial staff were those partaken of by two journalists who
-occupied the same room for close upon a year--a room to which I had
-access occasionally. One of these gentlemen was accustomed to place in
-a saucepan on the fire a number of unpeeled lemons with as much water
-as just covered them. After four hours’ stewing, this dainty midnight
-supper was supposed to be cooked. It certainly was eaten, and with very
-few indications, all things considered, of abhorrence, by the senior
-occupant of the sub-editor’s room. He told me once in confidence that
-he really did not dislike the stewed lemons very much. He had heard
-that they were conducive to longevity, and in order to live long he was
-prepared to make many sacrifices. There could be little doubt, he said,
-that the virtue attributed to them was real, for he had been partaking
-of them for supper for over three years, and he had never suffered from
-anything worse than acute dyspepsia. I congratulated him. Nothing worse
-than acute dyspepsia!
-
-His stable companion, so to speak, did not believe in heavy hot suppers
-such as his colleague indulged in. He said it was his impression that
-no more light and salutary supper could be imagined than a single apple,
-not quite ripe.
-
-He acted manfully up to his belief, for every night I used to see him
-eating his apple shortly after midnight, and without offering the fruit
-the indignity of a paring. The spectacle was no more stimulating than
-that of the lemon-eater. My mouth invariably became so puckered up
-through watching the midnight banquets of these Sybarites, it was only
-with difficulty that I could utter a word or two of weak acquiescence in
-their views on a question of recognised difficulty.
-
-It is somewhat remarkable that the apple-eating sub-editor should be
-the one who was guilty of the most remarkable error I ever knew in
-connection with an attempted display of erudition. He had set out to
-write a lively little quarter-of-a-column leaderette on a topic which
-was convulsing society in those days--namely, the cruelty of boiling
-lobsters alive. I am not quite certain that the question has even yet
-been decided to the satisfaction either of the humanitarian who likes
-lobster salad, or of the lobster that finds itself potted. Perhaps the
-latter may some day come out of its shell and give us its views on the
-question.
-
-At any rate, in the year of which I write, the topic was almost a
-burning one: the month was September, Parliament had risen, and as
-yet the sea-serpent had not appeared on the horizon. The apple-eating
-sub-editor was doing duty for the assistant-editor, who was on his
-holidays; and as evidence of his light and graceful erudition, he
-asserted in his article that, however inhuman modern cooks might be
-in their preparation of Crustacea for the fastidious palates of their
-patrons, quite as great cruelty--assuming that it was cruelty--was in
-the habit of being perpetrated in cookery in the days of Shakespeare.
-“Readers of the immortal bard of Avon,” he wrote, “will recollect how,
-in one of the charming lyrics to ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost,’ among the
-homely pleasures of winter it is stated that ‘roasted crabs hiss in the
-bowl.’
-
-“This reference to the preparation of crabs for the table makes it
-perfectly plain that it was quite common to cook them alive, for were it
-otherwise, how could they hiss? That listening to the expression of the
-suffering of the crabs should be regarded by Shakespeare as one of the
-joys of a household, casts a somewhat lurid light upon the condition of
-English Society in the sixteenth century.”
-
-*****
-
-It was the lemon-eating sub-editor who, on being requested by the editor
-to write something about the Zenana Mission, pointing out the great good
-that it was achieving, and the necessity there was for maintaining it in
-an efficient condition, produced a neat little article on the subject.
-He assured the readers of the paper that, among the many scenes of
-missionary labour, none had of late attracted more attention than the
-Zenana mission, and assuredly none was more deserving of this attention.
-Comparatively few years had passed since Zenana had been opened up to
-British trade, but already, owing to the devotion of a handful of men
-and women, the nature of the inhabitants had been almost entirely
-changed. The Zenanese, from being a savage people, had become, in a
-wonderfully short space of time, practically civilised; and recent
-travellers to Zenana had returned with the most glowing accounts of the
-continued progress of the good work in that country. The writer of the
-article then branched off into the “labourer-worthy-of-his-hire” side of
-this great evangelisation question--in most questions of missionary
-enterprise this side has a special interest attached to it--and the
-question was aptly asked if the devoted labourers in that remote
-vineyard were not deserving of support. Were civilisation and
-Christianity to be snatched from the Zenanese just when both were within
-their grasp? So on for nearly half a column the writer meandered in the
-most orthodox style, just as he had done scores of times before when
-advocating certain missions.
-
-I found him the next day running his finger down the letter Z, in the
-index to the Handy Atlas, with a puzzled look upon his face. I knew then
-that he had received a letter from the editor, advising him to look out
-Zenana in the Atlas before writing anything further about so ticklish a
-region.
-
-*****
-
-I also knew a sub-editor who fancied that the pibroch was a musical
-instrument widely circulated in the Highlands.
-
-But who can blame a humble provincial journalist for making an odd
-blunder occasionally, when a leading London newspaper, in announcing the
-death, some years ago, of Captain Wallace, son of Sir Richard Wallace,
-stated that the sad event had occurred while he was “playing at
-bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne”? It might reasonably have been
-expected, I think, that the sub-editor of the foreign news should know
-of the existence of the historic mansion Bagatelle, which the Marquis
-of Hertford left to Sir Richard Wallace with the store of art treasures
-that it contained.
-
-What excuse, one may also ask, can be made for the Dublin Professor who
-referred in print “to those populous districts of Hindostan, watered by
-the Ganges and the Deccan”?
-
-*****
-
-In alluding to Frankenstein as the monster, and not merely the maker
-of the monster, the mistakes made by provincial journalists of the old
-school may certainly also be condoned, when we find the same ridiculous
-hallucination maintained by one of the most highly representative of
-modern journalists, as-well as by the editor of a weekly paper of large
-circulation, who enshrined it in the preface to a book for which he was
-responsible. In this case the writer could not have been pressed
-for time. But the marvel is, not that so many errors are run into by
-provincial journalists, but that so few can be laid to their charge.
-With telegrams pouring in by private wire, as well as by the P.A. and
-C.N., to say nothing of Baron Reuter’s and Messrs, Dalziel’s special
-services; with the foreman printer, too, appearing like a silent spectre
-and departing like one that is not silent, leaving the impression
-behind him that no newspaper, except that composed by a hated rival, can
-possibly be produced the next morning;--with all these drags upon the
-chariot wheels of composition, how can it be reasonably expected that
-an editor or a sub-editor will become Academic in his erudition? When,
-however, it is discovered the next day by some tenth-rate curate, who
-probably gets a free copy of the paper, that the quotation “_O tempora!
-O mores!_” is attributed to Virgil instead of Cicero, in a leading
-article a column in length, written upon a speech of seven columns, the
-writer is at once referred to as an ignorant boor, and an invitation is
-given to all that curate’s friends to point the finger of scorn at the
-journalist.
-
-A long experience has convinced me that the curate who gets a free copy
-of the paper, and who is most velvet-gloved in approaching any member
-of the staff when he wants a favour, such as a leaderette on the Zenana
-Mission, in which several of his lady friends are deeply interested, or
-a paragraph regarding a forthcoming bazaar, or the insertion of a letter
-signed “Churchman,” calling attention to some imaginary reform which
-he himself has instituted--this very curate is the person who sends
-the marked copies of the paper to the proprietor with a gigantic _Sic_
-opposite every mistake, even though it be only a turned letter.
-
-I put a stop to the tricks of one of the race who had annoyed me
-excessively. I simply inserted verbatim a long letter that he wrote on
-some subject. It was full of mistakes, and to these the next day, in a
-letter which he meant to be humorous, he referred as “printer’s errors.”
- I took the liberty of appending an editorial note to this communication,
-mentioning that the mistakes existed in the original letter, and adding
-that I trusted the writer would not think it necessary to attribute
-to the printer the further blunders which appeared in the humorous
-communication to which my note was appended.
-
-The fellow sought an interview with me the next day, and found it. He
-was furiously indignant at the course which I had adopted, and said I
-had taken advantage of the haste in which he had written both letters. I
-brought out of my desk forthwith a paper which he had taken the trouble
-to re-edit with red ink for the benefit of the proprietor, who had,
-naturally, handed it to me. I recognised the handwriting of the red-ink
-editor the moment I received the first of his letters.
-
-“Did you make any allowance for the haste of the writers of these
-passages that you took the trouble to mark and send to the proprietor?”
- I inquired blandly.
-
-He said he did not know what it was that I referred to; and added that
-it was a gratuitous assumption on my part to say that he had marked and
-sent the paper.
-
-“Very well,” said I. “I’ll assume that you deny having done so. May I do
-so?”
-
-“Certainly you may,” he replied. “I have something else to do beside
-pointing out the blunders of your staff.”
-
-“Then I ask your pardon for having assumed that you marked the paper,”
- said I. “I was too hasty.”
-
-“You were--quite too hasty,” said he, going to the door.
-
-“I’ve acknowledged it,” said I. “And therefore I’ll not go to your
-rector until to-morrow evening to prove to him that his curate is a
-sneak and a liar as well as an extremely ignorant person.”
-
-He returned as I sat down.
-
-“What paper is it that you allude to?” he asked.
-
-“I showed it to you,” said I. “It was the paper that you re-edited in
-red ink and posted anonymously to the proprietor.”
-
-“Oh, that?” said he. “Why on earth didn’t you say so at once? Of course
-I sent that paper. My dear fellow, it was only my little joke. I meant
-to have a little chaff with you about the mistakes.”
-
-“Go away--go away,” said I. “Go away, _Stiggins_.”
-
-And he went away.
-
-*****
-
-I need scarcely say that such clergymen are not to be interviewed every
-day. Equally exceptional, I think, was the clergyman who was good enough
-to pay me a visit a few months after I had joined the editorial staff
-of a daily paper. Although I had never exactly been the leader of the
-coughers in church, yet on the other hand I had never been a leader of
-the scoffers outside it; and somehow the parson had come to miss me.
-I had an uneasy feeling when he entered my room that he had come on
-business--that he might possibly have fancied I was afflicted with
-doubts on, say, the right of unbaptised infants to burial in consecrated
-ground, and that he had come prepared to lift the burden from my soul;
-but he never so much as spoke of business until he had picked up his hat
-and gloves, and had said a cheerful farewell. Only then he remarked, as
-if the thing had occurred to him quite suddenly,--
-
-“Oh, by the way, I don’t think I noticed you in church during the past
-few Sundays. I was afraid that you were indisposed.”
-
-“Oh, no,” said I. “I was all right; but the fact is, you see, that I’ve
-become a sort of editor, and as I can never get to bed before three
-or four in the morning, it would be impossible for me to rise before
-eleven. To be sure I’m not on duty on Saturday nights, but the force of
-habit is so great that, though I may go to bed in decent time on that
-night, I cannot sleep until my usual hour.”
-
-“Oh, I see, I see,” said he, beginning to draw on his gloves. “Well,
-perhaps on the whole--all things considered--the--ah--” here he was
-seized with a fit of coughing, and when he recovered he said he had
-always been an admirer of old Worcester, and he rather thought that some
-cups which I had on a shelf were, on the whole, the most characteristic
-as regards shape that he had ever seen.
-
-Then he went away, and I perceived from the appearance that his back
-presented to me, that he would one day become a bishop. A clergyman with
-such tact as he exhibited can no more avoid being made a bishop than the
-young seal can avoid taking to the water.
-
-Before five years had passed he was, sure enough, raised to the Bench,
-and every one is delighted with him. The celery from the Palace garden
-invariably takes the first prize at the local shows; his lordship smiles
-when you congratulate him on his repeated successes with celery, but
-when you talk about chrysanthemums he becomes grave and shakes his head.
-
-This is his tact.
-
-*****
-
-The church of which he was rector was situated in a fashionable suburb
-of the town, and it possessed one of the noisiest peals of bells
-possible to imagine. They were the terror of the neighbourhood.
-
-Upon one occasion an elderly gentleman living close to the church
-contracted some malady which necessitated, the doctor said, the
-observance of the strictest quiet, even on Sundays. A message was sent
-to the chief of the bellringers to this effect, the invalid’s wife
-expressing the hope that for a Sunday or two the bells might be
-permitted to remain silent. Of course her very reasonable wish was
-granted. The chief of the ringers thoughtfully called every Sunday
-morning to inquire after the sufferer’s condition, and for three weeks
-he learned that it was unchanged, and the bells consequently remained
-silent. On the fourth Sunday, he was told that the man had died during
-the night. He immediately hastened off to the other seven bellringers,
-worse than the first, and telling them that their prohibition was
-removed, they climbed the belfry and rang forth the most joyous peal
-that had ever annoyed the neighbourhood.
-
-“Ah,” said the lady with whom I lodged, “there are the joy bells once
-more. Poor Mr. Jenkins must be dead at last.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.--ON SOME FORMS OF SPORT.
-
-
-_An invitation to shoot rooks--The sub-editors gun--A quotation
-from “The Rivals”--The rook in repose--How the gun came to be
-smashed--Recollections of the Spanish Main--A greatly overrated
-sport--The story of Jack Burnaby’s dogs--A fastidious man--His keeper’s
-remonstrance--The Australian visitor---A kind offer--Over-willing
-dogs--The story of a muzzle-loader--How Mr. Egan came to be alive--Why
-Patsy Muldoon smiled--The moral--Degrees of dampness--Below the
-surface--The chameleon blackberry--A superlative degree of thirst._
-
-
-A FRIEND of mine once came to my office to invite me to an afternoon’s
-rook-shooting. I was not in my room and he found me in the sub-editor’s.
-I inquired about the trains to the place where the slaughter was to be
-done, and finding that they were satisfactory, agreed to join him on the
-following afternoon.
-
-Then he turned to the sub-editor--a pleasant young fellow who had ideas
-of going to the bar--and asked him if he would care to come also. At
-first the sub-editor said he did not think he would be able to come,
-though he would like very much to do so. A little persuasion was
-sufficient to make him agree to be one of our party. He had not a gun of
-his own, he said, but a friend had frequently offered to lend him
-one, so that there would be no difficulty so far as that matter was
-concerned.
-
-The next day I managed, as usual, just to catch the train as it began to
-move-away from the platform. My colleague on the newspaper had the
-door of the compartment open for me, and I could see the leather of his
-gun-case under the seat. I put my rook rifle--it was not in a case--in
-the network, and we had a delightful run through the autumn landscape
-to the station--it seemed miles from any village--where my friend was
-awaiting us in his dogcart, driving tandem. The drive of three miles
-to the rook-wood was exhilarating, and as we skirted some lines of
-old gnarled oaks, I perceived in a moment that we could easily fill a
-railway truck with birds, they were so plentiful. I made a remark to
-this effect to my friend, who was driving, and he said that when we
-arrived at the shooting ground and gave the birds the chance to which
-they were entitled we mightn’t get more than a couple of hundred all
-told.
-
-The shooting ground was under a straggling tree about fifty yards from
-the ruin of an old castle, said to have been built by the Knights
-Templar. Here we dismounted from the dogcart, sending it a mile or two
-farther along the road in charge of the man, and got ready our rifles.
-
-“What on earth have you got there?” my friend inquired of the
-sub-editor, who was working at the gun-case.
-
-“It’s the gun and cartridges,” replied the young man; “but I’m not quite
-certain how to make fast the barrels to the stock.”
-
-“Great heavens!” cried my friend. “You’ve brought a double-barrelled
-sporting gun to shoot rooks!”
-
-And so he had.
-
-We tried to explain to him that for any human being to point such a
-weapon at a rook would be little short of murder, but he utterly failed
-to see the force of our arguments. He very good-humouredly said that,
-as we had come out to shoot rooks, he couldn’t see how it
-mattered--especially to the rooks--whether they were shot with his gun
-or with our rook rifles. He added that he thought the majority of the
-birds were like Bob Acres, and would as lief be shot in an ungentlemanly
-as a gentlemanly attitude.
-
-Of course it is impossible to argue with such a man. We only said that
-he must accept the responsibility for the butchery, and in this he
-cheerfully acquiesced, slipping cartridges into both barrels--the friend
-from whom he had borrowed the weapon had taught him how to do this.
-
-We soon found that at this point the breaking-strain of his information
-was reached. He had no more idea of sport than a butcher, or the
-_Sonttag jager_ of the _Oberlander Blatter._
-
-As the rooks flew from the ruins to the belt of trees my friend and I
-brought down one each, and by the time we had reloaded, we were ready
-for two more, but I fired too soon, so that only one bird dropped. I
-saw the eyes of the man with the shot-gun gleam, “his heart with lust
-of slaying strong,” and he forthwith fired first one barrel and then the
-other at an old rook that cursed us by his gods, sitting on a branch of
-a tree ten yards off.
-
-The bird flapped heavily away, becoming more vituperative every moment.
-
-“Look here,” I shouted, “you mustn’t shoot at a bird that’s sitting on a
-branch.”
-
-“Oh. yes,” said my friend, with a grim smile. “Oh, yes, he may. It’ll do
-him no more harm than the birds.”
-
-Not a bird did that young sportsman fire at except such as had assumed
-a sitting posture, and, incredible though it may seem, he only succeeded
-in killing one. But from the moment that his skill was rewarded by
-witnessing the downward flap of this one, the lust for blood seemed
-to take possession of him, as it does the young soldiers when their
-officers have succeeded in preventing them from blazing away at the
-enemy while still a mile off. He continued to load and fire at birds
-that were swaying on the trees beside us.
-
-“There’s a chance for you,” said my friend, “sarkastik-like,” pointing
-to a rook that had flapped into a branch just above our heads.
-
-The young man, his face pale and his teeth set, was in no mood for
-distinguishing between one tone of voice and another. He simply took
-half a dozen steps into the open and, aiming steadily at the bird,
-fired both barrels simultaneously. Down came the rook in the usual way,
-clawing from branch to branch. It remained, however, for several seconds
-on a bough about eight feet from the ground; then we had a vision of the
-sportsman clubbing his gun, and making a wild rush at his prey--and
-then came a crash and a cheer. The sportsman held aloft in one hand
-the tattered rook and in the other a double-barrelled gun with a broken
-stock.
-
-He had never fired a shot in his life before this day, and all his ideas
-of musketry were derived from the stories of pirates and buccaneers
-of the Spanish Main--wherever that may be--which had come to him for
-review. He thought that the clubbing of his weapon, in order to prevent
-the escape of the rook, quite a brilliant thing to do.
-
-He had, however, completely smashed the gun, and that, my friend said,
-was a step in the right direction. He could not do any more butchery
-with it that day.
-
-It cost him four pounds getting that gun repaired, and he confessed to
-me that, according to his experience, fowling was a greatly overrated
-sport.
-
-*****
-
-It was while we were driving to the train that my friend told me the
-story of Jack Burnaby’s dogs--a story which he frankly confessed he had
-never yet got any human being to believe, but which was accurate in
-all its details, and could be fully verified by affidavit. He did
-not succeed in obtaining my credence for it. There are other forms of
-falsehood besides those verified by an affidavit, and I could not have
-given more implicit disbelief than I did to the story, even if it had
-formed the subject of this legal method of embodying a fiction.
-
-It appeared that never was there a more fastidious man in the matter
-of his sporting dogs than one Algy Grafton. Pointers that called
-for outbursts of enthusiasm on the part of other men--quite as good
-sportsmen as Algy--failed to obtain more than a complimentary word from
-him, and even this word of praise was grudgingly given and invariably
-tempered by many words which were certainly not susceptible of a
-eulogistic meaning.
-
-Among his friends--such as declined to resent the insults which he put
-upon their dogs--there was a consensus of opinion that the animal which
-would satisfy him would not be born--allowing a reasonable time for the
-various processes of evolution--for at least a thousand years, and then,
-taking into consideration the growth of radical ideas, and the decay of
-the English sport, there would be little or no demand for a first-class
-dog in the British Islands.
-
-Algy Grafton had just acquired the Puttick-Foozler moor, and almost
-every post brought him a letter from his head-keeper describing the
-condition of the birds and the prospects of the Twelfth. Though the
-letters were written on a phonetic principle, the correctness of which
-was, of course, proportionate to the accuracy of a Scotchman’s ear,
-and though the head-keeper was scarcely an optimist, still there was
-no mistaking the general tone of the information which Algy received
-through this source from the north: he gathered that he might reasonably
-look forward to the finest shoot on record.
-
-Every letter which he got from the moor, however, contained the
-expression of the keeper’s hope that his master would succeed in his
-search for a couple of good dogs. The keeper’s hope was shared by Algy;
-and he did little else during the month of July except interview dogs
-that had been recommended to him. He travelled north and south, east and
-west, to interview dogs; but so ridiculously fastidious was he that at
-the close of the first week in August he was still without a dog. He was
-naturally at his wit’s end by this time, for as the Twelfth approached
-there was not a dog in the market. He telegraphed in all directions in
-the endeavour to secure some of the animals which he had rejected during
-the previous month, but, as might have been expected, the dogs were no
-longer to be disposed of: they had all been sold within a day or two
-after their rejection by Mr. Grafton. It was on the seventh of August
-that he got a letter from his correspondent on the moor, and in this
-letter the tone of mild remonstrance which the keeper had hitherto
-adopted in referring to his master’s extravagant ideas on the dog
-question, was abandoned in favour of one of stern reprimand; in fact,
-some sentences were almost abusive. Mr. Donald MacKilloch professed to
-be anxious to know what was the good of his wearing out his life on the
-moor if his master did not mean to shoot on it. He hoped he would not
-be thought wanting in respect if he doubted the sanity of the policy of
-waiting without a dog until it pleased Providence--Mr. MacKilloch was
-a very religious man--to turn angels into pointers and saints into
-setters, a period which, it seemed to Mr. MacKilloch, his master was
-rather oversanguine in anticipating.
-
-It was not surprising that, after receiving this letter from the
-Highlands, Algy Grafton was somewhat moody as he strolled about his
-grounds on the morning of the eighth, nor was it remarkable that,
-when the rectory boy appeared with a letter stating that the Reverend
-Septimus Burnaby was anxious for him to run across in time to lunch at
-the rectory, to meet Jack Burnaby, who had just returned from Australia,
-Algy said that the rector and his brother Jack and all the squatters in
-the Australian colonies might be hanged together. Mrs. Grafton, however,
-whose life had not been worth a month’s purchase since the dog problem
-had presented itself for solution, insisted on his going to the rectory
-to lunch, and he went. It was while smoking a cigar in the rectory
-garden with Jack Burnaby, who had spent all his life squatting, but with
-no apparent inconvenience to himself, that Algy mentioned that he was
-broken-hearted on account of his dogs. He gave a brief summary of his
-travels through England in search of trustworthy animals, and lamented
-his failure to obtain anything that could be depended on to do a day’s
-work.
-
-“By George! you don’t mean to say there’s not a good dog in the market
-now?” said Mr. Burnaby, the squatter.
-
-“But that’s just what I do mean to say,” cried Algy, so plaintively that
-even the stern and unbending MacKilloch might have pitied him. “That’s
-just what I do mean to say. I’d give fifty pounds to-day for a pair
-of dogs that I wouldn’t have given ten pounds for a month ago. I’m
-heart-broken--that’s what I am!”
-
-“Cheer up!” said Mr. Burnaby. “I have a couple of sporting dogs that
-I’ll lend to you until I return to the Colony in February next--the best
-dogs I ever worked with, and I’ve had some experience.”
-
-“It was Providence that caused you to come across to me to-day,
-Grafton,” said the rector piously, as Algy stood speechless among the
-trim rosebeds.
-
-“You’re sure they’re good?” said Algy, his old suspicions returning.
-
-“Good?--am I sure?--oh, you needn’t have them if you don’t like,” said
-the Australian.
-
-“I beg your pardon a thousand times,” cried Algy. “Don’t fancy that I
-suggest that the dogs are not first rate. Oh, my dear fellow, I don’t
-know how to thank you. I am--well, my heart is too full for words.”
-
-“There’s not a man in England except yourself that I’d lend them to,”
- said Mr. Burnaby. “I give you my word that I’ve been offered forty
-pounds for each of them. Oh, there isn’t a fault between them. They’re
-just perfect.”
-
-Algy was delighted, and for the remainder of the evening he kept
-assuring his poor wife that he was not quite such a fool as some people,
-including the Scotch keeper, seemed to fancy that he was.
-
-He had felt all along, he said, that just such a piece of luck as
-had occurred was in store for him, and it was on this account he had
-steadily refused to be gulled into buying any of the inferior animals
-that had been offered to him.
-
-Oh, yes, he assured her, he knew what he was about, and he’d let
-MacKilloch know who it was that he had to deal with.
-
-The Australian’s dogs were in the custody of a man at Southampton, but
-he promised to have them sent northward in good time. It was the evening
-of the eleventh when they arrived at the lodge. They were strange wiry
-brutes, and like no breed that Algy had ever seen. The head-keeper
-looked at them critically, and made some observations regarding
-them that did not seem grossly flattering. It was plain that if Mr.
-MacKilloch had conceived any sudden admiration for the dogs he contrived
-to conceal it. Algy said all that he could say, which was that Mr.
-Burnaby knew perfectly well what a dog was, and that a dog should be
-proved before it was condemned. Mr. MacKilloch, hearing this excellent
-sentiment, grunted.
-
-The next day was a splendid Twelfth so far as the weather was concerned.
-Algy and his two friends were on the moor at dawn. At a signal from the
-head-keeper the dogs were put to their work. They seemed willing enough
-to work. Under their noses rose an old cock. To the horror of every one
-they made a snap for him, and missing him they rushed full speed through
-the heather in the direction he had taken, setting up birds right and
-left, and driving them by the score into the next moor. Algy stood
-aghast and speechless. It would be inaccurate to describe the attitude
-of Donald MacKilloch as passive. He was not silent. But in spite of his
-shouts--in spite of a fusi-lade of the strongest “sweers” that ever came
-from a God-fearing Scotchman with well-defined views of his own on the
-Free Kirk question, the two dogs romped over the moor, and the air was
-thick with grouse of all sorts and conditions, from the wary cocks to
-the incipient cheepers.
-
-To the credit of Algy Grafton it must be stated that he resolutely
-refused to allow a gun to be put into the hands of Donald MacKilloch.
-There was a blood-thirsty look in the keeper’s eyes as now and again one
-of the dogs appeared among the clumps of purple heather. When they were
-tired out toward evening they were captured by one of the keepers, and
-led off the moor, Algy following them, for he feared that they might
-meet with an accident. He sent a telegram that night to their owner, and
-the next morning received the following reply:--
-
-“The infernal idiot at Southampton sent you the wrong dogs. The right
-ones will reach you to-morrow. You have got a pair of the best
-kangaroo hounds in the world--worth five hundred guineas. Take care of
-them.--Burnaby.”
-
-“_Kangaroo hounds! kangaroo hounds!_” murmured Algy with a far-away look
-in his eyes.
-
-It seems that he is not quite so fastidious about dogs as he used to be.
-
-*****
-
-When in the west of Ireland some years ago, pretending to be on the
-look-out for “local colour” for a novel, I heard, with about ten
-thousand others, a very amusing story regarding a gun. It was told to
-me by a man who was engaged in grazing a cow along the side of a ditch
-where I sat while partaking of a sandwich, fondly hoping that at sundown
-I might be able to look a duck or two straight in the face as the “fly”
- came over the smooth surface of the glorious lake along which the road
-skirted.
-
-“Your honour,” said the narrator--he pronounced the words something
-like “yer’an’r,” but the best attempts to reproduce a brogue are
-ineffective--“Your honour will mind how Mr. Egan was near having an
-accident just as he drew by the bit of stone wall beyond the entrance to
-his own gates?”
-
-“Yes,” I replied, “I remember hearing that he was fired at by some
-ruffian, and that his horse ran away with him.”
-
-“It’s likely that that’s the same story only told different. Maybe you
-never heard tell that it was Patsy Muldoon that was bid to do the job
-for Mr. Egan, God save him!”
-
-“I never heard that.”
-
-“Maybe not, sir. Ay, Patsy has repented for that shot, for it knocked
-the eye of him that far into the inside of his head that the doctors had
-no machine long enough to drag for it in the depths of his ould skull.
-Patsy wasn’t a well-favoured boy before that night, and with the loss of
-his ear and the misplacement of his eye--it’s not lost that it is, for
-it’s somewhere in the inside of his head--he’s not a beauty just now.
-You see, sir, Patsy Muldoon, Conn Moriarty, Jim Tuohy, and Tim Gleeson
-was all consarned in the business. They got the lend of a loan of ould
-Gleeson’s gun, and the powder was in a half-pint whisky-bottle with a
-roll of paper for a cork, and every boy was supposed to bring his own
-bullets. Well, sir, ould Gleeson, before going quiet to his bed, had put
-a full charge of powder and a bullet down the throat of the gun, and had
-left her handy for Tim in the turf stack. But when Tim got a hoult of
-the wippon, he didn’t know that the ould man had loaded her, and so
-he put another charge in her, and rammed it home to make sure. Then
-he slipped the bottle with the rest of the powder into his pocket and
-strolled down to the bit of dead wall--I suppose they call them dead
-walls, sir, because they’re so convanient for such-like jobs. Anyhow, he
-laid down herself and the powder-bottle handy among the grass, and went
-back to the cabin, so as not to be suspected by the polis of interferin’
-with the job that was Patsy’s by right. Well, sir, my brave Conn was the
-next to come to the place, just to see that Tim hadn’t played a thrick
-on him. He knew that it was all right when he saw herself lying among
-the grass, and as he didn’t know that Tim had loaded her, he gave her a
-mouthful of powder himself and rammed down the lead. After him came my
-bould Tuohy, and, by the Powers, if he didn’t load herself in proper
-style too. Last of all came Patsy that was to do the job--he’d been
-consalin’ himself in the plantation, and it was barely time he had
-to put another charge into the ould gun, when Mr. Egan came up on his
-horse. Patsy slipped a cap on the nipple, and took a good aim from the
-side of the wall. When he pulled the trigger it’s a dead corp that the
-gentleman would ha’ been only for the accident that occurred just
-then, for by some reason or other that nobody can account for, herself
-burst--a thing she’d never done before--and Patsy’s eye was druv into
-his head, and he was left searching by the aid of the other for the half
-of his ear, while Mr. Egan was a mile away on a mad horse. That’s the
-story, your honour, only nobody can account to this day for the quare
-way that Patsy smiles when he sees a single barr’l gun with the barr’l a
-bit rusty.”
-
-*****
-
-It was, I recollect, on the day following the rehearsal of this pretty
-little tale--the moral of which is that no man should shoot at a fellow
-man from the shelter of a crumbling wall, without having ascertained the
-exact numerical strength of the charges already within the barrel of
-the gun--that I was caught on the mountain in a shower of rain which
-penetrated my two coats within half-an-hour, leaving me in the condition
-of a bath sponge that awaits squeezing. While I was trickling down to
-the plains I met with the narrator of the story just recorded, and to
-him I explained that I was wet to the skin.
-
-“And if your honour’s wet to the skin, and you with an overcoat on, how
-much worse amn’t I that was out through all the shower with only a rag
-on my back?”
-
-It is said that it was in this neighbourhood that the driver of one
-of the “long cars,” on being asked by a tourist what was the name of a
-berry growing among the hedges, replied, “Oh, them’s blackberries, your
-honour.”
-
-“Blackberries?” said the tourist. “But these are not black, but pink.”
-
-“Oh, yes, sir; but blackberries is always pink when they’re green,” was
-the ready explanation.
-
-I cannot guarantee the novelty of this story; but I can certainly affirm
-that it is far more reasonable than the palpable invention regarding the
-nervous curate who is said to have announced that, “next Tuesday,
-being Easter Monday, an open air meeting will be held in the vestry,
-to determine what colour the interior of the schoolhouse shall be
-whitewashed outside.”
-
-*****
-
-“Am I dhry? Is it am I dhry, that you’re afther askin’ me?” said a car
-driver to a couple of country solicitors, whom he was “conveying” to a
-court-house at a distant town on a summer’s day. “Dhry? By the Powers!
-I’m that dhry that if you was to jog up against me suddint-like, the
-dust would fly out of my mouth.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.--SOME REPORTERS.
-
-
-_An important person--The mayor-maker--Two systems--The puff and
-the huff--“Oh that mine enemy were reported verbatim!”--Errors of
-omission--Summary justice--An example--The abatement of a nuisance--The
-testimony of the warm-hearted--The fixed rate--A possible placard--A
-gross insult--Not so bad as it might have been--The subdivision of an
-insult--An inadequate assessment--The Town Councillor’s bribe--Birds
-of a feather--A handbook needed--An outburst of hospitality--Never
-again--The reporters “gloom”--The March lion--The popularity of the
-coroner._
-
-
-THE chief of the reporting staff is usually the most important person
-connected with a provincial newspaper. It is not too much to say that
-it is in his power to make or to annihilate the reputation of a Town
-Councillor, or even a Poor Law Guardian. He may do so by the adoption of
-either of two systems: the first is persistent attention, the second is
-persistent neglect. He may either puff a man into a reputation, or
-puff him out of it. There are some men who become universally abhorred
-through being constantly alluded to as “our respected townsman”; such a
-distinction seems an invidious one to the twenty thousand townsmen who
-have never been so referred to. If a reporter persists in alluding to a
-certain person as “our respected townsman,” he will eventually succeed
-in making him the most highly disrespected burgess in the municipality,
-if he was not so before.’ On the other hand a reporter may, by judicious
-neglect of a burgess who burns for distinction, destroy his chances of
-becoming a Town Councillor; and, perhaps, before he dies, Mayor. But my
-experience leads me to believe that if a reporter has a grudge against a
-Town Councillor, a Poor Law Guardian, or a Borough Magistrate, and if he
-is really vindictive, the most effective course of vengeance that he can
-adopt is to record verbatim all that his enemy utters in public. The man
-who exclaimed, at a period of the world’s history when the publishing
-business had not attained its present proportions, “Oh that mine enemy
-had written a book!” knew what he was talking about. “Oh that mine enemy
-were reported verbatim!” would assuredly be the modern equivalent of the
-bitter cry of the patriarch. The stutterings, the vain repetitions, and
-the impossible grammar which accompany the public utterances--imbecile
-only when they are not commonplace--of the average Town Councillor or
-Poor Law Guardian, would require the aid of the phonograph to admit of
-their being anly when they are not commonplace--of the average Town
-Councillor or Poor Law Guardian, would require the aid of the phonograph
-to admit of their being adequately depreciated by the public.
-
-The worst offenders are those men who are loudest in their complaints
-against the reporters, and who are constantly writing to correct what
-they call “errors” in the summary of their speeches. A reporter puts in
-a grammatical and a moderately reasonable sentence or two the ridiculous
-maunderings and wanderings of one of these “public men,” and the only
-recognition he obtains assumes the form of a letter to the editor,
-pointing out the “omissions” made in the summary. Omissions! I should
-rather think there were omissions.
-
-I have no hesitation in affirming that the verbatim reporting of their
-speeches would mean the annihilation of ninety-nine out of every hundred
-of these municipal orators.
-
-Only once, on a paper with which I was connected, had a reporter the
-courage to try the effect of a literal report of the speech of a man
-who was greatly given to complaining of the injustice done to him in
-the published accounts of his deliverances. Every “haw,” “hum,” “ah,”
- “eh--eh;” every repetition, every reduplication of a repetition, every
-unfinished sentence, every singular nominative to a plural verb, every
-artificial cough to cover a retreat from an imbecile statement, was
-reported. The result was the complete abatement of this nuisance. A
-considerable time elapsed before another complaint as to omissions in
-municipal speeches was made.
-
-*****
-
-To my mind, the ability and the judgment shown by the members of the
-reporting staff cannot be too warmly commended. It is not surprising
-that occasionally attempts should be made by warm-hearted persons to
-express in a substantial way their recognition of the talents of this
-department of a newspaper. I have several times known of sums of money
-being offered to reporters in the country, with a view of obtaining the
-insertion of certain paragraphs or the omission of others. Half-a-crown
-was invariably the figure at which the value of such services was
-assessed. I am still of the opinion that this was not an extravagant sum
-to offer a presumably educated man for running the risk of losing his
-situation. Curiously enough, the majority of these offers of money came
-from competitors at ploughing matches, at exhibitions of oxen and swine,
-and at flower shows. Why agriculturalists should be more zealous to show
-their appreciation of literary work than the rest of the population it
-would be difficult to say; but at one time--a good many years ago--I
-heard so much about the attempted distribution of half-crowns in
-agricultural districts, I began to fear that at the various shows
-it would be necessary to have a placard posted, bearing the words:
-“GRATUITIES TO REPORTERS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.”
-
-Many years ago I was somewhat tired of hearing about the numerous
-insults offered to reporters in this way. A head-reporter once told me
-that a junior member of his staff had come to him after a day in the
-country, complaining bitterly that he had been grossly insulted by an
-offer of money.
-
-“And what did you say to him?” I inquired.
-
-“I asked him how much he had been offered,” replied the head-reporter,
-“and when he said, ‘Half-a-crown,’ I said, ‘Pooh! half-a-crown! that
-wasn’t much of an insult. How would you like to be offered a sovereign,
-as I was one day in the same neighbourhood? You might talk of your
-insults then.’ That shut him up.”
-
-I did not doubt it.
-
-“You think the juniors protest too much?” said I.
-
-The reporter laughed shrewdly.
-
-“You remember _Punch’s_ picture of the man lying drunk on the pavement,
-and the compassionate lady in the crowd who asked if the poor fellow
-was ill, at which a man says, ‘Ill? ‘im ill? I only wish I’d alf his
-complaint’?”
-
-I admitted that I had a vivid recollection of the picture; but I
-added that I could not see what it had to say to the subject we were
-discussing.
-
-Again the reporter smiled.
-
-“If you had seen the chap’s face to-day when I talked of the sovereign
-you would know what I meant; his face said quite plainly, ‘I wish I had
-half of that insult.’”
-
-That view was quite intelligible to me some time after, when a reporter,
-whose failings were notorious, came to me with the old story. He had
-been offered half-a-crown by a man in a good social position who had
-been fined at the police court that day for being drunk and assaulting a
-constable, and who was anxious that no record of the transaction should
-appear in the newspaper.
-
-“Great heavens!” said I, “he had the face to offer you half-a-crown?”
-
-“He had,” said the reporter, indignantly. “Half-a-crown! The low hound!
-He knew that if I included his case in to-morrow’s police news he would
-lose his situation, and yet he had the face to offer me half-a-crown.
-What hounds there are in the world! Two pounds would have been little
-enough.”
-
-*****
-
-I never heard of a Town Councillor offering a bribe to a reporter; but
-I have heard of something more phenomenal--a Town Councillor indignantly
-rejecting what he conceived to be a bribe. He took good care to boast of
-it afterwards to his constituents. It happened that this Councillor
-was the leader of a select faction of three on the Corporation, whose
-_métier_ consisted in opposing every scheme that was brought forward by
-the Town Clerk, and supported by the other members of the Corporation.
-Now the Town Clerk had hired a shooting one autumn, and as the birds
-were plentiful, he thought that it would be a graceful act on his part
-to send a brace of grouse to every Alderman and every Councillor. He did
-so, and all the members of the Board accepted the transaction in a right
-spirit--all, except the leader of the opposition faction. He explained
-his attitude to his constituents as follows:
-
-“Gentlemen, you’ll all be glad to hear that I’ve made myself formidable
-to our enemies. I’ve brought the so-called Town Clerk down on his knees
-to me. An attempt was made to bribe me last week, which I am determined
-to expose. One night when I came home from my work, I found waiting for
-me a queer pasteboard box with holes in it. I opened it, and inside I
-found a couple of fat _brown pigeons_, and on their legs a card printed
-‘With Mr. Samuel White’s compliments.’ ‘Mr. Samuel White! That’s the
-Town Clerk,’ says I, ‘and if Mr. Samuel White thinks to buy my
-silence by sending me a pair of brown pigeons with Mr. Samuel White’s
-compliments, Mr. Samuel White is a bit mistaken;’ so I just put the
-pigeons back into their box, and redirected them to Mr. Samuel White,
-and wrote him a polite note to let him know that if I wanted a pair of
-pigeons I could buy them for myself. That’s what I did.” (Loud cheers.)
-
-When it was explained to him some time after that the birds were grouse,
-and not pigeons, he asked where was the difference. The principle
-would be precisely the same, he declared, if the birds were eagles or
-ostriches.
-
-*****
-
-It has often occurred to me that for the benefit of such men, a complete
-list should be made out of such presents as may be legitimately received
-from one’s friends, and of those that should be regarded as insultive in
-their tendency. It must puzzle a good many people to know where the line
-should be drawn. Why should a brace of grouse be looked on as a graceful
-gift, while a pair of fowl--a “yoke,” they are called in the West of
-Ireland--can only be construed as an affront? Why should a haunch of
-venison (when not over “ripe”) constitute an acceptable gift, while a
-sirloin of prime beef could only be regarded as having an eleemosynary
-signification? Why may a lover be permitted to offer the object of his
-attachment a fan, but not a hat? a dozen of gloves, but not a pair of
-boots? These problems would tax a much higher intelligence--if it would
-be possible to imagine such--than that at the command of the average
-Town Councillor.
-
-*****
-
-It was the same member of the Corporation who, one day, having
-succeeded--greatly to his astonishment--in carrying a resolution
-which he had proposed at a meeting, found that custom and courtesy
-necessitated his providing refreshment for the dozen of gentlemen
-who had supported him. His ideas of refreshment revolved round a
-public-house as a centre; but when it was explained to him that the
-occasion was one that demanded a demonstration on a higher level, and
-with a wider horizon, he declared, in the excitement of the moment, that
-he was as ready as any of his colleagues to discharge the duties of host
-in the best style. He took his friends to a first-class restaurant,
-and at a hint from one of them, promptly ordered a couple of bottles
-of champagne. When these had been emptied, the host gave the waiter a
-shilling, telling him in a lordly way to keep the change. The waiter
-was, of course, a German, and, with a smile and a bow, he put the
-coin into his pocket, and hastened to help the gentlemen on with their
-overcoats. When they were trooping out, he ventured to enquire whom the
-champagne was to be charged to.
-
-The hospitable Councillor stared at the man, and then expressed the
-opinion that all Frenchmen, and perhaps Italians, were the greatest
-rogues unhung.
-
-“You savey!” he shouted at the waiter--for like many persons on the
-social level of Town Councillors, he assumed that all foreigners are a
-little deaf,--“You savey, I give you one shilling--one bob--you savey!”
-
-The waiter said he was “much oblige,” but who was to pay for the
-champagne?
-
-The gentlemen who had partaken of the champagne nudged one another, but
-one of them was compassionate, and explained to the Councillor that the
-two bottles involved the expenditure of twenty-four shillings.
-
-“Twenty-eight shillings,” the waiter murmured in a submissive,
-subject-to-the-correction-of-the-Court tone. The wine was Heidsieck of
-‘74, he explained.
-
-The Councillor gasped, and then smiled weakly. He had been made the
-subject of a jest more than once before, and he fancied he saw in the
-winks of the men around him, a loophole of escape from an untenable
-position.
-
-“Come, come,” said he, “I’ve no more time to waste. Don’t you flatter
-yourselves that I can’t see this is a put-up job between you all and the
-waiter.”
-
-“Pay the man the money and be hanged to you!” said an impetuous member
-of the party.
-
-Just then the manager of the restaurant strolled up, and received with a
-polite smile the statement of the hospitable. Councillor regarding what
-he termed the barefaced attempt to swindle on the part of the German
-waiter.
-
-“Sir,” said the manager, “the price of the wine is on the card. Here it
-is,”--he whipped a card out of his pocket. “‘Heidsieck--1874--14s.’”
-
-The generous host fell back on a chair speechless.
-
-Had any of his friends ever read Hamlet they would certainly not have
-missed quoting the lines:
-
-                   “Indeed this (Town) Councillor
-
-               Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
-
-               Who was in life--”
-
-Well--otherwise. However, _Hamlet_ remained unquoted.
-
-After a long pause he recovered his powers of speech.
-
-“And that’s champagne--that’s champagne!” he said in a weak voice,
-“Champagne! By the Lord Harry, I’ve tasted better ginger-beer!”
-
-He has lately been very cautious in bringing forward any resolutions
-at the Corporation. He is afraid that another of them may chance to be
-carried.
-
-*****
-
-The reporter who told me the story which I have just recorded, was an
-excellent specimen of the class--shrewd, a capital judge of character,
-and a good organiser. He had, however, never got beyond the stereotyped
-phrases which appear in every newspaper--indeed, there was no need for
-him to get beyond them. Every death “cast a gloom” over the locality
-where it occurred; and a chronicle of the weather at any time during
-the month of March caused him to let loose the journalist’s lion upon an
-unsuspecting public.
-
-Once it occurred to me that he went a little too far with the gloom that
-he kept, as Captain Mayne Reid’s Mexicans kept their lassoes, ready to
-cast at a moment’s notice.
-
-He wrote an account of a fire which had caused the death of two persons,
-and concluded as follows:--
-
-“The conflagration, which was visible at a distance of four miles, and
-was not completely subjugated until a late hour, cast a gloom over the
-entire quarter of the town, that will be felt for long, more especially
-as the premises were wholly uninsured.”
-
-Yes, I thought that this was carrying the gloom a little too far.
-
-I will say this for him, however: it was not he who wrote: “A tall but
-well-dressed man was yesterday arrested on suspicion of being concerned
-in a recent robbery.”
-
-Nor was it he who headed a paragraph, “Fatal Death by Drowning.”
-
-*****
-
-In a town in which I once resided the coroner died, and there was quite
-a brisk competition for the vacant office. The successful candidate was
-a gentleman whose claims had been supported by a newspaper with which I
-was connected. Three months afterwards the proofreader brought under the
-notice of the sub-editor in my presence a paragraph which had come from
-the reporter’s room, and which had already been “set up.” So nearly as
-I can remember, it was something like this:--“Yesterday, no fewer than
-three inquests were held in various parts of this town by our highly
-respected coroner. Indeed, any doubts that may possibly have existed as
-to the qualification of this gentleman for the coronership, among those
-narrowminded persons who opposed his selection, must surely be dispelled
-by reference to the statistics of inquests held during the three months
-that he has been in office. The increase upon the corresponding quarter
-last year is thirteen, or no less than 9.46 per cent. Compared with
-the immediately preceding quarter the figures are no less significant,
-showing, as they do, an increase of seventeen, or 12.18 per cent.
-In other words, the business of the coroner has been augmented by
-one-eighth since he came into office. This fact speaks volumes for the
-enterprise and ability of the gentleman whose candidature it was our
-privilege to support.”
-
-Of course this paragraph was suppressed. The sub-editor told me the next
-day that it had been written by a junior reporter, who had misunderstood
-the instructions of his chief. The fact was that the coroner wanted an
-increase of remuneration,--he was paid by a fixed salary, not by “piece
-work,” so to speak,--and he had suggested to the chief reporter that
-a paragraph calling attention to the increase of inquests in the town
-might have a good effect. The chief reporter had given the figures to
-a junior, with a few hasty instructions, which he had somehow
-misinterpreted.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII--THE SUBJECT OF REPORTS.
-
-
-_The lecture society--“Early Architecture”--The professional
-consultation--Its result--“Un verre d’eau”--Its story--Lyrics as
-an auxiliary to the lecture--The lecture in print--A well-earned
-commendation--The preservation of ancient ruins--The best
-preservative--“Stone walls do not a prison make”--The Parnell
-Commission--A remarkable visitor--A false prophet--Sir Charles
-Russell--A humble suggestion--The bashful young man--Somewhat
-changed--“Ireland a Nation”--Some kindly hints--The “Invincibles” in
-court--The strange advertisement--How it was answered--Earl Spencer as a
-patron--“No kindly act was ever done in vain!”_
-
-
-A REPORTER is now and again compelled to exercise other powers than
-those which are generally supposed to be at the command of the writer
-of shorthand and the paragraphist. I knew a very clever youth who in a
-crisis showed of what he was capable. There was, in the town where we
-lived, a society of very learned men and equally learned women. Once
-a fortnight a paper was read, usually on some point of surpassing
-dulness--this was in the good old days, when lectures were solemn and
-theatres merry. Just at present, I need scarcely say, the position of
-the two is reversed: the theatres are solemn (the managers, becoming
-pessimistic by reason of their losses, endeavour to impress their
-philosophy upon the public), but the lecture-room rings with laughter
-as some _savant_ treats of the “Loves of Coleoptera” with limelight
-illustrations, or “The Infant Bacillus.” The society which I have
-mentioned had engaged as lecturer for a certain evening a local
-architect, who had largely augmented his professional standing by a
-reputation for conviviality; and the subject with which he was to deal
-was “Early Architecture.” A brother professional man, whose sympathies
-were said to extend in many directions, had promised to take the chair
-upon this occasion. It so happened, however, that, owing to his pressing
-but unspecified engagements, the lecturer found himself, on the day for
-which the lecture was announced, still in doubt as to the sequence that
-his views should assume when committed to paper. About noon on this day
-he strolled into the office of the gentleman who was advertised to take
-the chair in the evening, and explained that he should like to discuss
-with him the various aspects of the question of Early Architecture, so
-that his mind might be at ease on appearing before the audience.
-
-They accordingly went down the street, and made an earnest inspection of
-the interior of a cave-dwelling in the neighbourhood--it was styled
-“The Cool Grot,” and tradition was respected by the presence therein of
-shell-fish, oat-cake, and other elementary foods, with various samples
-of alcohol in a rudimentary form. In this place the brother architects
-discussed the subject of Early Architecture until, as a reporter would
-say, “a late hour.” The result was not such as would have a tendency to
-cause an unprejudiced person to accept without some reserve the theory
-that on a purely æsthetic question, a just conclusion can most readily
-be arrived at by a friendly discussion amid congenial surroundings.
-
-A small and very solemn audience had assembled some twenty minutes or so
-before the lecturer and chairman put in an appearance, and then no time
-was lost in commencing the business of the meeting. The one architect
-was moved to the chair, and seconded, and he solemnly took it. Having
-explained that he occupied his position with the most pleasurable
-feelings, he poured himself out a glass of water with a most
-unreasonable amount of steadiness, and laid the carafe exactly on the
-spot--he was most scrupulous on this point--it had previously occupied.
-He drank a mouthful of the water, and then looked into the tumbler
-with the shrewd eye of the naturalist searching for infusoria. Then he
-laughed, and told a story that amused himself greatly about a friend of
-his who had attended a temperance lecture, and declared that it
-would have been a great success if the lecturer had not automatically
-attempted to blow the froth off the glass of water with which he
-refreshed himself. Then he sat down and fell asleep, before the lecturer
-had been awakened by the secretary to the committee, and had opened his
-notes upon the desk. For about ten minutes the lecturer made himself
-quite as unintelligible as the most erudite of the audience could have
-desired; but then he suddenly lapsed into intelligibility--he had
-reached that section of his subject which necessitated the recitation of
-a poem said to be in a Scotch dialect, every stanza of which terminated
-with the words, “A man’s a man for a’ that!” He then bowed, and,
-recovering himself by a grasp of the desk, which he shook as though it
-were the hand of an old schoolfellow whom he had not met for years, he
-retired with an almost supernatural erectness to his chair.
-
-In a moment the chairman was on his feet--the sudden silence had
-awakened him. In a few well-chosen phrases he thanked the audience for
-the very hearty manner in which they had drunk his health. He then told
-them a humorous story of his boyhood, and concluded by a reference to
-one “Mr. Vice,” whom he trusted frequently to see at the other end
-of the table, preparatory to going beneath it. He hoped there was no
-objection to his stating that he was a jolly good fellow. No absolute
-objection being made, he ventured on the statement--in the key of B
-flat; the lecturer joined in most heartily, and the solemn audience
-went to their homes, followed by the apologies of the secretary to the
-committee.
-
-The chairman and the lecturer were then shaken up by the old man who
-came to turn out the lights. He turned them out as well.
-
-Now, the reporter who had been “marked” for that lecture found that he
-had some much more important business to attend to. He did not reach
-the newspaper office until late, and then he seated himself, and
-thoughtfully wrote out the remarks which nine out of every ten chairmen
-would have made, attributing them to the gentleman who presided at
-the lecture; and then gave a general summary of the lecture on “Early
-Architecture” which ninety-nine out of every hundred working architects
-would deliver if called on. He concluded by stating that the usual vote
-of thanks was conveyed to the lecturer, and suitably acknowledged
-by him, and that the audience was “large, representative, and
-enthusiastic.”
-
-The secretary called upon the proprietor of the paper the next day,
-and expressed his high appreciation of the tact and judgment of the
-reporter; and the proprietor, who was more accustomed to hear comments
-on the display of very different attainments on the part of his staff,
-actually wrote a letter of commendation to the reporter, which I think
-was well earned.
-
-The most remarkable point in connection with this occurrence was the
-implicit belief placed in the statements of the newspaper, not only
-by the public--for the public will believe anything--but also by the
-architect-lecturer and the architect-chairman. The professional standing
-of the former was certainly increased by the transaction, and till the
-day of his death he was accustomed to allude to his lecture on “Early
-Architecture.” The secretary to the committee, for his own credit’s
-sake, said nothing about the fiasco, and the solemn members of the
-audience were so accustomed to listen to incomprehensible lectures in
-the same room that they began to think that the performance at which
-they had “assisted” was only another of the usual type, so they also
-held their peace on the matter.
-
-*****
-
-Having introduced this society, I cannot refrain from telling the story
-of another transaction in which it was concerned. The ramifications of
-the society extended in many directions, and a more useful organisation
-could scarcely be imagined. It was like an elephant’s trunk, which can
-uproot a tree--if the elephant is in a good humour--but which does not
-disdain to pick up a pin--like the boy who afterwards became Lord Mayor
-of London. The society did not shrink from discussing the question “Is a
-Monarchy or a Republic the right form of Government?” on the same
-night that it dealt with a new stopper for soda-water bottles. The
-Carboniferous Future of England was treated of upon the same evening as
-the Immortality of the Soul; perhaps there is a closer connection
-than at first meets the eye between the two subjects. It took ancient
-buildings under its protection, as well as the most recently fabricated
-pre-historic axe-head; and it was the discharge of its functions
-in regard to ancient buildings that caused the committee to pass a
-resolution one day, calling on their secretary to communicate with the
-owner of a neighbouring property, in the midst of which a really fine
-ruin of an ancient castle, with many interesting associations, was
-situated, begging him to order a wall to be built around the ruins, so
-as to prevent them from continuing to be the resort of cows with a fine
-taste in archaeology, when the summer days were warm and they wanted
-their backs scratched.
-
-The property was in Ireland, consequently the landlord lived in England,
-and had never so much as seen the ruins. It was news to him that
-anything of interest was to be found on his Irish estates; but as his
-son was contemplating the possibility of entering Parliament as the
-representative of an Irish borough, he at once crossed the Channel,
-had an interview with the society’s secretary, and, with the president,
-visited the old castle, and was delighted with it. He sent for his
-bailiff, and told him that he wanted a wall four feet high to be built
-round the field in the centre of which the ruins lay--he even went so
-far as to “peg out,” so to speak, the course that he wished the wall to
-take.
-
-The Irish bailiff stared at his master, but expressed the delight it
-would give him to carry out his wishes.
-
-The owner crossed to England, promising to return in three months to see
-how the work had been done.
-
-He kept his word. He returned in three months, and found, sure enough,
-that an excellent wall had been built on the exact lines he had
-laid down, but every stone of the ruins of the ancient castle had
-disappeared.
-
-The bailiff stood by with a beaming face as he explained how the ruins
-had gone.
-
-_He had caused the wall to be built out of the stones of the ancient
-castle, to save expense._
-
-*****
-
-If reporters were only afforded a little leisure, any one of them who
-has lived in a large town could compile an interesting volume of his
-experiences. I have often regretted that I could never master the art
-of shorthand. I worked at it for months when a boy, and made sufficient
-progress to be able to write it pretty fairly; but writing is not
-everything. The capacity for transcribing one’s notes is something to be
-taken into account; and it was at this point that I broke down, and was
-forced to become a novelist--a sort of novelist. The first time that I
-went up country in Africa, my stock of paper being limited, I carried
-only two pocket-books, and economised my space by taking my notes in
-shorthand. I had no occasion to refer to these notes until I was writing
-my novel “Daireen,” and then I found myself face to face with a hundred
-pages of hieroglyphs which were utterly unintelligible to me. In despair
-I brought them to a reporter, and he read them off for me much more
-rapidly than he or anyone else could read my ordinary handwriting
-to-day. In fact, he read just a little too fast,--I was forced to beg
-him to stop. There are some occurrences of which one takes a note in
-shorthand in one’s youth in a strange country, but which one does not
-wish particularly to offer to the perusal of strangers years afterwards.
-
-But although I could never be a reporter, I now and again availed myself
-of a reporter’s privileges, when I wished to be present at a trial that
-promised some interesting features to a student of good and evil. It
-seemed to me that the Parnell Commission was an epitome of the world’s
-history from the earliest date. No writer has yet done justice to that
-extraordinary incident. I have asked some reporters, who were
-present day after day, if they intended writing a real history of the
-Commission; not the foolish political history of the thing, but the
-story of all that was laid bare to their eyes hour after hour,--the
-passions of patriotism, of power, of hate, of revenge; the devotion to
-duty, the dogged heroism, the religious fervour; every day brought to
-light such examples of these varied attributes of the Irish nature as
-the world had never previously known.
-
-The reporters said they had no time to devote to such thankless work;
-and, besides, every one was sick of the Commission.
-
-Often as I went into the court and faced the scene, it never lost its
-glamour for me. Every day I seemed to be wandering through a world of
-romance. I could not sleep at night, so deeply impressed was I with the
-way certain witnesses returned the scrutiny of Sir Charles Russell; with
-the way Mr. Parnell hypnotised others; with the stories of the awful
-struggle of which Ireland was the centre.
-
-Going out of the courts one evening, I came upon an old man standing
-with his hat off and with one arm uplifted in an attitude of
-denunciation that was tragic beyond description. He was a handsome old
-man, very tall, but slightly stooped, and he clearly occupied a good
-position in the world.
-
-We were alone just outside the courts. I pretended that I had suddenly
-missed something. I stood thrusting my hands into my pockets and feeling
-between the buttons of my coat, for I meant to watch him. At last I
-pulled out my cigarette-case and strolled on.
-
-“You were in that court?” the old man said, in a tone that assured me I
-had not underestimated his social position.
-
-He did not wait for me to reply.
-
-“You saw that man sitting with his cold impassive face while the tears
-were on the cheeks of every one else? Listen to me, sir! I called upon
-the Most High to strike him down--to strike him down--and my prayer was
-heard. I saw him lying, disgraced, deserted, dead, before my eyes; and
-so I shall see him before a year has passed. ‘Mene, mene, tekel,
-upharsin.’”
-
-Again he raised his arm in the direction of the court, and when I saw
-the light in his eyes I knew that I was looking at a prophet.
-
-Suddenly he seemed to recover himself. He put on his hat and turned
-round upon me with something like angry surprise. I raised my hat. He
-did the same. He went in one direction and I went in the opposite.
-
-He was a false prophet. Mr. Parnell was not dead within the year. In
-fact, he was not dead until two years and two months had passed. In
-accordance with the thoughtful provisions of the Mosaic code, that old
-gentleman deserved to be stoned for prophesying falsely. But his manner
-would almost have deceived a reporter.
-
-*****
-
-Having introduced the subject of the Parnell Commission, I may perhaps
-be permitted to express the hope that Sir Charles Russell will one day
-find sufficient leisure to give us a few chapters of his early history.
-I happen to know something of it. I am fully acquainted with the nature
-of some of its incidents, which certainly would be found by the public
-to possess many interesting and romantic elements; though, unlike the
-romantic episodes in the career of most persons, those associated with
-the early life of Sir Charles Russell reflect only credit upon himself.
-Every one should know by this time that the question of what is
-Patriotism and what is not is altogether dependent upon the nature of
-the Government of the country. In order to prolong its own existence for
-six months, a Ministry will take pains to alter the definition of the
-word Patriotism, and to prosecute every one who does not accept the
-new definition. Forty years ago the political lexicon was being daily
-revised. I need say no more on this point; only, if Sir Charles Russell
-means to give us some of the earlier chapters of his life he should
-lose no time in setting about the task. A Lord Chief Justice of England
-cannot reasonably be expected to deal with any romantic episodes in his
-own career, however important may be the part which he feels himself
-called on now and again to take in the delimitation of the romantic
-elements (of a different type) in the careers of others of Her Majesty’s
-subjects.
-
-*****
-
-It may surprise some of those persons who have been unfortunate enough
-to find themselves witnesses for the prosecution in cases where Sir
-Charles Russell has appeared for the defence, to learn that in his
-young days he was exceedingly shy. He has lost a good deal of his early
-diffidence, or, at any rate, he manages to prevent its betraying itself
-in such a way as might tend to embarrass a hostile witness. As a
-rule, the witnesses do not find that bashfulness is the most prominent
-characteristic of his cross-examination. But I learned from an early
-associate of Sir Charles’s, that when his name appeared on the list to
-propose or to respond to a toast at one of the dinners of a patriotic
-society of which my informant as well as Sir Charles was a member, he
-would spend the day nervously walking about the streets, and apparently
-quite unable to collect his thoughts. Upon one occasion the proud duty
-devolved upon him of responding to the toast, “Ireland a Nation!”
- Late in the afternoon my informant, who at that time was a small
-shopkeeper--he is nothing very considerable to-day--found him in a
-condition of disorderly perturbation, and declaring that he had no
-single idea of what he should say, and he felt certain that unless
-he got the help of the man who afterwards became my informant he must
-inevitably break down.
-
-“I laughed at him,” said the gentleman who had the courage to tell the
-story which I have the courage to repeat, “and did my best to give him
-confidence. ‘Sure any fool could respond to “Ireland a Nation!”’ said I;
-‘and you’ll do it as well as any other.’ But even this didn’t give him
-courage,” continued my informant, “and I had to sit down and give him
-the chief points to touch on in his speech. He wrung my hand, and in the
-evening he made a fine speech, sir. Man, but it was a pity that there
-weren’t more of the party sober enough to appreciate it!”
-
-I tell this tale as it was told to me, by a respectable tradesman whose
-integrity has never been questioned.
-
-It occurred to me that that quality in which, according to his
-interesting reminiscence of forty years ago, his friend Russell was
-deficient, is not one that could with any likelihood of success be
-attributed to the narrator.
-
-*****
-
-If any student of good and evil--the two fruits, alas! grow upon the
-same tree--would wish for a more startling example of the effect of a
-strong emotion upon certain temperaments than was afforded the people
-present in the Dublin Police Court on the day that Carey left the dock
-and the men he was about to betray to the gallows, that student would
-indeed be exacting.
-
-I had been told by a constabulary officer what was coming, so that,
-unlike most persons in the court, I was not too startled to be able
-to observe every detail of the scene. Carey was talking to a brother
-ruffian named Brady quite unconcernedly, and Brady was actually smiling,
-when an officer of constabulary raised his finger and the informer
-stepped out of the dock, and two policemen in plain clothes moved to his
-side. Carey glanced back at his doomed accomplices, and muttered some
-words to Brady. I did not quite catch them, but I thought the words
-were, “It’s half an hour ahead of you that I am, Joe.”
-
-Brady simply looked at his betrayer, whom it seems he had been anxious
-to betray. There was absolutely no expression upon his face. Some of the
-others of the same murderous gang seemed equally unaffected. One of them
-turned and spat on the floor. But upon the faces of at least two of the
-men there was a look of malignity that transformed them into fiends. It
-was the look that accompanies the stab of the assassin. Another of them
-gave a laugh, and said something to the man nearest to him; but the
-laugh was not responded to.
-
-The youngest of the gang stared at one of the windows of the court-house
-in a way that showed me he had not been able to grasp the meaning of
-Carey’s removal from the dock.
-
-In half-an-hour every expression worn by the faces of the men had
-changed. They all had a look that might almost have been regarded as
-jocular. There can be no doubt that when a man realises that he has been
-sentenced to death, his first feeling is one of relief. His suspense is
-over--so much is certain. He feels that--and that only--for an hour or
-so. I could see no change on the faces of these poor wretches whom the
-Mephistophelian fun of Fate had induced to call themselves Invincible,
-in order that no devilish element might be wanting in the tragedy of the
-Phoenix Park.
-
-*****
-
-I do not suppose that many persons are acquainted with the secret
-history of the detection of the “Invincibles.” I think I am right in
-stating that it has never yet been made public. I am not at liberty
-to mention the source whence I derived my knowledge of some of the
-circumstances that led to the arrest of Carey, but there is no doubt in
-my mind as to the accuracy of my “information received” on this matter.
-
-It may, perhaps, be remembered that, some months after the date of the
-murders, a strange advertisement appeared in almost every newspaper in
-Great Britain. It stated that if the man who had told another, on the
-afternoon of May 6th, 1882, that he had once enjoyed a day’s skating on
-the pond at the Viceregal Lodge, would communicate with the Chief of the
-Detective Department at Dublin Castle, he would be thanked. Now beyond
-the fact that May 6th was the date of the murders, and that they had
-taken place in the Phoenix Park, there was nothing in this advertisement
-to suggest that it had any bearing upon the shocking incident; still
-there was a general feeling that it had a very intimate connection with
-the efforts that the police were making to unravel the mystery of the
-outrage; and this impression was well founded.
-
-I learned that the strangely-worded advertisement had been inserted in
-the newspapers at the instigation of a constabulary officer, who had, in
-many disguises, been endeavouring to find some clue to the assassins
-in Dublin. One evening he slouched into a public-house bespattered as
-a bricklayer, and took a seat in a box, facing a pint of stout. He had
-been in public-house after public-house every Saturday night for several
-weeks without obtaining the slightest suggestion as to the identity of
-the murderers, and he was becoming discouraged; but on this particular
-evening he had his reward, for he overheard a man in the next box
-telling some others, who were drinking with him, that Lord Spencer was
-not such a bad sort of man as might be supposed from the mere fact of
-his being Lord-Lieutenant. He (the narrator) had been told by a man in
-the Phoenix Park on the very evening of the murders that he (the man)
-had not been ashamed to cheer Lord Spencer on his arrival at Dublin that
-day, for when he had last been in Dublin he had allowed him to skate
-upon the pond in the Viceregal grounds.
-
-The officer dared not stir from his place: he knew that if he were at
-all suspected of being a detective, his life would not be worth five
-minutes’ purchase. He could only hope to catch a glimpse of some of the
-party when they were leaving the place. He failed to do so, for some
-cause--I cannot remember what it was--nor could the barmaid give any
-satisfactory reply to his cautiously casual enquiries as to the names of
-any of the men who had occupied the box.
-
-It was then that the advertisement was inserted in the various
-newspapers; and, after the lapse of some weeks, a man presented himself
-to the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, saying that he
-believed the advertisement referred to him. The man seemed a respectable
-artisan, and his story was that one day during the last winter that Earl
-Spencer had been in Ireland, he (the man) had left his work in order
-to have a few hours’ skating on the ponds attached to the Zoological
-Gardens in the Phoenix Park, but on arriving at the ponds he found that
-the ice had been broken. “I was just going away,” the man said, “when
-a gentleman with a long beard spoke to me, and enquired if I had had a
-good skate. I told him that I was greatly disappointed, as the ice had
-all been broken, and I would lose my day’s pay. He took a card out of
-his pocket, and wrote something on it,” continued the man, “and then
-handed it to me, saying, ‘Give that to the porter at the Viceregal
-Lodge, and you’ll have the best day’s skating you have had in all your
-life.’ He said what was true: I handed in the card and told the porter
-that a tall gentleman with a beard had given it to me. ‘That was His
-Excellency himself,’ said the porter, as he brought me down to the pond,
-where, sure enough, I had such a day’s skating as I’ve never had before
-or since.”
-
-“And you were in the Phoenix Park on the evening of the murders?” said
-the Chief of the Department.
-
-“I must have been there within half-an-hour of the time they were
-committed,” replied the man. “But I know nothing of them.”
-
-“I’m convinced of it,” said the officer. “But I should like to hear if
-you met any one you knew in the Park as you were coming away.”
-
-“I only met one man whose name I knew,” said the other, “and that was a
-builder that I have done some jobs for: James Carey is his name.”
-
-This was precisely the one bit of evidence that was required for the
-committal of Carey.
-
-An hour afterwards he offered to turn Queen’s Evidence.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.--IRELAND AS A FIELD FOR REPORTERS.
-
-
-_The humour of the Irish Bench--A circus at Bombay--Mr. Justice
-Lawson--The theft of a pig--“Reasonably suspected”--A prima facie case
-for the prosecution--The defence--The judge’s charge--The scope of a
-judge’s duties in Ireland--Collaring a prisoner--A gross contempt of
-court--How the contempt was purged--The riotous city--The reporter as
-a war correspondent--“Good mixed shooting”--The tram-car driver
-cautioned--The “loot” mistaken for a violin--The arrest in the
-cemetery--Pommelling a policeman--A treat not to be shared--A case of
-discipline--The German infantry--A real grievance--“Palmam qui meruit
-ferat.”_
-
-
-THERE is plenty of light as well as gloom to be found in the law
-courts, especially in Ireland. Until recently, the Irish Bench included
-many humorists. Perhaps the last of the race was Mr. Baron Dowse.
-Reporters were constantly giving me accounts of the brilliant sallies of
-this judge; but I must confess it seemed to me that most of the examples
-which I heard were susceptible of being regarded as evidence of the
-judge’s good memory rather than of his original powers.
-
-Upon one occasion, he complained of the misprints in newspapers, and
-stated that some time before, he had made the quotation in court,
-“Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay,” but the report of
-the case in the newspaper attributed to him the statement, “Better fifty
-years of Europe than a circus at Bombay.”
-
-He omitted giving the name of the paper that had so ill-treated him
-and Lord Tennyson. He had not been a judge for fifteen years without
-becoming acquainted with the rudiments of story-telling.
-
-*****
-
-Mr. Justice Lawson was another Irish judge with a strong vein of humour
-which he sometimes repressed, for I do not think that he took any great
-pleasure in listening to that hearty, spontaneous, and genial outburst
-of laughter that greets every attempt at humour on the part of a judge.
-It is a nasty thing to say, but I do believe that he now and again
-doubted the sincerity of the appreciation of even the junior counsel.
-A reporter who was present at one Cork Assizes when Lawson was at his
-best, told me a story of his charge to a jury which conveys a very good
-idea of what his style of humour was.
-
-A man was indicted for stealing a pig--an animal common in some parts
-of Ireland. He was found driving it along, with no more than the normal
-amount of difficulty which such an operation involves; and on being
-spoken to by the sergeant of constabulary, he stated that he had bought
-the pig in a neighbouring town, and that he had paid a certain specified
-sum for it. On the same evening, however, a report reached the police
-barrack that a pig, the description of which corresponded with the
-recollection which the sergeant retained of the one which he had seen
-some hours before, had been stolen from its home in the neighbourhood.
-The owner was brought face to face with the animal that the sergeant had
-met, and it was identified as the one that had been stolen. The man in
-whose possession the pig was found was again very frank in stating where
-he had bought it; but his second account of the transaction was not
-on all fours with his first, and the person from whom he said he had
-purchased it, denied all knowledge of the sale--in fact, he was able to
-show that he was at Waterford at the time he was alleged to be disposing
-of it.
-
-All these facts were clearly proved; and no attempt was made to
-controvert them in the defence. The counsel for the prisoner admitted
-that the police had a good _prima facie_ case for the arrest of his
-client; there were, undoubtedly, some grounds for suspecting that
-the animal had disappeared from the custody of its owner through the
-instrumentality of the prisoner; but he felt sure that when the jury
-had heard the witnesses for the defence, they would admit that it was
-utterly impossible to conceive the notion that he had had anything
-whatever to do with the matter.
-
-The parish priest was the first witness called, and he stated that he
-had known the prisoner for several years, and had always regarded him as
-a thrifty, sober, hard-working man, adding that he was most regular in
-his attendance to his religious duties. Then the episcopal clergyman
-was examined, and stated that the prisoner was an excellent father and
-a capital gardener; he also knew something about the care of poultry.
-Several of the prisoner’s neighbours testified to his respectability
-and his readiness to oblige them, even at considerable personal
-inconvenience.
-
-After the usual speeches, the judge summed up as follows:--
-
-“Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the evidence in the case, and
-it’s not for me to say that any of it is false. The police sergeant met
-the prisoner driving the stolen pig, and the prisoner gave two different
-accounts as to how it had come into his possession, but neither of these
-accounts could be said to have a particle of truth in it. On the other
-hand, however, you have heard the evidence of the two clergymen, to whom
-the prisoner was well known. Nothing could be more satisfactory than
-the character they gave him. Then you heard the evidence given by the
-neighbours of the prisoner, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me that
-nothing could be more gratifying than the way they all spoke of his
-neighbourly qualities. Now, gentlemen, although no attempt whatever has
-been made by the defence to meet the evidence given for the prosecution,
-yet I feel it necessary to say that it is utterly impossible that you
-should ignore the testimony given as to the character of the prisoner
-by so many witnesses of unimpeachable integrity; therefore, gentlemen,
-I think that the only conclusion you can come to is that the pig was
-stolen by the prisoner and that he is the most amiable man in the County
-Cork.”
-
-*****
-
-Mr. Justice Lawson used to boast that he was the only judge on the
-Bench who had ever arrested a man with his own hand. The circumstances
-connected with this remarkable incident were related to me by a reporter
-who was present in the court when the judge made the arrest.
-
-The _locale_ was the court-house of an assize town in the South of
-Ireland. For several days the Crown had failed to obtain a conviction,
-although in the majority of the cases the evidence was practically
-conclusive; and as each prisoner was either sent back or set free, the
-crowds of sympathisers made an uproar that all the ushers in attendance
-were powerless to suppress. On the fourth day the judge, at the opening
-of the court, called for the County Inspector of Constabulary, and, when
-the officer was brought from the billiard-room of the club, and bustled
-in, all sabre and salute, the judge, in his quiet way, remarked to him,
-“I’m sorry for troubling you, sir, but I just wished to say that as the
-court has been turned into a bear-garden for some hours during the past
-three days, I intend to hold you responsible for the maintenance of
-perfect order to-day. Your duty is to arrest every man, woman, or child
-that makes any demonstration of satisfaction or dissatisfaction at the
-result of the hearing of a case, and to put them in the dock, and give
-evidence as to their contempt of court. I’ll deal with them after that.”
- The officer went down, and orders were given to his men, of whom
-there were about fifty in the court, to arrest any one expressing his
-feelings. The first prisoner to be tried was a man named O’Halloran, and
-his case excited a great deal of interest. The court was crowded to a
-point of suffocation while the judge was summing up, which he did with a
-directness that left nothing to be desired. In five minutes the jury
-had returned a verdict of “Not Guilty.” At that instant a wild “Hurroo!”
- rang through the court. It came from a youth who had climbed a pillar at
-a distance of about a yard from the Bench. In a moment the judge had put
-out his hand and grasped the fellow by the collar; and then, of course,
-the policemen crushed through the crowd, and about a dozen of them
-seized the prehensible legs of the prisoner Stylites.
-
-“One of you will be ample,” said the judge. “Don’t pull the boy to
-pieces; let him down gently.”
-
-This operation was carried out, and the excitable youth was placed in
-the dock, whence the prisoner just tried had stepped.
-
-“Now,” said the judge, “I’m going to make an example of you. You heard
-what I said to the Inspector of Constabulary, and yet I arrested you
-with my own hand in the very act of committing a gross contempt of
-court. I’ll make an example of you for the benefit of others. What’s
-your name?”
-
-“O’Halloran, yer honour,” said the trembling youth.
-
-“Isn’t that the name of the prisoner who has just been tried?” said the
-judge.
-
-“It is, my lord,” replied the registrar.
-
-“Is the last prisoner any relation of yours?” the judge asked of the
-youth in the dock.
-
-“He’s me brother, yer honour,” was the reply.
-
-“Release the boy, and go on with the business of the court,” said the
-judge.
-
-*****
-
-I chanced to be in Belfast at the time of the riots in 1886, and my
-experience of the incidents of every day and every night led me to
-believe that British troops have been engaged in some campaigns that
-were a good deal less risky to war correspondents than the riots were
-to the local newspaper reporters. Six of them were more or less severely
-wounded in the course of a week. I found it necessary, more than once,
-to go through the localities of the disturbances, and I must confess
-that I was always glad when I found myself out of the line of fire. I am
-strongly of the opinion that the reporters should have been paid at the
-ratio of war correspondents at that time. When they engaged themselves
-they could not have contemplated the possibility of being forced daily
-for several weeks to stand up before a fusilade of stones weighing a
-pound or so each, and Martini-Henry bullets, with an occasional iron
-“nut” thrown in to make up weight, as it were. In the words of the
-estate agents’ advertisements, there was a great deal of “good mixed
-shooting” in the streets almost nightly for a month.
-
-Several ludicrous incidents took place while the town was crowded with
-constabulary who had been brought hastily from the country districts. A
-reporter told me that he was the witness of an earnest remonstrance on
-the part of a young policeman with a tram-car driver, whom he advised to
-take his “waggon” down some of the side streets, in order to escape
-the angry crowd that had assembled farther up the road. Upon another
-occasion, a grocer’s shop had been looted by the mob at night, and a
-man had been fortunate enough to secure a fine ham which he was
-endeavouring, but with very partial success, to secrete beneath his
-coat. A whole ham takes a good deal of secreting. The police had orders
-to clear the street, and they were endeavouring to obey these orders.
-The man with the ham received a push on his shoulder, and the policeman
-by whom it was dealt, shouted out in a fine, rich Southern brogue
-(abhorred in Belfast), “Git along wid ye, now thin, you and yer violin.
-Is this any toime for ye to be after lookin’ to foind an awjence? Ye’ll
-get that violin broke, so ye will.”
-
-The man was only too glad to hurry on with his “Strad.” of fifteen
-pounds’ weight, mild-cured. He did not wait to explain that there is a
-difference between the viol and “loot.”
-
-*****
-
-One of the country policemen made an arrest of a man whom he saw in the
-act of throwing a stone, and the next day he gave his evidence at the
-Police Court very clearly. He had ascertained that the scene of the
-arrest was York Street, and he said so; but the street is about a mile
-long, and the magistrate wished to know at what part of it the incident
-had occurred.
-
-“It was just outside the cimitery, yer wash’p,” replied the man.
-
-“The cemetery?” said the magistrate. “But there’s no cemetery in York
-Street.”
-
-“Oh, yes, yer wash’p--there’s a foine cimitery there,” said the
-policeman. “It was was just outside the cimitery I arrested the
-prisoner.”
-
-“It’s the first I’ve heard of a cemetery in that neighbourhood,” said
-the Bench. “Don’t you think the constable is mistaken, sergeant?”
-
-The sergeant put a few questions to the witness, and asked him how he
-knew that the place was a cemetery.
-
-“Why, how would anybody know a cimitery except by the tombstones?” said
-the witness. “I didn’t go for to dig up a corp or two, but there was the
-foinest array of tombstones I ever clapt oyes on.”
-
-“It’s the stonecutter’s yard the man means,” came a voice from the body
-of the court; and in another moment there was a roar of laughter from
-all present.
-
-The arrest had been made outside a stonecutter’s railed yard, and the
-strange policeman had taken the numerous specimens of the proprietor’s
-craft, which were standing around in various stages of progress, for the
-_bona fide_ furnishing of a graveyard.
-
-He was scarcely to be blamed for his error.
-
-*****
-
-I believe that it was during these riots the story originated--it is now
-pretty well known, I think--of the man who had caught a policeman, and
-was holding his head down while he battered him, when a brother rowdy
-rushed up, crying,--
-
-“Who have you there, Bill?”
-
-“A policeman.”
-
-“Hold on, and let me have a thump at him.”
-
-“Git along out of this, and find a policeman for yourself!”
-
-*****
-
-Having referred to the Royal Irish Constabulary, I may not perhaps
-be regarded as more than usually discursive if I add my expression of
-admiration for this splendid Force to the many pages of commendation
-which it has received from time to time from those whose opinion carries
-weight with it--which mine does not. The men are the flower of the
-people of Ireland. They have a _sense_ of discipline--it has not to
-be impressed upon them by an occasional “fortnight’s C.B.” Upon one
-occasion, I was the witness of the extent to which this innate sense of
-discipline will stretch without the breaking strain being reached. One
-of the most distinguished officers in the Force was parading about one
-hundred men armed with the usual carbine--the handiest of weapons--and
-with swords fixed. He was mounted on a charger with some blood in
-it--you would not find the same man astride of anything else--and for
-several days it had been looking down the muzzles of the rifles of a
-couple of regiments of autumn manoeuvrers who had been engaged in a sham
-fight in the Park; but it had never shown the least uneasiness, even
-when the Field Artillery set about the congenial task of annihilating a
-skeleton enemy. It stood patiently while the constabulary “ported,”
- “carried,” and “shouldered”; but so soon as the order to “present” was
-given, a gleam of sunlight glanced down the long line of fixed swords,
-and that twinkle was just what an Irish charger, born and bred among the
-fogs of the Atlantic seaboard, could not stand. It whirled round, and
-went at full gallop across the springy turf, then suddenly stopped,
-sending its rider about twenty yards ahead upon his hands and knees.
-After this feat, it allowed itself to be quietly captured by the mounted
-orderly who had galloped after it. The orderly dismounted from his
-horse, and passed it on to the officer, who galloped back to the long
-line of men standing at the “present” just as they had been before
-he had left them so hurriedly. They received the order to “shoulder”
- without emotion, and then the parade went on as if nothing had happened.
-Subsequently, the officer remounted his own charger--which had been led
-up, and had offered an ample apology--and in course of time he again
-gave the order to “present.” The horse’s ears went back, but it did not
-move a hoof. After the “shoulder” and “port” the officer made the men
-“charge swords,” and did not halt them until they were within a yard of
-the horse’s head. The manouvre had no effect upon the animal.
-
-I could not help contrasting the discipline shown by the Irish
-Constabulary upon this occasion with the bearing of a company of a
-regiment of German Infantry, who were being paraded in the Thiergarten
-at Berlin, when I was riding there one day. The captain and lieutenant
-had strolled away from the men, leaving them standing, not “at ease,”
- but at “attention”--I think the officers were making sure that the
-carriage of the Crown Prince was not coming in their direction. But
-before two minutes had passed the men were standing as easy as could
-well be, chatting together, and suggesting that the officers were
-awaiting the approach of certain young ladies, about whose personal
-traits and whose profession they were by no means reticent. Of course,
-when the officers turned, the men stood at “attention”; but I trotted on
-to where I lived In Den Zelten, feeling that there was but little sense
-of discipline in the German Army--so readily does a young man arrive
-at a grossly erroneous conclusion through generalising from a single
-instance.
-
-*****
-
-It is difficult to understand how it comes that the splendid services
-of the Royal Irish Constabulary have not been recognised by the State.
-I have known officers who served on the staff during the Egyptian
-campaign, but who confessed to me that they never heard a shot fired
-except for saluting purposes, and yet they wore three decorations
-for this campaign. Surely those Irish Constabulary officers, who have
-discharged the most perilous duties from time to time, as well as
-daily duties requiring the exercise of tact, discretion, judgment, and
-patience, are at least as deserving of a medal as those soldiers who
-obtained the maximum of reward at the minimum of risk in Egypt, South
-Africa, or Ashantee. The decoration of the Volunteers was a graceful
-recognition of the spirit that binds together these citizen soldiers.
-Surely the services of some members of the Irish Constabulary should be
-similarly recognised. This is a genuine Irish grievance, and it is one
-that could be redressed much more easily than the majority of the ills
-that the Irish people are heir to. A vote for a thousand pounds would
-purchase the requisite number of medals or stars or crosses--perhaps
-all three might be provided out of such a fund--for those members of the
-Force who have distinguished themselves. The right adjudication of
-the rewards presents no difficulty, owing to the “record” system which
-prevails in the Force.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV.--IRISH TROTTINGS AND JOTTINGS.
-
-
-_Some Irish hotels--When comfort comes in at the door, humour flies
-out by the window--A culinary experience--Plenty of new sensations--A
-kitchen blizzard--How to cook corned beef--A théoriser--Hare soup--A
-word of encouragement--The result--An avenue forty-two miles long--Nuda
-veritas--An uncanny request--A diabolic lunch--A club dinner--The pièce
-de resistance--Not a going concern--A minor prophecy--An easy drainage
-system--Not to be worked by an amateur--Après moi, le deluge--Hot water
-and its accompaniments--The boots as Atropos--A story of Thackeray--A
-young shaver._
-
-
-WHEN writing for an Irish newspaper, I took some pains to point out
-how easily the country might be made attractive to tourists if only the
-hotels were improved. I have had frequent “innings,” and my experiences
-of Irish hotels in various districts where I have shot, or fished, or
-yachted, or boated, would make a pretty thick volume, if recorded. But
-while most of these experiences have some grain of humour in them, that
-humour is of a type that looks best when viewed from a distance. When it
-is first sprung upon him, this Irish fun is not invariably relished by
-the traveller.
-
-Mr. Max O’Rell told me that he liked the Irish hotels at which he had
-sojourned, because he was acknowledged by the _maîtres_ to possess an
-identity that could not be adequately expressed by numerals. But on the
-whole it is my impression that the numerical system is quite tolerable
-if one gets good food and a clean sleeping-place. To be sure there is no
-humour in a comfortable dinner, or a bed that does not require a layer
-of Keating to be spread as a sedative to the army of occupation; still,
-though the story of tough chickens and midnight hunts can be made
-genuinely entertaining, I have never found that these actual incidents
-were in themselves very inspiriting.
-
-A friend of mine who has a capital shooting in a picturesque district,
-was compelled to lodge, and to ask his guests to lodge, at the little
-inn during his first shooting season. Knowing that the appetite of men
-who have been walking over mountains of heather is not usually very
-fastidious, he fancied that the inn cook would be quite equal to the
-moderate demands made upon her skill. The experiment was a disastrous
-one. The more explicit the instructions the woman was given regarding
-the preparation of the game, the more mortifying to the flesh were
-her achievements. There was, it is true, a certain amount of interest
-aroused among us every day as to the form that the culinary whim of the
-cook would assume. The monarch that offered a reward for the discovery
-of a new sensation would have had a good time with us. We had new
-sensations at the dinner hour every day. “Lord, we know what we are,
-but know not what we may be,” was an apothegm that found constant
-illustration when applied to that woman’s methods: we knew that we gave
-her salmon, and grouse, and hare, and snipe; but what was served to us,
-Heaven and that cook only knew--on second thoughts I will leave Heaven
-out of the question altogether. The monstrous originalities, the
-appalling novelties, the confounding of substances, the unnatural daring
-manifested in every day’s dinner, filled us with amazement, but,
-alas! with nothing else. We were living in a sort of perpetual kitchen
-blizzard--in the centre of a culinary chaos. The whirl was too much for
-us.
-
-Our host took upon him to allay the fiend. He sent to the nearest town
-for butcher’s supplies. The first joint that arrived was a fine piece of
-corned beef.
-
-“There, my good woman,” cried our host, putting it into the cook’s
-hands, “I suppose you can cook that, if you can’t cook game.”
-
-“Oh, yes, your honour, it’s misself that can cook it tubbe sure,” she
-cried in her lighthearted way.
-
-She did cook it.
-
-_She roasted it for five hours on a spit in front of the kitchen fire._
-
-As she laid it on the table, she apologised for the unavoidable absence
-of gravy.
-
-It was the driest joint she had ever roasted, she said; and I do believe
-that it was.
-
-*****
-
-One of the party, who had theories on the higher education of women, and
-other methods of increasing the percentage of unmarriageable females,
-said that the cook had never been properly approached. She could not
-be expected to know by intuition that the flavour of salmon trout was
-impaired by being stewed in a cauldron with a hare and many friends, or
-that the prejudices of an effete civilisation did not extend so far
-as to make the boiling of grouse in a pot with bacon a necessity of
-existence. The woman only needed a hint or two and she would be all
-right.
-
-He said he would give her a hint or two. He made soup the basis of his
-first hints.
-
-It was so simple, he said.
-
-He picked up a couple of hares, an old cock grouse and a few snipe, and
-told the woman to put them in a pot, cover them with water, and leave
-them to simmer--“Not to boil, mind; you understand?”--“Oh, tubbe sure,
-sorr,”--for the six hours that we would be on the mountain. He showed
-her how to cut up onions, and they cut up some between them; he then
-taught her how to fry an onion in the most delicate of ribbon-like
-slices for “browning.” All were added to the pot, and our friend joined
-us with a very red face, and carrying about him a flavour of fried
-onions as well defined as a saint’s halo by Fra Angelico. The dogs
-sniffed at him for a while, and so did the keeper.
-
-He declared that the woman was a most intelligent specimen, and quite
-ready to learn. We smiled grimly.
-
-All that day our friend shot nothing. We could see that, like Eugene
-Aram, his thought was otherwhere. We knew that he was thinking over the
-coming soup.
-
-On returning to the inn after a seven hours’ tramp, he hastened to the
-kitchen. A couple of us loitered outside the door, for we felt certain
-that a surprise was awaiting our friend--the pot would have leaked,
-perhaps; but the savoury smell that filled the kitchen and overflowed
-into the lobby and the room where we dined made us aware that everything
-was right.
-
-Our friend turned a stork’s eye into the pot, and then, with a word
-of kind commendation to the cook--“A man’s word of encouragement is
-everything to a woman, my lad, with a wink to me--he called for a pint
-of port wine and placed it handy.
-
-“Now,” said he to the woman, “strain off that soup in a quarter of an
-hour, add that wine, and we’ll show these gentlemen that between us we
-can cook.”
-
-In a quarter of an hour we were sitting round the table. Our friend
-tried to look modest and devoid of all self-consciousness as the woman
-entered with a glow of crimson triumph on her face, and bearing in her
-hands an immense dish with the well-known battered zinc cover concealing
-the contents.
-
-Down went the dish, and up went the cover, disclosing a rugged,
-mountainous heap of the bones of hare, with threads of flesh still
-adhering to them, and the skeletons of some birds.
-
-“Good Lord!” cried our host. “What’s this anyway? The rags of what was
-stewed down for the soup?”
-
-Our theorising friend leapt up.
-
-“Woman,” he shouted, “where the devil is the soup?”
-
-“Sure, didn’t ye bid me strain it off, sorr?” said the woman.
-
-“And where the blazes did you strain it off?” he asked, in an awful
-whisper.
-
-“Why, where should I be after straining it, sorr, but into the bog?” she
-replied.
-
-The bog was an incident of the landscape at the back of the inn.
-
-*****
-
-I recollect that upon the occasion of this shooting party, a new
-under-keeper arrived from Connaught, and I overheard him telling a
-colleague who came from the county Clare, that the avenue leading to his
-last employer’s residence was forty-two miles long.
-
-“By me sowl,” said the Clare man, “it’s not me that would like to be
-set down at the lodge gates on an empty stomach within half-an-hour of
-dinner-time.”
-
-After some further conversation, the Connaught man began to dilate upon
-the splendour of his late master’s family. He reached a truly dramatic
-climax by saying,--
-
-“And every night of their lives at home the ladies strip for dinner.”
-
-“Holy Moses!” was the comment.
-
-“Do your master’s people at home strip for dinner?” enquired the
-Connaught man.
-
-“No; but they link in,” was the thoughtful reply.
-
-Sometimes, it must be acknowledged, an unreasonable strain is put upon
-the resources of an Irish inn by an inconsiderate tourist. Some years
-ago, my brother-in-law, Bram Stoker, was spending his holiday in a
-picturesque district of the south-west. He put up at the usual inn, and
-before leaving for a ramble, oh the morning of his arrival, the cook
-(and waitress) asked him what he would like for lunch. The day was a
-trifle chilly, and, forgetting for the moment that he was not within the
-precincts of the Green-room or the Garrick, he said, “Oh, I think that
-it’s just the day for a devil--yes, I’ll cat a devil at two.”
-
-“Holy Saints!” cried the woman, as he walked off. “What sort of a man is
-that at all, at all? He wants to lunch off the Ould Gentleman.”
-
-The landlord scratched his chin and said that this was the most
-unreasonable demand that had ever been made upon his house. He
-expressed the opinion that the gastronome whose palate was equal to this
-particular _plat_ should seek it elsewhere--he even ventured to specify
-the _locale_ at which the search might appropriately begin with the best
-chances of being realised. His wife, however, took a less despondent
-view of the situation, and suggested that as the powers of exorcising
-the Foul Fiend were delegated to the priest, it might be only reasonable
-to assume that the reverend gentleman would be equal to the much less
-difficult feat involved in the execution of the tourist’s order.
-
-But before the priest had been sent for, the constabulary officer drove
-up, and was consulted on the question that was agitating the household.
-With a roar of laughter, the officer called for a couple of chops and
-the mustard and cayenne pots--he had been there before--and showed the
-cook the way out of her difficulty.
-
-But up to the present hour I hear that that landlord says,--
-
-“By the powers, it’s misself that never knew what a divil was till Mr.
-Stoker came to my house.”
-
-*****
-
-However piquant a comestible the Foul Fiend might be, I believe that
-in point of toughness he would compare favourably with a fully-matured
-swan. Among the delicacies of the table I fear that the swan will not
-obtain great honour, if any dependence may be placed upon a story which
-was told to me at a fishing inn in Connemara, regarding an experiment
-accidentally tried upon such a bird. I repeat the story in this place,
-lest any literary man may be led to pamper a weak digestion by indulging
-in a swan supper. The specimen in question was sent by a gentleman, who
-lived in a stately home in Lincolnshire, as a gift to the Athenæum club,
-of which he was a member. The bird was addressed to the secretary, and
-that gentleman without delay handed it over to the cook to be prepared
-for the table. There was to be a special dinner at the end of the week,
-and the committee thought that a distinctive feature might be made of
-the swan. They were not mistaken. As a _coup d’oil_ the swan, resting
-on a great silver dish, carried to the table by two servitors, could
-scarcely have been surpassed even by the classical peacock or the
-mediaeval boar’s head. The croupier plunged a fork with a steady hand
-into the right part--wherever that was situated--and then attacked the
-breast with his knife. Not the slightest impression could he make upon
-that portion of the mighty structure that faced him. The breast turned
-the edge of the knife; and when the breast did that the people at the
-table began to wonder what the drum-sticks would be like. A stronger
-blade was sent for, and an athlete--he was not a member of the
-Athenæum--essayed to penetrate the skin, and succeeded too, after a
-vigorous struggle. When he had wiped the drops from his brow he went
-at the flesh with confidence in his own powers. By some brilliant
-wrist-practice he contrived to chip a few flakes off, but it soon became
-plain that eating any one of them was out of the question. One might as
-well submit as a _plat_ a drawer of a collector’s geological cabinet.
-The club cook was sent for, and he explained that he had had no previous
-experience of swans, but he considered that the thirteen hours’ boiling
-to which he had submitted the first specimen that had come under his
-notice, all that could reasonably be required by any bird, whether swan
-or cassowary. He thought that perhaps with a circular saw, after a
-steam roller had been passed a few times over the carcass, it might be
-possible....
-
-“Well, I hope you got my swan all right,” said the donor a few days
-after, addressing the secretary.
-
-“That was a nice joke you played on us,” said the secretary.
-
-“Joke? What do you mean?”
-
-“As if you didn’t know! We had the thing boiled for thirteen hours, and
-yet when it was brought to the table we might as well have tried to cut
-through the Rock of Gibraltar with a pocket-knife.”
-
-“What do you mean? You don’t mean to say that you had it cooked?”
-
-“Didn’t you send it to be cooked?”
-
-“Cooked! cooked! Great heavens, man! I sent it to be stuffed and
-preserved as a curiosity in the club. That swan has been in my family
-for two hundred and eighty years. It was one of the identical birds
-fed by the children of Charles I.--you’ve seen the picture of it. My
-ancestor held the post of ‘master of the swans and keeper of the king’s
-cygnets sure.’ It is said that a swan will live for three hundred years
-or thereabouts. And you plucked it, and cooked it! Great heavens! It was
-a bit tough, I suppose?”
-
-“Tough?”
-
-“Yes; I daresay you’d be tough, too, about a.d. 2200. And I thought it
-would look so well in the hall!”
-
-*****
-
-At the same time that the tale just recorded was told to me, I heard
-another Lincolnshire story. I do not suppose that it is new. A certain
-church was situated at a place that was within the sphere of influence
-of some fens when in flood. The consequence was that during a severe
-winter, divine service was held only every second Sunday. Once, however,
-the weather was so bad that the parson did not think it worth his while
-going near the church for five Sundays. This fact came to the ears of
-the Bishop, and he wrote for an explanation. The clergyman replied as
-follows:--
-
-“Your lordship has been quite correctly informed regarding the length of
-the interval that has elapsed since my church was open; but the fact is
-that the devil himself couldn’t get at my parishioners in the winter,
-and I promise your lordship to be before him in the spring.”
-
-*****
-
-That parson took a humbler view of his position and privileges in the
-world than did a Presbyterian minister in Ulster whose pompous way of
-moving and of speaking drew toward him many admirers and imitators. He
-paid a visit to Palestine at one time of his life, and on his return,
-he preached a sermon introducing some of his experiences. Now, the only
-inhabitants of the Holy Land that the majority of travellers can talk
-about are the fleas; but this Presbyterian minister had much to tell
-about all that he had seen. It was, however, only when he began to show
-his flock how strictly the inspiriting prophecies of Jeremiah and Joel
-and the rest had been fulfilled that he proved that he had not visited
-the country in vain.
-
-“My dear friends,” said he, “I read in the Sacred Book the prophecy
-that the land should be in heaps: I looked up from the page, and there,
-before my eyes, were the heaps. I read that the bittern should cry
-there: I looked up; lo! close at hand stood a bittern. I read that the
-Minister of the Lord should mourn there: _I was that minister._”
-
-*****
-
-Upon one occasion, when sojourning at a picturesquely situated Connemara
-inn, hot water was left outside my bedroom door in a handy soup tureen,
-in which there was also a ladle reposing. One morning in the same
-“hotel” I called the attention of the official, who discharged
-(indifferently) the duties of boots and landlord, to the circumstance
-that my bath (recollecting the advertisement of the entertainment which
-it was possible to obtain under certain conditions at the Norwegian inn,
-I had brought the bath with me) had not been emptied since the previous
-day. The man said, “It’s right that you are, sorr,” and forthwith
-remedied the omission by throwing the contents of the bath out of the
-window.
-
-I was so struck by the convenience of this system of main drainage, and
-it seemed so simple, that the next morning, finding that the bath was
-in the same condition as before, I thought to save trouble by performing
-the landlord’s operation for myself. I opened the window and tilted over
-the bath. In a moment there was a yell from below, and the air became
-sulphurous with Celtic maledictions. These were followed by roars of
-laughter in the vernacular, so that I thought it prudent to lower both
-the window and the blind without delay.
-
-“Holy Biddy!” remarked the landlord when I had descended to
-breakfast--not failing to observe that a portly figure was standing in a
-_semi-nude_ condition in front of the kitchen fire, while on the back of
-a chair beside him a black coat was spread-eagled, sending forth a cloud
-of steam--“Holy Biddy, sorr, what was that ye did this morning, anyway?”
-
-“What do you mean, Dennis?” I asked innocently. “I shaved and dressed as
-usual.”
-
-“Ye emptied the tin tub [_i.e_., my zinc bath] out of the windy over
-Father Conn,” replied the landlord. “It’s himself that’s being dried
-this minute before the kitchen fire.”
-
-“I’m very sorry,” said I. “You see, I fancied from the way you emptied
-the bath yesterday that that was the usual way of doing the business.”
-
-“So it is, sorr,” said he. “But you should always be after looking out
-first to see that all’s clear below.”
-
-“Why don’t you have those directions printed and hung up in the
-bedroom?” said I, assuming--as I have always found it safe to do upon
-such occasions--the aggressive tone of the injured party.
-
-“We don’t have so many gentlemen coming here that’s so dirty that they
-need to be washed down every blessed marnin’,” he replied; and I
-thought it better to draw upon my newspaper experience, and quote the
-three-starred admonition, “All communications on this subject must now
-cease.”
-
-However, the trout which were laid on the table in front of me were
-so numerous, and looked so tempting, that I went into the kitchen, and
-after making an elaborate apology to Father Conn, the amiable parish
-priest, for the mishap he had sustained through my ignorance of the
-natural precautions necessary to be taken when preparing my bath,
-insisted on the reverend gentleman’s joining me at breakfast while his
-coat was being dried.
-
-With only a superficial reluctance, he accepted my invitation,
-remarking,--
-
-“I had my own breakfast a couple of hours ago, sir, but in troth I feel
-quite hungry again. Faith, it’s true enough that there’s nothing like a
-morning swim for giving a man an appetite.”
-
-*****
-
-Two lady relatives of mine were on their way to a country house in the
-county Galway, and were compelled to stay for a night at the inn, which
-was a sort of half-way house between the railway station and their
-destination. On being shown to their bedroom while their dinner was
-being made ready, they naturally wished to remove from their faces the
-traces of their dusty drive of sixteen miles, so one of them bent over
-the banisters--there was no bell in the room, of course--and inquired if
-the servant would be good enough to carry upstairs some hot water.
-
-“Surely, miss,” the servant responded from below.
-
-In a few minutes, the door of the bedroom was knocked at, and the woman
-entered, bearing in her hand a tray with two glasses, a saucer of loaf
-sugar, a lemon, a ladle, and a small jug of hot water.
-
-It appeared that in this district the use of hot water is unknown
-except as an accompaniment to whisky, a lemon, and a lump of sugar. The
-combination of the four is said to be both palatable and popular.
-
-*****
-
-It was at a much larger and more pretentious establishment in the
-south-west that I was staying when a box of books arrived for me from
-the library of Messrs. Eason & Son. It was tied with stout, tough cord,
-about as thick as one’s little finger. I was in the act of dressing when
-the boots brought up the box, so I asked him to open it for me. The man
-fumbled for some time at the knot, and at last he said he would have to
-cut the cord.
-
-When I had rubbed the soap out of my eyes,
-
-I noticed him in the act of sawing through the tough cord with one of my
-razors which I had laid on the dressing-table after shaving.
-
-“Stop, stop,” I shouted. “Man, do you know that that’s a razor?”
-
-“Oh, it’ll do well enough for this, sir. I’ve forgot my knife
-downstairs,” said the man complacently.
-
-If the razor did for the operation, the operation certainly did for the
-razor.
-
-*****
-
-And here I am led to recall a story told to me by the late Dr. George
-Crowe, the husband of Miss Bateman, the distinguished actress, and
-brother to Mr. Eyre Crowe, A.R.A. It will be remembered by all who are
-familiar with the chief incidents in the life of Thackeray, that in 1853
-he adopted Miss Amy Crowe (her father, an historian and journalist of
-eminence in his day, had been one of the novelist’s closest friends),
-and she became one of the Thackeray household. Her brother George was
-at school, but he had “the run of the house,” so to speak, in Onslow
-Square. Next to the desire to become an expert smoker, the desire to
-become an accomplished shaver is, I think, the legitimate aspiration
-of boyhood; and George Crowe had his longings in this direction,
-when examining Thackeray’s razors with the other contents of his
-dressing-room one day. The means of gratifying such an aspiration are
-(fortunately) not invariably within the reach of most boys, and young
-Crowe was not exceptionally situated in this matter. The same spirit
-of earnest investigation, however, which had led him to discover
-the razors, caused him to find in one of the garrets an old but
-well-preserved travelling trunk, bound with ox-hide, and studded with
-brass nails. To spread a copious lather over a considerable part of the
-lid, and to set about the removal, by the aid of a razor, of the hair of
-the ox-hide, occupied the boy the greater part of an afternoon.
-Though not exactly so good as the real operation, this shave was, he
-considered, a move in the right direction; and it was certainly better
-than nothing at all. By a singular coincidence, it was about this time
-that Thackeray began to complain of the difficulty of putting an edge
-upon his razors, and to inquire if any one had been at the case where
-they were kept. Of course, no one except the boy knew anything about the
-business, and he, for prudential reasons, preserved silence. The area
-of the ox-hide that still remained hirsute was pretty extensive, and he
-foresaw many an hour of fearful joy, such as he had already tasted in
-the garret. Twice again he lathered and shaved at the ox-hide; but the
-third attempt was not a success, owing to the sudden appearance of the
-housekeeper, who led the boy to the novelist’s study and gave evidence
-against him, submitting as proofs the razor, the shaving-brush, and a
-portion of George Crowe’s thumb which he had inadvertently sliced off.
-Thackeray rose from his desk and mounted the stairs to the garret;
-and when the housekeeper followed, insisting on the boy’s accompanying
-her--probably on the French principle of confronting a murderer with the
-body of his victim--Thackeray was found seated on an unshaved portion of
-the trunk, and roaring with laughter.
-
-So soon as he had recovered, he shook his finger at the delinquent (who,
-twenty-five years afterwards, told me the story), and merely said:
-
-“George, I see clearly that in future I’ll have to buy my trunks bald.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI.--IRISH TOURISTS AND TRAINS.
-
-
-_The late Emperor of Brazil--An incredulous hotel manager--The surprised
-A.R.A.--The Emperor as an early riser--The habits of the English
-actor--A new reputation--Signor Ciro Pinsuti--The Prince of
-Bohemia--Treatment au prince--The bill--An Oriental prince--An ideal
-costume for a Scotch winter--Its subsequent modification--The
-royal sleeping-place--Trains and Irish humour--The courteous
-station-master--The sarcasm of the travellers--“Punctually seven minutes
-late”--Not originally an Irishman--The time of departure of the 7.45
-train--Brahke, brake, brake--The card-players--Possibility of their
-deterioration--The dissatisfied passenger--Being in a hurry he threatens
-to walk--He didn’t--He wishes he had._
-
-
-ONCE I was treated very uncivilly at an hotel in the North of Ireland,
-and as the occasion was one upon which I was, I believed, entitled to be
-dealt with on terms of exceptional courtesy, I felt the slight all the
-more deeply. The late Emperor of Brazil, in yielding to his desire to
-see everything in the world that was worth seeing, had appeared suddenly
-in Ireland. I had had the privilege of taking tiffin with His Majesty
-aboard a man-of-war at Rio Janeiro some years previously, and on calling
-upon him in London upon the occasion of his visit to England, I found to
-my surprise that he remembered the incident. He asked me to go with him
-to the Giant’s Causeway, and I promised to do so if he did not insist on
-starting before sunrise,--he was the earliest riser I ever met. His
-idea was that we could leave Belfast in the morning, travel by rail
-to Portrush (sixty-seven miles distant), drive along the coast to the
-Giant’s Causeway (eight miles), and return to Belfast in time to catch
-the train which left for Dublin at three o’clock.
-
-This programme was actually carried out. On entering the hotel at
-Portrush--we arrived about eight in the morning--I hurried to the
-manager.
-
-“I have brought the Emperor of Brazil to breakfast,” said I, “so that
-if you could let us have the dining-room to ourselves I should be much
-obliged to you.”
-
-“Who is it that you say you’ve brought?” asked the manager sleepily.
-
-“The Emperor of Brazil,” I replied promptly.
-
-“Come now, clear off out of this, you and your jokes,” said the manager.
-“I’ve been taken in before to-day. You’ll need to get up earlier in the
-morning if you want to do it again. The Emperor of Brazil indeed! It’ll
-be the King of the Cannibal Islands next!”
-
-I felt mortified, and so, I fancy, did the manager shortly afterwards.
-
-Happily the hotel is now managed by the railway company, and is one of
-the best in all Ireland.
-
-*****
-
-I fared better in this matter than the messenger who hurried to the
-residence of a painter, who is now a member of the Royal Academy, to
-announce his election as Associate in the days of Sir Francis Grant. It
-is said that the painter felt himself to be so unworthy of the honour
-which was being thrust upon him, that believing that he perceived an
-attempt on the part of some of his brother-artists to make him the
-victim of a practical joke, he promptly kicked the messenger downstairs.
-
-The manager of the hotel did not quite kick me out when I explained to
-him that his house was to be honoured by the presence of an Emperor, but
-he looked as if he would have liked to do so.
-
-Regarding the early rising of the Emperor Dom Pedro II., several amusing
-anecdotes were in circulation in London upon the occasion of his first
-visit. One morning he had risen, as usual, about four o’clock, and was
-taking a stroll through Covent Garden market, when he came face to face
-with three well-known actors, who were returning to their rooms after
-a quiet little supper at the Garrick Club. The Emperor inquired who
-the gentlemen were, and he was told. For years afterwards he was, it
-is said, accustomed to declare that the only men he met in England who
-seemed to believe with him that the early morning was the best part
-of the day, were the actors. The most distinguished members of the
-profession were, he said, in the habit of rising between the hours of
-three and four every morning during the summer.
-
-*****
-
-A story which tends to show that in some directions, at any rate,
-in Ireland the hotel proprietors are by no means wanting in
-courtesy towards distinguished strangers, even when travelling in
-an unostentatious way, was told to me by the late Ciro Pinsuti, the
-well-known song writer, at his house in Mortimer Street. (When he
-required any changes in the verses of mine which he was setting, he
-invariably anticipated my objections by a story, told with admirable
-effect.) It seems that Pinsuti was induced some years before to take a
-tour to the Killarney Lakes. On arriving at the hotel where he had been
-advised to put up, he found that the house was so crowded he had to
-be content with a sort of china closet, into which a sofa-bed had been
-thrust. The landlord was almost brusque when he ventured to protest
-against the lack of accommodation, but subsequently a compromise was
-effected, and Pinsuti strolled away along the lakes.
-
-On returning he found in the hall of the hotel the genial nobleman who
-was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and an old London friend of Pinsuti’s.
-He was on a visit to the Herberts of Muckross, and attended only by his
-son and one aide-de-camp.
-
-Now, at one time the same nobleman had been in the habit of contracting
-Pinsuti’s name, when addressing him, into “Pince”; in the course of time
-this became improved into “Prince”; and for years he was never addressed
-except in this way; so that when he entered the hall of the hotel, His
-Excellency lifted up his hands and cried,--
-
-“Why, Prince, who on earth would have fancied meeting you here of all
-places in the world?”
-
-Pinsuti explained that he had merely crossed the Channel for a day or
-two, and that he was staying at the hotel.
-
-“Come along then, and we’ll have lunch together,” said the Lord
-Lieutenant; and Pinsuti forthwith joined the Viceregal party.
-
-But when luncheon was over, and the Viceroy was strolling through the
-grounds for a smoke by the side of the musician, the landlord approached
-His Excellency’s son, saying,--
-
-“I beg your lordship’s pardon, but may I ask who the Prince is that
-lunched with you and His Excellency?”
-
-“What Prince?” said Lord Ernest, somewhat puzzled.
-
-“Yes, my lord; I heard His Excellency address him as Prince more than
-once,” said the landlord.
-
-Then Lord Ernest, perceiving the ground for a capital joke, said,--
-
-“Oh, the Prince--yes, to be sure; I fancied you knew him. Prince! yes,
-that’s the Prince of Bohemia.”
-
-“The Prince of Bohemia! and I’ve sent him to sleep on an iron chair-bed
-in a china closet!” cried the landlord.
-
-Lord Ernest looked grave.
-
-“I wouldn’t have done that if I had been you,” he said, shaking his
-head. “You must try and do better for him than that, my man.” Shortly
-afterwards the Viceregal party drove off, and then the landlord
-approached Pinsuti, and bowing to the ground, said,--
-
-“I must humbly apologise to your Royal Highness for not having a
-suitable room for your Royal Highness in the morning; but now I’m proud
-to say that I have had prepared an apartment which will, I trust, give
-satisfaction.”
-
-“What do you mean by Highnessing me, my good man?” asked Pinsuti.
-
-“Ah,” said the landlord, smiling and bowing, “though it may please your
-Royal Highness to travel _incognito_, I trust I know what is due to your
-exalted station, sir.”
-
-For the next two days Pinsuti was, he told me, treated with an amount of
-respect such as he had never before experienced. A waiter was specially
-told off to attend to him, and every time he passed the landlord the
-latter bowed in his best style.
-
-It was, however, an American lady tourist who held an informal meeting
-in the drawingroom of the hotel, at which it was agreed that no one
-should be seated at the _table d’hote_ until the Prince of Bohemia had
-entered and taken his place.
-
-On the morning of his departure he found, waiting to take him to the
-railway station, a carriage drawn by four horses. Out to this he passed
-through lines of bowing tourists--especially Americans.
-
-“It was all very nice, to be sure,” said Pinsuti, in concluding his
-narrative; “but the bill I had to pay was not so gratifying. However,
-one cannot be a Prince, even of Bohemia, without paying for it.”
-
-This story more than neutralises, I think, the impression likely to be
-produced by the account of the insolence of the official at the northern
-hotel. Universal civility may be expected even at the largest and
-best-appointed hotels in Ireland.
-
-*****
-
-As I have somehow drifted into these anecdotes about royal personages,
-at the risk of being considered digressive--an accusation which I
-spurn--I must add one curious experience which some relations of mine
-had of a genuine prince. My cousin, Major Wyllie, of the Madras Staff
-Corps, had been attached to the prince’s father, who was a certain
-rajah, and had been the instrument employed by the Government for giving
-him some excellent advice as to the course he should adopt if he were
-desirous of getting the Star which it was understood he was coveting.
-The rajah was anxious to have his heir, a boy of twelve, educated in
-England, and he wished to find for him a place in a family where his
-morals--the rajah was great on morals--would be properly looked after;
-so he sought the advice of Major Wyllie on this important subject. After
-some correspondence and much persuasion on the part of the potentate, my
-cousin consented to send the youth to his father’s house near Edinburgh.
-The rajah was delighted, and promised to have an outfit prepared for his
-son without delay. The result of the consultation which he had with some
-learned members of his _entourage_ on the subject of the costume daily
-worn in Edinburgh by gentlemen, was peculiar. I am of the opinion that
-some of its distinctive features must have been exaggerated, while the
-full value of others cannot have been assigned to them; for the young
-prince submitted himself for the approval of Major Wyllie, and some
-other officers of the Staff, wearing a truly remarkable dress. His boots
-were of the old Hessian pattern, with coloured silk tassels all round
-the uppers. His knees were bare, but just above them the skirt of a kilt
-flowed, in true Scotch fashion, only that the material was not cloth but
-silk, and the colours were not those of any known tartan, but simply a
-brilliant yellow. The coat was of blue velvet, crusted with jewels, and
-instead of the flowing shoulder-pieces, there hung down a rich mantle
-of gold brocade. The crowning incident of this ideal costume of an
-unobtrusive Scotch gentleman whose aim is to pass through the streets
-without attracting attention, was a crimson velvet glengarry cap worn
-over a white turban, and containing three very fine ostrich feathers of
-different, colours, fastened by a diamond aigrette.
-
-Yes, the consensus of opinion among the officers was that the rajah had
-succeeded wonderfully in giving prominence to the chief elements of the
-traditional Scottish national dress, without absolutely extinguishing
-every spark of that orientalism to which the prince had been accustomed.
-It was just the sort of costume that a simple body would like to wear
-daily, walking down Prince’s Street, during an inclement winter, they
-said. There was no attempt at ostentation about it; its beauty consisted
-in its almost Puritan simplicity; and there pervaded it a note of that
-sternness which marks the character of the rugged North Briton.
-
-The rajah was delighted with this essay of his advisers at making a
-consistent blend of Calicut and Caledonia in _modes_; but somehow the
-prince arrived in Scotland in a tweed suit.
-
-*****
-
-I afterwards heard that on the first morning after the arrival of the
-prince at his temporary home, he was missing. His bed showed no signs of
-having been slept in during the night; but the eiderdown quilt was not
-to be seen. It was only about the breakfast hour that the butler found
-His Highness, wrapped in the eiderdown quilt, _under the bed._
-
-He had occupied a lower bunk in a cabin aboard the P. & O. steamer on
-the voyage to England, and he had taken it for granted that the sleeping
-accommodation in the house where he was an honoured guest was of the
-same restricted type. He had thus naturally crept under the bed, so
-that some one else might enjoy repose in the upper and rather roomier
-compartment.
-
-*****
-
-The transition from Irish inns to Irish railways is not a violent one.
-On the great trunk lines the management is sufficiently good to present
-no opportunities for humorous reminiscences. It is with railways as with
-hotels: the more perfectly appointed they are, the less humorous are the
-incidents associated with them in the recollection of a traveller. It is
-safe to assume that, as a general rule, native wit keeps clear of a line
-of rails. Mr. Baring Gould is good enough to explain, in his “Strange
-Survivals and Superstitions,” that the fairy legend is but a shadowy
-tradition of the inhabitants during the Stone Age; and he also explains
-how it came about that iron was accepted as a potent agent for driving
-away these humorous folk. The iron road has certainly driven the witty
-aborigines into the remote districts of Ireland. A railway guard has
-never been known to convulse the passengers with his dry wit as he snips
-their tickets, nor do the clerks at the pigeon-holes take any particular
-trouble to Hash out a _bon mot_ as one counts one’s change. The man who,
-after pouring out the thanks of the West for the relief meal given to
-the people during the last failure of the potato and every other
-crop, said, “Troth, if it wasn’t for the famine we’d all be starving
-entirely,” lived far from the sound of the whistle of an engine.
-
-Still, I have now and again come upon something on an Irish railway that
-was droll by reason of its incongruity. There was a station-master at a
-small town on an important line, who seemed a survival of the leisurely
-days of our grandfathers. He invariably strolled round the carriages
-to ask the passengers if they were quite comfortable, just as the
-conscientious head waiter at the “_Trois Frères_” used to do in respect
-of his patrons. He would suggest here and there that a window might
-be closed, as the morning air was sometimes very treacherous. He even
-pressed foot-warmers upon the occupants of the second-class carriages.
-He was the friend of all the matrons who were in the habit of travelling
-by the line, and he inquired after their numerous ailments (including
-babies), and listened with dignified attention while they told him
-all that should be told in public--sometimes a trifle more. A medical
-student would learn as much about a very interesting branch of the
-profession through paying attention to the exchange of confidences
-at that station, as he would by walking the hospitals for a year. The
-station-master was greatly looked up to by agriculturists, and it was
-commonly reported that there was no better judge of the weather to be
-found in the immediate neighbourhood of the station.
-
-It was really quite absurd to hear English commercial travellers
-and other persons in the train, who had not become aware of the good
-qualities of this most estimable man, grumbling because the train
-usually remained at this platform for ten minutes instead of the two
-minutes allotted to it in the “A B C.” The engine-drivers, it was said,
-also growled at being forced to run the twenty miles on either side of
-this station at as fast a rate as forty miles an hour, instead of the
-thirty to which they had accustomed themselves, to save their time. The
-cutting remarks of the impatient passengers made no impression upon him.
-
-“Look here, station-master,” cried a commercial gentleman one day when
-the official had come across quite an unusual number of acquaintances,
-“is there a breakdown on the line?”
-
-“I don’t know indeed, sir, but I’ll try and find out for you,” said the
-station-master blandly. He went off hurriedly (for him), and did not
-return for five minutes.
-
-“I’ve telegraphed up the line, sir,” said he to the gentleman, who only
-meant to be delicately sarcastic, “and I’m happy to assure you that
-no information regarding a breakdown has reached any of the principal
-stations. It has been raining at Ballynamuck, but I don’t think it will
-continue long. Can I do anything more for you, sir?”
-
-“No, thank you,” said the commercial gentleman meekly.
-
-“I can find out for you if the Holyhead steamer has had a good passage,
-if you don’t mind waiting for a few minutes,” suggested the official.
-“What! you are anxious to get on? Certainly, sir; I’ll tell the guard.
-Good morning, sir.”
-
-When the train was at last in motion a wiry old man in a corner pulled
-out his watch, and then turned to the commercial traveller.
-
-“Are you aware, sir,” he said tartly, “that your confounded inquiries
-kept us back just seven minutes? You should have some consideration for
-your fellow-passengers, let me tell you, sir.”
-
-A murmur of assent went round the compartment.
-
-*****
-
-Upon another occasion a passenger, on arriving at the station over whose
-destinies this courteous official presided, put his head out of the
-carriage window, and inquired if the train had arrived punctually.
-
-“Yes, sir,” replied the station-master, “very punctually: seven minutes
-late to a second.”
-
-Upon another occasion I heard him say to an inquirer,--
-
-“Oh no, sir; I wasn’t originally an Irishman. I am one now, however.”
-
-*****
-
-“By heavens!” said some one at the further end of the compartment, “that
-reply removes all doubt on the subject.”
-
-Several years ago I was staying at Lord Avonmore’s picturesque lodge at
-the head of Lough Dearg. A fellow-guest received a telegram one Sunday
-afternoon which compelled his immediate departure, and seeing by the
-railway time-table that a train left the nearest station at 7.45, we
-drove in shortly before that hour. There was, however, no sign of life
-on the little platform up to 7.50. Thereupon my friend became anxious,
-and we hunted in every direction for even the humblest official. After
-some trouble we found a porter asleep on a pile of cushions in the
-lamp-room. We roused him and said,--
-
-“There’s a train marked on the time-table to leave here at 7.45, but
-it’s now 7.50, and there’s no sign of a train. What time may we expect
-it?”
-
-“I don’t know, sir, for myself.” said the porter, “but I’ll ask the
-station-master.”
-
-We followed him down the platform, and then a man, in his shirt sleeves,
-came out of an office.
-
-“Mr. O’Flaherty,” cried the porter, “here’s two gentlemen that wants to
-know, if you please, at what o’clock the 7.45 train leaves.”
-
-“It leaves at eight on weekdays and a quarter past eight on Sundays,”
- was the thoughtful reply.
-
-*****
-
-It is reported that on the same branch, an engine-driver, on reaching
-the station more than usually behind his time, declared that he had
-never known “herself”--meaning the engine--to be so sluggish before. She
-needed a deal of rousing before he could get any work whatever out of
-her, he said; and she had pulled up at the platform without a hand being
-put to the brake. When he tried to start the engine again he failed
-utterly in his attempt. She had “rusted,” he said, and when an engine
-rusted she was more stubborn than any horse.
-
-It was a passenger who eventually suggested that perhaps if the brakes
-were turned off, the engine might have a better chance of doing its
-work.
-
-This suggestion led to an examination of the brake wheels of the engine.
-
-“By me sowl, that’s a joke!” said the engine-driver. “If I haven’t been
-driving her through the county Tipperary with the brakes on!”
-
-And so he had.
-
-*****
-
-On a branch line farther north the official staff were said to be so
-extremely fond of the Irish National game of cards--it is called “Spoil
-Five”--that the guard, engine-driver, and stoker invariably took a hand
-at it on the tool-box on the tender--a poor substitute for a table, the
-guard explained to an interested passenger who made inquiries on the
-subject, but it served well enough at a pinch, and it was not for him to
-complain. He was right: it was for the passengers to complain, and
-some of them did so; and a remonstrance was sent to the staff which
-practically amounted to a prohibition of any game of cards on the engine
-when the train was in motion. It was very reasonably pointed out by
-the manager that, unless the greatest watchfulness were observed by the
-guard, he might, when engaged at the game, allow the train to run past
-some station at which it was advertised to stop--as a matter of fact
-this had frequently occurred. Besides, the manager said, persistence in
-the practice under the conditions just described could not but tend to
-the deterioration of the staff as card-players; so he trusted that they
-would see that it was advisable to give their undivided attention to
-their official duties.
-
-The staff cheerfully acquiesced, admitting that now and again it was a
-great strain upon them to recollect what cards were out, and at the same
-time what was the name of the station just passed. The fact that the
-guard had been remiss enough, on throwing down the hand that had just
-been dealt to him on the arrival of the train at Ballycruiskeen, to walk
-down the platform crying out “Hearts is thrumps!” instead of the name of
-the station, helped to make him at least see the wisdom of the manager’s
-remonstrance; and no more “Spoil Five” was played while the engine was
-in motion.
-
-But every time the train made a stoppage, the cards were shuffled on the
-engine, and the station-master for the time being took a hand, as well
-as any passenger who had a mind to contribute to the pool. Now and
-again, however, a passenger turned up who was in a hurry to get to his
-journey’s end, and made something of a scene--greatly to the annoyance
-of the players, and the couple of policemen, and the porter or two,
-who had the _entrée_ to the “table.” Upon one occasion such a passenger
-appeared, and, in considerable excitement, pointed out that the train
-had taken seventy-five minutes to do eight miles. He declared that this
-was insufferable, and that, sooner than stand it any longer, he would
-walk the remainder of the distance to his destination.
-
-He was actually showing signs of carrying out his threat, when the guard
-threw down his hand, dismounted from the engine and came behind him.
-
-“Ah, sir, you’ll get into the train again, won’t you?” said he.
-
-“No, I’ll be hanged if I will,” shouted the passenger. “I’ve no time to
-waste, I’ll walk.”
-
-“Ah, no, sir; you’ll get into the train. Do, sir; and you’ll be at
-the end of the journey every bit as soon as if you walked,” urged the
-official.
-
-His assurance on this point prevailed, and the passenger returned to
-his carriage. But unless the speed upon that occasion was a good
-deal greater than it was when I travelled over the same line, it is
-questionable if he would not have been on the safe side in walking.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII--HONORARY EDITORS AND OTHERS.
-
-
-_Our esteemed correspondent--The great imprinted--Lord Tennyson’s
-death--“Crossing the Bar”--Why was it never printed in its
-entirety?--The comments on the poem--Who could the Pilot have
-been?--Pilot or pilot engine?--A vexed and vexing question--Erroneous
-navigation--Tennyson’s voyage with Mr. Gladstone--Its far-reaching
-results--Tennyson’s interest in every form of literary work--“My
-Official Wife”--Amateur critics--The Royal Dane--Edwin Booth and
-his critic--A really comic play--An Irving enthusiast--“Gemini and
-Virgo”--“Our sincerest laughter”--The drollest of soliloquies--“Eugene
-Aram” for the hilarious--The proof of a sincere devotion._
-
-
-THE people who spend their time writing letters to newspapers pointing
-out mistakes, or what they imagine to be mistakes, and making many
-suggestions as to how the newspaper should be conducted in all its
-departments, constitute a branch of the profession of philanthropy, to
-which sufficient attention has never been given.
-
-I do not, of course, allude to the type whom Mr. George Du Maurier
-derided when he put the phrase _J’écrirai à le Times_ into his mouth on
-being compelled to pay an extravagant bill at a French hotel; there are
-people who have just grievances to expose, and there are newspapers
-that exist for the dissemination of those grievances; but it is an
-awful thought that at this very moment there are some hundreds--perhaps
-thousands--of presumably sane men and women sitting down and writing
-letters to their local newspapers to point out to the management that
-the jeu d’esprit attributed in yesterday’s issue to Sydney Smith,
-was one of which Douglas Jerrold was really the author; or that the
-quotation about the wind being tempered to the shorn lamb is not to
-be found in the Bible, but in “the works of the late Mr. Sterne”; or
-perhaps suggesting that no country could rightly be regarded as exempted
-from the list of lands forming a legitimate sphere for missionary
-labour, whose newspapers give up four columns daily to an account of the
-horse-racing of the day before. A book might easily be written by
-any one who had some experience, not of the letters that appear in a
-newspaper, but of those that are sent to the editor by enthusiasts on
-the subject of finance, morality, religion, and the correct text of some
-of Burns dialect poems.
-
-When Lord Tennyson died, I printed five columns of a biographical and
-critical sketch of the great poet. I thought it necessary to quote only
-a single stanza of “Crossing the Bar.” During the next clay I received
-quite a number of letters asking in what volume of Tennyson’s works the
-poem was to be found. In the succeeding issue of the paper I gave
-the poem in full. From that day on during the next fortnight, no post
-arrived without bringing me a letter containing the same poem, with a
-request to have it published in the following issue; and every writer
-seemed to be under the impression that he (or she) had just discovered
-“Crossing the Bar.” Then the clergymen who forwarded in manuscript the
-sermons which they had preached on Tennyson, pointing out the “lessons”
- of his poems, presented their compliments and requested the insertion of
-“Crossing the Bar,” _in its entirety_, in the place in the sermons where
-they had quoted it. All this time “poems” on the death of Tennyson kept
-pouring in by the hundred, and I can safely say that not one came under
-my notice that did not begin,
-
-               “Yes, thou hast cross’d the Bar, and face to face
-
-                        Thy Pilot seen,”
-
-or with words to that effect.
-
-After this had been going on for some weeks a member of the
-proprietorial household came to me with a letter open in his hand.
-
-“I wonder how it was that we missed that poem of Tennyson’s.” said
-he. “It would have done well, I think, if it had been published in our
-columns at his death.”
-
-“What poem is that?” I inquired.
-
-“This is it,” he replied, offering me the letter which he held. “A
-personal friend of my own sends it to me for insertion. It is called
-‘Crossing the Bar.’ Have you ever seen it before?”
-
-The aggregate thickness of skull of the proprietorial household was
-phenomenal.
-
-*****
-
-When writing on the subject of this poem I may perhaps be permitted to
-express the opinion, that the remarks made about it in some directions
-were the most astounding that ever appeared in print respecting a
-composition of the character of “Crossing the Bar.”
-
-One writer, it may be remembered, took occasion to point out that the
-“Pilot” was, of course, the poet’s son, by whom he had been predeceased.
-The “thought” was, we were assured, that his son had gone before him to
-show him the direction to take, so to speak. Now whatever the “thought”
- of the poet was, the thought of this commentator converged not upon a
-pilot but a pilot-engine.
-
-Then another writer was found anxious to point out that Tennyson’s
-navigation was defective. “What would be the use of a pilot when the bar
-was already crossed?” was the question asked by this earnest inquirer.
-This gentleman’s idea clearly was that Tennyson should have subjected
-himself to a course of Mr. Clark Russell before attempting to write such
-a poem as “Crossing the Bar.”
-
-*****
-
-The fact was that Tennyson knew enough navigation for a poet, just as
-Mr. Gladstone knows enough for a premier. When the two most picturesque
-of Englishmen (assuming that Mr. Gladstone is an Englishman) took their
-cruise together in a steam yacht they kept their eyes open, I have
-good reason to know. I question very much if the most ideal salt in the
-mercantile marine could make a better attempt to describe some incidents
-of the sea than Tennyson did in “Enoch Arden”; and as the Boston
-gentleman was doubtful if more than six men in his city could write
-“Hamlet,” so I doubt if the same number of able-bodied seamen, whose
-command of emphatic language is noted, could bring before our eyes the
-sight, and send rushing through our ears the sound, of a breaking wave,
-with greater emphasis than Tennyson did when he wrote,--
-
-                   “As the crest of some slow-arching wave
-
-               Heard in dead night along that table-shore
-
-               Drops flat; and after the great waters break,
-
-               Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves
-
-               Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud
-
-               From less and less to nothing.’’
-
-It was after he had returned from his last voyage with Mr. Gladstone
-that Tennyson wrote “Crossing the Bar.”
-
-It was after Mr. Gladstone had returned from the same voyage that he
-consolidated his reputation as a statesman by a translation of “Rock of
-Ages” into Italian. He then made Tennyson a peer.
-
-Perhaps it may not be considered an impertinence on my part if I give,
-in this place, an instance, which came under my notice, of the eclectic
-nature of Lord Tennyson’s interest in even the least artistic branches
-of literary work. A relative of mine went to Aldworth to lunch with the
-family of the poet only a few weeks before his death saddened every home
-in England. Lord Tennyson received his guest in his favourite room;
-he was seated on a sofa at a window overlooking the autumn russet
-landscape, and he wore a black velvet coat, which made his long delicate
-fingers seem doubly pathetic in their worn whiteness. He had been
-reading, and laid down the book to greet his visitor. This book was “My
-Official Wife.”
-
-Now the author of the story so entitled is not the man to talk of his
-“Art,” as so many inferior writers do, in season and out of season.
-He knows that his stories are no more deserving of being regarded as
-high-class literature than is the scrappy volume at which I am now
-engaged. He knows, however, that he is an excellent exponent of a form
-of art that interests thousands of people on both sides of the Atlantic;
-and the fact that Tennyson was able to read such a story as “My Official
-Wife” seems to me to show how much the poet was interested in a very
-significant phase of the constantly varying taste of the great mass of
-English readers.
-
-It is the possession of such a sympathetic nature as this that prevents
-a man from ever growing old. Mr. Gladstone also seems to read everything
-that comes in his way, and he is never so busy as to be unable to snatch
-a moment to write a word of kindly commendation upon an excessively dull
-book.
-
-*****
-
-It is not only upon the occasion of the death of a great man or a prince
-that some people are obliging enough to give an editor a valuable hint
-or two as to the standpoint from which the character of the deceased
-should be judged. They now and again express themselves with great
-freedom on the subject of living men, and are especially frank in
-their references to the private lives of the best-known and most highly
-respected gentlemen. It is, however, the performances of actors that
-form the most fruitful subject of irresponsible comment for “outsiders.”
- It has often seemed to me that every man has his own idea of the way
-“Hamlet” should be represented. When I was engaged in newspaper work
-I found that every new representation of the play was received by some
-people as the noblest effort to realise the character, while others were
-of the opinion that the actor might have found a more legitimate subject
-than this particular play for burlesque treatment. Mr. Edwin Booth once
-told me a story--I dare say it may be known in the United States--that
-would tend to convey the impression that the study of Hamlet has made
-its way among the coloured population as well as the colourless--if
-there are any--of America.
-
-Mr. Booth said that he was acting in New Orleans, and when at the hotel,
-his wants were enthusiastically attended to by a negro waiter. At every
-meal the man showed his zeal in a very marked way, particularly by never
-allowing another waiter to come within hailing distance of his chair.
-Such attention, the actor thought, should be rewarded, so he asked
-Caractacus if he would care to have an order for the theatre. The waiter
-declared that if he only had the chance of seeing Mr. Booth on the
-stage, he (the waiter) would die happy when his time came. The actor at
-once gave him an order for the same night, and the next morning he found
-the man all teeth and eyes behind his chair.
-
-“Well, Caractacus, did you manage to go to the theatre last night?”
- asked Booth.
-
-“Didn’t I jus’, Massa Boove,” cried the waiter beaming.
-
-“And how did you enjoy the piece?”
-
-“Jus’ lubly, sah; nebber onjoyed moself so well--it kep’ me in a roar o’
-larfta de whole ebening, sah. Oh, Massa Boove, you was too funny.”
-
-The play that had been performed was _Hamlet._
-
-*****
-
-I chanced to be residing for a time in a large manufacturing town which
-Mr. Irving visited when “touring” some twelve years ago. In that town an
-enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Irving’s lived, and he was, with Mr. Irving
-and myself, a guest of the mayor’s at a dinner party on one Sunday
-night. In the drawing-room of the mayoress the great actor repeated
-his favourite poem--“Gemini and Virgo,” from Calverley’s “Verses and
-Translations,” dealing with inimitable grace with the dainty humour of
-this exquisite trifle; and naturally, every one present was delighted.
-For myself I may say that, frequently though I had heard Mr. Irving
-repeat the verses.
-
-I felt that he had never before brought to bear upon them the consummate
-art of that high comedy of which he is the greatest living exponent.
-But I could not help noticing that the gentleman who had protested so
-enthusiastic an admiration for the actor, was greatly puzzled as the
-recitation went on, and I came to the conclusion that he had not the
-remotest idea what it was all about. When some ladies laughed outright
-at the delivery of the lines, with matchless adroitness,
-
-               “I did not love as others do--
-
-                   None ever did that I’ve heard tell of,”
-
-the man looked angrily round and cried “Hsh!” but even this did not
-overawe the young women, and they all laughed again at,
-
-               “One night I saw him squeeze her hand--
-
-                   There was no doubt about the matter.
-
-               I said he must resign, or stand
-
-                   My vengeance--and he chose the latter.”
-
-But by this time it had dawned upon the jealous guardian of Mr. Irving’s
-professional reputation that the poem was meant to be a trifle humorous,
-and so soon as he became convinced of this, he almost interrupted the
-reciter with his uproarious hilarity, especially at places where the
-humour was far too subtle for laughter; and at the close he wiped his
-eyes and declared that the fun was too much for him.
-
-I asked a relative of his if he thought that the man had the slightest
-notion of what the poem was about, and his relative said,--
-
-“It might be in Sanskrit for all he understands of it. He loves Mr.
-Irving for himself alone. He has got no idea of art.”
-
-Later in the night the conversation turned upon the difference between
-the elocutionary modes of expression of the past and the present day.
-In illustration of a point associated with the question of effect, Mr.
-Irving gave me at least a thrill such as I had never before experienced
-through the medium of his art, by repeating,--
-
-               “To be or not to be: that is the question.”
-
-Before he had reached the words,--
-
-                   “To die: to sleep:
-
-                   No more,”
-
-I felt that I had suddenly had a revelation made to me of the utmost
-limits of art; that I had been permitted a glimpse behind the veil, if
-I may be allowed the expression; that I had been permitted to take a
-single glance into a world whose very name is a mystery to the sons of
-men.
-
-Every one present seemed spellbound. A commonplace man who sat next to
-me, drew a long breath--it was almost a gasp--and said,--
-
-“That is too much altogether for such people us we are. My God! I don’t
-know what I saw--I don’t know how I come to be here.”
-
-He could not have expressed better what my feeling was; and yet I had
-seen Mr. Irving’s Hamlet seventeen times, so that I might have been
-looked upon as unsusceptible to any further revelation on a point in
-connection with the soliloquy.
-
-When I glanced round I saw Mr. Irving’s enthusiastic admirer once more
-wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. It was not, however, until
-Mr. Irving was in the act of reciting “The Dream of Eugene Aram,” that
-the same gentleman yielded to what he conceived to be the greatest comic
-treat of the evening.
-
-Happily he occupied a back seat, and smothered his laughter behind a
-huge red handkerchief, which was guffaw-proof.
-
-He was a little lower than the negro waiter in his appreciation of the
-actor’s art.
-
-A year afterwards I met the same gentleman at an hotel in Scotland, and
-he reminded me of the dinner-party at the mayor’s. His admiration for
-Mr. Irving had in no degree diminished. He was partaking of a simple
-lunch of cold beef and pickled onions; and when he began to speak of the
-talents of the actor, he was helping himself to an onion, but so excited
-did he become that instead of dropping the dainty on his plate, he put
-it into his mouth, and after a crunch or two, swallowed it. Then he
-helped himself to a second, and crunched and talked away, while my
-cheeks became wrinkled merely through watching him. He continued
-automatically ladling the onions into his mouth until the jar was nearly
-empty, and the roof of my mouth felt crinkly. Fortunately a waiter came
-up--he had clearly been watching the man, and perceived that the hotel
-halfcrown lunch in this particular case would result in a loss to the
-establishment--and politely inquired if he had quite done with the
-pickle bottle, as another gentleman was asking for it.
-
-I wondered how the man felt after the lapse of an hour or so. I could
-not but believe in the sincerity of a devotion that manifested itself in
-so striking a manner.
-
-*****
-
-I have mentioned “The Dream of Eugene Aram.” Has any one ever attempted
-to identify the “little boy” who was the recipient of the harrowing tale
-of the usher? In my mind there is no doubt that the “gentle lad” whom
-Hood had in his eye was none other than James Burney, son of Dr. Burney,
-and brother of the writer of “Evelina.” He was a pupil at the school
-near Lynn which was fortunate enough to obtain the services of Eugene
-Aram as usher; and I have no doubt that, when he settled down in London,
-after joining in the explorations of Captain Cook, he excited the
-imagination of his friend Hood by his reminiscences of his immortal
-usher.
-
-Gessner’s “Death of Abel” was published in England before the edition,
-illustrated by Stothard, appeared in 1797. Perhaps, however, young
-Master Burney carried his Bible about with him.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII.--OUTSIDE THE LYCEUM BILL.
-
-
-_Mr. Edwin Booth--Othello and Iago at supper--The guest--Mr. Irving’s
-little speech--Mr. Booth’s graceful reply--A striking tableau--A
-more memorable gathering--The hundredth night of “The Merchant of
-Venice”--The guests--Lord Houghton’s speech--Mr. Irving’s reply--Mr.
-J: L. Toole supplies an omission--Mr. Dion Boncicault at the
-Lyceum--English as she is spoke--“Trippingly on the tongue”--The man
-who was born to teach the pronunciation of English--A Trinity College
-student--The coveted acorn--A good word for the English._
-
-
-I DID not mean to enter upon a course of theatrical anecdotage in these
-pages, but having mentioned the name of a great actor recently dead, I
-cannot refrain from making a brief reference to what was certainly one
-of the most interesting episodes in his career. I allude to Mr. Edwin
-Booth’s professional visit to London in 1881. It may truthfully be said
-that if Mr. Booth was not wholly responsible for the financial failure
-of his abbreviated “season” at the Princess’s Theatre, neither was he
-wholly responsible for his subsequent success at the Lyceum. I should
-like, however, to have an opportunity of bearing testimony to his frank
-and generous appreciation of the courtesy shown to him by Mr. Henry
-Irving, in inviting him to play in _Othello_. when it became plain that
-the performances of the American actor at the Princess’s were not likely
-to make his reputation in England. It would be impossible for me to
-forget the genuine emotion shown by Mr. Booth when, on the Saturday
-night that brought to a close the notable representations of _Othello_
-at the Lyceum, he referred to the kindness which he had received at that
-theatre. Although the occasion to which I refer was the most private of
-private suppers, I do not feel that I can be accused of transgressing
-the accepted _codex_ of the Beefsteak Room in touching upon a matter
-which is now of public interest. Early in the week Mr. Irving had been
-good enough to invite me to meet Mr. Booth at supper on the Saturday.
-After the performance, in which Mr. Irving was Othello and Mr. Booth
-Iago, I found in the supper-room, in addition to the host and the guest
-of the evening, Mr. John McCullough, who, it will be remembered, paid
-a visit to England at the same time as Mr. Booth; and a member of
-Parliament who subsequently became the Leader of the House of
-Commons. Mr. J. L. Toole and Mr. Bram Stoker subsequently arrived. We
-found a good deal to talk about, and it was rather late--too late for
-the one guest who was unconnected with theatrical matters (at least,
-those outside St. Stephen’s)--when Mr. Irving, in a few of those
-graceful, informal sentences which he seems always to have at his
-command, and only rising to his feet for a moment, asked us to drink to
-the health of Mr. Booth. Mr. Irving, I recollect, referred to the fact
-that the representations of _Othello_ had filled the theatre nightly,
-and that the instant the American actor appeared, the English actor had
-to “take a back seat.”
-
-The playful tone assumed by him was certainly not sustained by Mr.
-Booth. It would be impossible to doubt that he made his reply under the
-influence of the deepest feeling. He could scarcely speak at first, and
-when at last he found words, they were the words of a man whose eyes are
-full of tears. “You all know how I came here,” he said. “You all know
-that I went to another theatre in London, and that I was a big failure,
-although some newspaper writers on my side of the water had said that
-I would make Henry Irving and the other English actors sit up. Well,
-I didn’t make them sit up. Yes, I was a big failure. But what happened
-then? Henry Irving invites me to act with him at his theatre, and makes
-me share the success which he has so well earned. He changes my big
-failure into a big success. What can I say about such generosity? Was
-the like of it ever seen before? I am left without words. Friend Irving,
-I have no words to thank you.” The two actors got upon their feet, and
-as they clasped hands, both of them overcome, I could not help feeling
-that I was looking upon an emblematic tableau of the artistic union of
-the Old World and the New. So I was.
-
-*****
-
-I could not help contrasting this graceful little incident with the more
-memorable episode which had taken place in the same building some years
-previously. On the evening of February 14th, 1880, Mr. Irving gave
-a supper on the stage of the Lyceum, to celebrate the hundredth
-representation of _The Merchant of Venice_. I do not suppose that upon
-any occasion within the memory of a middle-aged man so remarkable a
-gathering had assembled at the bidding of an actor. Every notable man
-in every department of literature, art, and science seemed to me to
-be present. The most highly representative painters, poets, novelists,
-play-writers, actors of plays, composers of operas, singers of operas,
-composers of laws, exponents of the meaning of these laws, journalists,
-financiers,--all this goodly company attended on that moist Saturday
-night to congratulate the actor upon one of the most signal triumphs of
-the latter half of the century. Of course it was well understood by Mr.
-Irving’s personal friends that an omission of their names from the list
-of invitations to this marvellous function was inevitable. Capacious
-though the stage of the Lyceum is, it would not meet the strain that
-would be put on it if all the personal friends of Mr. Irving were to be
-invited to the supper. So soon as I heard, however, that every living
-author who had written a play that had been produced at the Lyceum
-Theatre would be invited, I knew that, in spite of the fact that I only
-escaped by the skin of my teeth being an absolute nonentity--I had only
-published nine volumes in those days--I would not be an “outsider” upon
-this occasion. Two years previously a comedietta of mine had been played
-at this theatre for some hundred nights, while the audience were being
-shown to their places and were chatting genially with the friends whom
-they recognised three or four seats away. That was my play. No human
-being could deprive me of the consciousness of having written a play
-that was produced at the Lyceum Theatre. It was not a great feat, but it
-constituted a privilege of which I was not slow to avail myself.
-
-The invitations were all in the handwriting of Mr. Irving, and
-the _menu_ was, in the words of Joseph in “Divorçons,” _délicat,
-distingué--très distingué_. While we were smoking some cigars the merits
-of which have never been adequately sung, though they would constitute a
-theme at least equal to that of the majority of epics, our host strolled
-round the tables, shaking hands and talking with every one in that
-natural way of his, which proves conclusively that at least one trait of
-Garrick’s has never been shared by him.
-
-               “Twas only that when he was off he was acting,”
-
-wrote Garrick’s--and everybody else’s--friend, Goldsmith. No; Mr. Irving
-cannot claim to be the inheritor of all the arts of Garrick.
-
-More than an hour had passed before Lord Houghton rose to propose the
-toast of the evening. He did so very fluently. He had evidently prepared
-his speech with great care; and as the _doyen_ of literature--the true
-patron of art and letters during two generations--his right to speak
-as one having authority could not be questioned. No one expected a
-commonplace speech from Lord Houghton, but few of Mr. Irving’s guests
-could have looked for precisely such a speech as he delivered. It struck
-a note of far-reaching criticism, and was full of that friendly counsel
-which the varied experiences of the speaker made doubly valuable. Its
-commendation of the great actor was wholly free from that meaningless
-adulation, which is as distasteful to any artist who knows the
-limitations of his art, as it is prejudicial to the realisation of his
-aims. In his masterly biography of the late Lord Houghton, Mr. Wemyss
-Reid refers to the great admiration which Lord Houghton had for Mr.
-Irving; and this admiration was quite consistent with the tone of the
-speech in which he proposed the health of our host. It was probably Lord
-Houghton’s sincere appreciation of the aims of Mr. Irving that caused
-him to make some delicate allusion to the dangers of long runs.
-Considering that we had assembled on the stage of the Lyceum to
-celebrate a phenomenal run on that stage, the difficulty of the course
-which Lord Houghton had to steer in order to avoid giving the least
-offence to even the most susceptible of his audience, will be easily
-recognised. There were present several playwriters who, by the exercise
-of great dexterity, had succeeded in avoiding all their lives the
-pitfall of the long run; and these gentlemen listened, with mournful
-acquiescence, while Lord Houghton showed, as he did quite conclusively,
-that, on the whole, the interests of dramatic art are best advanced by
-adopting the principles which form the basis of the Théâtre Français.
-But there were also present some managers who had been weak enough to
-allow certain plays which they had produced, to linger on the stage,
-evening after evening, so long as the public chose to pay their money
-to see them. I glanced at one of these gentlemen while Lord Houghton was
-delivering his tactful address, and I cannot say that the result of my
-glance was to assure me that the remarks of his lordship were convincing
-to that manager. Contrition for those past misdeeds that took the form
-of five-hundred-night runs was not the most noticeable expression upon
-his features. But then the manager was an actor as well, so that he may
-only have been concealing his remorse behind a smiling face.
-
-Mr. Irving’s reply was excellent. With amazing good-humour he touched
-upon almost every point brought forward by Lord Houghton, referring to
-his own position somewhat apologetically. Lord Houghton had, however,
-made the apologetic tone inevitable; but after a short time Mr. Irving
-struck the note for which his friends had been waiting, and spoke
-strongly, earnestly, and eloquently on behalf of the art of which he
-hoped to be the exponent.
-
-We who knew how splendid were the aims of the hero of a hundred nights,
-with what sincerity and at how great self-sacrifice he had endeavoured
-to realize them; we who had watched his career in the past, and were
-hopefully looking forward to a future for the English drama in a
-legitimate home; we who were enthusiastic almost to a point of passion
-in our love and reverence for the art of which we believed Irving to
-be the greatest interpreter of our generation,--we, I say, felt that
-we should not separate before one more word at least was spoken to our
-friend whose triumph we regarded as our own.
-
-It was Mr. J. L. Toole, our host’s oldest and closest friend, who, in
-the Beefsteak Room some hours after midnight, expressed, in a few
-words that came from his heart and were echoed by ours, how deeply Mr.
-Irving’s triumph was felt by all who enjoyed his friendship--by all who
-appreciated the difficulties which he had surmounted, and who, having at
-heart the best interests of the drama, stretched forth to him hands of
-sympathy and encouragement, and wished him God-speed.
-
-Thus closed a memorable gathering, the chief incidents in which I have
-ventured to chronicle exactly as they appeared to me.
-
-*****
-
-Only to one more Lyceum performance may I refer in this place. It may be
-remembered that ten or eleven years ago the late Mr. Dion Boucicault
-was obliging enough to offer to give a lecture to English actors on the
-correct pronunciation of their mother-tongue. The offer was, I suppose,
-thought too valuable to be neglected, and it was arranged that the
-lecture should be delivered from the stage of the Lyceum Theatre. A more
-interesting and amusing function I have never attended. It was clear
-that the lecturer had formed some very definite ideas as to the way
-the English language should be spoken; and his attempts to convey these
-ideas to his audience were most praiseworthy. His illustrations of
-the curiosities of some methods of pronouncing words were certainly
-extremely curious. For instance, he complained bitterly of the way the
-majority of English actors pronounced the word “war.”
-
-“Ye prenounce the ward as if it wuz spelt w-a-u-g-h,” said the lecturer
-gravely. “Ye don’t prenounce it at all as ye shud. The ward rhymes with
-‘par, ‘are,’ and ‘kyar,’ and yet ye will prenounce it as if it rhymed
-with ‘saw’ and ‘Paw-’ Don’t ye see the diffurnce?”
-
-“We do, we do!” cried the audience; and, thus encouraged by the ready
-acquiescence in his pet theories, the lecturer went on to deal with
-the gross absurdity of pronouncing the word “grass,” not to rhyme with
-“lass,” which of course was the correct way, but almost--not quite--as
-if it rhymed with “laws.”
-
-“The ward is ‘grass,’ not ‘graws,’” said our lecturer. “It grates on a
-sinsitive ear like mine to hear it misprenounced. Then ye will never be
-injuced to give the ward ‘Chrischin’ its thrue value as a ward of
-three syllables; ye’ll insist on calling it ‘Christyen,’ in place of
-‘Chrischin.’ D’ye persave the diffurnce?”
-
-“We do, we do!” cried the audience.
-
-“Ay, and ye talk about ‘soots’ of gyar-ments, when everybody knows
-that ye shud say ‘shoots’; ye must give the full valye to the letter
-‘u’--there’s no double o in a shoot of clothes. Moreover, ye talk of the
-mimbers of the polis force as ‘cunstables,’ but there’s no ‘u’ in the
-first syllable--it’s an ‘o,’ and it shud be prenounced to rhyme with
-‘gone,’ not with ‘gun.’ Then I’ve heard an actor who shud know better
-say, in the part of Hamlet, ‘wurds, wurds, wurds’; instead of giving
-that fine letter ‘o’ its full value. How much finer it sounds to
-prenounce it as I do, ‘wards, wards, wards’! But when I say that I’ve
-heard the ward ‘pull’ prenounced not to rhyme with ‘dull,’ as ye’ll all
-admit it shud be, but actually as if it was within an ace of being spelt
-‘p double o l,’ I think yell agree with me that it’s about time that
-actors learnt something of the rudiments of the art of ellycution.”
-
-I do not pretend that these are the exact instances given by Mr.
-Boucicault of the appalling incorrectness of English pronunciation,
-but I know that he began with the word “war,” and that the impression
-produced upon my mind by the discourse was precisely as I have recorded
-it.
-
-*****
-
-There is a tradition at Trinity College, Dublin, that a student who
-spoke with a lovely brogue used every art to conceal it, but with
-indifferent success; for however perfect the “English accent” which
-he flattered himself he had grafted upon the parent stem indigenous to
-Kerry may have been when he was cool and collected, yet in moments of
-excitement--chiefly after supper--the old brogue surrounded him like
-a fog. This was a great grief to him; but his own weakness in this way
-caused him to feel a deep respect for the natives of England.
-
-After a visit to London he gave the result of his observations in a few
-words to his friends at the College.
-
-“Boys,” he cried, the “English chaps are a poor lot, no matter how you
-look at them. But I will say this for them,--no matter how drunk any one
-of them may be, he never forgets his English accent.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX.--SOME IMPERFECT STUDIES.
-
-
-_A charming theme--The new tints--An almost perfect descriptive
-system--An unassailable position--The silver mounting of the newspaper
-staff--An unfair correspondcnt--A lady journalist face to face--The
-play-hawkers Only in two acts--An earnest correspondent--A haven
-at last--Well-earned repose--The “health columns”--Answers to
-correspondents--Other medical advisers--The annual meeting--The largest
-consultation on record over one patient--He recovers!--A garden-party--A
-congenial locale--The distinguished Teuton--The local medico--Brain
-“sells”--A great physician--Advice to a special correspondent--Change
-of air--The advantages of travel--The divergence of opinion among
-medical men--It is due to their conscientiousness._
-
-
-AS this rambling volume does not profess to be a guide to the
-newspaper press, I have not felt bound to follow any beaten track in its
-compilation. But I must confess that at the outset it was my intention
-to deal with that agreeable phase known as the Lady Journalist.
-Unhappily (or perhaps I should say, happily), “the extreme pressure on
-our space” will not permit of my giving more than a line or two to a
-theme which could only be adequately treated in a large volume. It has
-been my privilege to meet with three lady journalists, and I am bound to
-say that every one of the three seemed to me to combine in herself all
-the judgment of the trained journalist (male) with the lightness of
-touch which one associates with the doings of the opposite sex. All were
-able to describe garments in picturesque phrases, frequently producing
-by the employment of a single word an effect that a “gentleman
-journalist”--this is, I suppose, the male equivalent to a lady
-journalist--could not achieve at any price. They wrote of ladies being
-“gowned,” and they described the exact tint of the gowns by an admirable
-process of comparison with the hue of certain familiar things. They
-rightly considered that the mere statement that somebody came to
-somebody else’s “At Home” in brown, conveys an inadequate idea of the
-colour of a costume: “postman’s bag brown,” however, brings the dress
-before one’s eye in a moment. To say that somebody’s daughter appeared
-in a grey wrap would sound weak-kneed, but a wrap of _eau de Tamise_ is
-something stimulating. A scarlet tea-jacket merely suggests the Book of
-Revelation, but a Clark-Russell-sunset jacket is altogether different.
-
-They also wrote of “picture hats,” and “smart frocks,” and many other
-matters which they understood thoroughly. I do not think that any
-newspaper staff that does not include a lady journalist can hope for
-popularity, or for the respect of those who read what is written by the
-lady journalist, which is much better than popularity. I have got good
-reason to know that in every newspaper with which I was associated, the
-weekly column contributed by the lady journalist was much more earnestly
-read than any that came from another source.
-
-Yes, I feel that the position of the lady in modern journalism is
-unassailable; and the lady journalists always speak pleasantly about one
-another, and occasionally describe each other’s “picture hats.”
-
-In brief, the lady journalist is the silver mounting of the newspaper
-_staff_.
-
-*****
-
-I once, however, received an application from a lady, offering a weekly
-letter on a topic already, I considered, ably dealt with by another
-lady in the columns of the newspaper with which I was connected. I wrote
-explaining this to my correspondent, and by the next post I got a
-letter from her telling me that of course she was aware that a letter
-purporting to be on this topic was in the habit of appearing in the
-paper, but expressing the hope that I did not fancy that she would
-contribute “stuff of that character.”
-
-I did not have the faintest hope on the subject.
-
-Now it so happened that the lady who wrote to me had some months before
-gone to the lady whose weekly letters she had derided, and had begged
-from her some suggestions as to the topics most suitable to be dealt
-with by a lady journalist, and whatever further hints she might be
-pleased to offer on the general subject of lady journalism. In short,
-all that she had learned of the profession--it may be acquired in three
-lessons, most young women think--she had learned from the lady at whom
-she pointed a finger of scorn.
-
-This I did not consider either ladylike or journalist-like, so that I
-can hardly consider it lady-journalist-like.
-
-Lady journalists have recently taken to photographing each other and
-publishing the results.
-
-This is another step in the right direction.
-
-*****
-
-Once I had an opportunity of talking face to face with a lady
-journalist. It happened at the house of a distinguished actress in
-London. By the merest chance I had a play which I felt certain would
-suit the actress, and I went to make her acquainted with the joyful
-news. To my great chagrin I found that I had arrived on a day when she
-was “receiving.” Several literary men were present, and on some of their
-faces.
-
-I thought I detected the hang-dog look of the man who carries a play
-about with him without a muzzle. I regret to say that they nearly all
-looked at me with distrust.
-
-I came by chance upon one of them speaking to our charming hostess
-behind a _portiere_.
-
-“I think the part would suit you down to the ground.” he was saying.
-“Yes, six changes of dress in the four acts, and one of them a ballroom
-scene.”
-
-I walked on.
-
-Ten minutes afterwards I overheard a second, who was having a romp with
-our hostess’s little girl, say to that lady,--
-
-“Oh, yes, I am very fond of children, when they are as pretty as Pansy
-here. By the way, that reminds me that I have in my overcoat pocket a
-comedy that I think will give you a chance at last. If you will allow me
-when those people go....”
-
-I passed on.
-
-“The piece I brought with me is very strong. You were always best at
-tragedy, and I have frequently said that you are the only woman in
-London who can speak blank verse,” were the words that I heard spoken by
-the third literary gentleman at the further side of a group of palms on
-a pedestal.
-
-I thought it better not to say anything about my having a play concealed
-about my person. It occurred to me that it might be well to withhold my
-good news for a day or two. Meantime I had a delightful chat with the
-lady journalist, and confided in her my belief that some of the
-literary men present had not come for the sake of the intellectual treat
-available at every reception of our hostess’s, but solely to try and
-palm off on her some rubbish in the way of a play.
-
-She replied that she could scarcely believe that any man could be so
-base, and that she feared I was something of a cynic.
-
-When she was bidding good-bye to our hostess I distinctly heard the
-latter say,--
-
-“I am sorry that you have only made it in two acts; however, you may
-depend on my reading it carefully, and doing what I can with it for
-you.”
-
-The above story might be looked on as telling against myself in some
-measure, so I hasten to obviate its effect by mentioning that the play
-which I had in my pocket was acted by the accomplished lady for whom I
-designed it, and that it occupied a dignified place among the failures
-of the year.
-
-*****
-
-There was a lady journalist--at least a lady so describing herself--who
-sent me long accounts of the picture shows three days after I had
-received the telegraphed accounts from the art correspondent employed by
-the newspaper. She wanted to get a start, she said; and it was in vain
-that I tried to point out to her that it was the other writers who got
-the start of her, and that so long as she allowed this to happen she
-could not expect anything that she wrote to be inserted.
-
-It so happened, however, that her art criticisms were about on a level
-with those that a child might pass upon a procession of animals to or
-from a Noah’s Ark. Then the lady forwarded me criticisms of books that
-had not been sent to me for review, and afterwards an interview or two
-with unknown poets. Nothing that she wrote was worth the space it would
-have occupied.
-
-Only last year I learned with sincere pleasure that this energetic lady
-had obtained a permanent place on the staff of a lady’s halfpenny weekly
-paper. I could not help wondering on what department she could have been
-allowed to work, and made some inquiry on the subject. Then it was
-I learned that she had been appointed superintendent of the health
-columns. It seems that the readers of this paper are sanguine enough to
-expect to get medical advice of the highest order in respect of their
-ailments for the comparatively trilling expenditure of one halfpenny
-weekly. By forwarding a coupon to show that they have not been mean
-enough to try and shirk payment of the legitimate fee, they are entitled
-to obtain in the health columns a complete reply as to the treatment of
-whatever symptoms they may describe. As this reply is seldom printed in
-the health columns until more than a month or six weeks after the coupon
-has been sent in to the newspaper, addressed “M.D.,” the extent of the
-boon that it confers upon the suffering--the long-suffering--subscribers
-can easily be estimated.
-
-As the superintendent of the column signed “M.D.,” the lady who had
-failed as an art critic, as a reviewer, and as an interviewer, had at
-last found a haven of rest. Of course, when she undertook the duties
-incidental to the post she knew nothing whatever of medicine. But since
-then, my informant assured me that she had been gradually “feeling her
-way,” and now, by the aid of a half-crown handbook, she can give the
-best medical advice that can be secured in all London for a halfpenny
-fee.
-
-I had the curiosity to glance down one of her columns the other day. It
-ran something like this:--
-
-“Gladys.--Delighted to hear that you like your new mistress, and that
-the cook is not the tyrant that your last was. As scullery-maid I
-believe you are entitled to every second evening out. But better apply
-(enclosing coupon) to the Superintendent of the Domestic Department.
-Regarding the eruptions on the forehead, they may have been caused by
-the use of too hot curling tongs on your fringe. Why not try the new
-magnetic curlers? (see advertisement, p. 9). It would be hard to be
-compelled to abandon so luxurious a fringe for the sake of a pimple or
-two. Thanks for your kind wishes. Your handwriting is striking, but
-I must have an impression of your palm in wax, or on a piece of paper
-rubbed with lamp-black, before I can predict anything certain regarding
-your chances of a brilliant marriage.”
-
-“Airy Fairy Lilian.--What a pretty pseudonym! Where did you contrive to
-find it? Yes, I think that perhaps the doctor who visited you was right
-after all. The symptoms were certainly those of typhoid. Have you tried
-the new Omniherbal Typhoid Tablets (see advertisement, p. 8). If not too
-late they might be of real service to you.”
-
-“Harebell.--I should say that if your waist is now forty-two inches, it
-would be extremely imprudent for you to try and reduce it by more than
-ten or eleven inches. Besides, there is no beauty in a wasp-like waist.
-The slight redness on the outside tegument of the nose probably proceeds
-from cold, or most likely heat. Try a little _poudre des fées_ (see
-advertisement, p. 9).”
-
-“Shy Susy.--It is impossible to answer inquiries in this column in less
-than a month. (1) If your tooth continues to ache, why not go to Mr.
-Hiram P. Prosser, American Dental Surgeon (see advertisement, p. 8), and
-have it out. (2) The best volume on Etiquette is by the Countess of D.
-It is entitled ‘How to Behave’ (see advertisement outside cover).
-(3) No; to change hats in the train does not imply a promise to marry.
-It would, however, tell against the defendant in the witness-box.
-(4) Decidedly not; you should not allow a complete stranger to see you
-to your door, unless he is exceptionally good-looking. (5) Patchouli is
-the most fashionable scent.”
-
-*****
-
-I do not suppose that this enterprising young woman is an honoured guest
-at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association. Certainly no
-lady superintendent of the health columns of a halfpenny weekly paper
-was pointed out to me at the one meeting of this body which I had the
-privilege of attending, and at which, by the way, some rather amusing
-incidents occurred.
-
-An annual, meeting of the British Medical Association seemed to me to
-be a delightful function. For some days there were _fêtes_ (with
-fireworks), receptions (with military bands playing), dances (with that
-exhilarating champagne that comes from the Saumur districts),
-excursions to neighbouring ruins of historic interest, and the common
-or garden-party in abundance. In addition to all these, a rumour was
-circulated that papers were being read in some out-of-the-way hall--no
-one seemed to know where it was situated, and the report was generally
-regarded as a hoax--on modern therapeutics, for the entertainment of
-such visitors as might be interested in the progress of medical science.
-
-No one seemed interested in that particular line.
-
-A concert took place one evening, and was largely attended, every seat
-in the building being occupied. The local amateur tenor--the microbe
-of this malady has not yet been discovered--sang with his accustomed
-throaty incorrectness, and immediately afterwards there was a
-considerable interval. Then the conductor appeared upon the platform and
-said that an unfortunate accident had happened to the gentleman who had
-just sung, and he should feel greatly obliged if any medical gentleman
-who might chance to be present would kindly come round to the retiring
-room.
-
-It seemed to me that the audience rose _en masse_ and trooped round
-to the retiring room. I was one of the few persons who remained in the
-hall.
-
-“Say, why didn’t some strong man throw himself between the audience
-and the door?” a stranger shouted across the hall to me in an American
-accent.
-
-“With what object?” I shouted back.
-
-“Wal,” said the stranger, “I opine that if this community is subject to
-such visitations as we have just had from that gentleman who sang last,
-his destruction should be made a municipal affair.”
-
-“We know what we’re about,” said I. “How would you like to look up and
-find two hundred and forty-seven fully qualified medical men standing by
-your bed-side.”
-
-“Not much,” said he.
-
-“I wonder if the story of the opossum that was up a gum tree, and begged
-a military man beneath not to fire, as he would come down, had reached
-the States before you left,” said I.
-
-He said he hadn’t heard tell of it.
-
-“Well,” said I, “there was an opossum----”
-
-But here the hall began to refill, and the concert was proceeded with.
-The sufferer had recovered, we heard, in spite of all that was against
-him. A humorist said that he had merely slipped from a ladder in
-endeavouring to reach down his high C.
-
-When he was told that he had to pay two hundred and forty-seven guineas
-for medical attendance he nearly had a relapse.
-
-*****
-
-It was at the same meeting of the Medical Association that a
-garden-party was given by the Superintendent of the District Lunatic
-Asylum. This was a very pleasant affair, and was attended by about five
-hundred persons. A detestable man who was present, however, thought
-fit to make an effort to give additional spirit to the entertainment
-by pointing out to some of his friends the short, ungainly figure of a
-German _savant_, who was wandering about the grounds in a condition
-of loneliness, and by telling a story of a homicide of a bloodcurdling
-type, to account for the gentleman’s presence at the institution.
-
-The jester gave free expression to his doubts as to the wisdom of the
-course adopted by the medical superintendent in permitting such
-freedom to a man who was supposed to be confined during Her Majesty’s
-pleasure,--this was, he said, because of the merciful view taken by the
-jury before whom he had been tried. He added, however, that he supposed
-the superintendent knew his own business.
-
-As this story circulated freely, the German doctor, whose appearance and
-dress undoubtedly lent it a certain plausibility, became easily the most
-attractive person in view. Young men and maidens paused in the act of
-“service” over the lawn tennis nets, to watch the little man whose large
-eyes stared at them from beneath a pair of shaggy eyebrows, and whose
-ill-cut grey frieze coat suggested the uniform of the Hospital for
-the Insane. Strong men grasped their walking sticks more firmly as he
-passed, and women, well gowned, and wearing picture hats--I trust I
-am not infringing the copyright of the lady journalist--drew back, but
-still gazed at him with all the interest that attaches itself to a great
-criminal in the eyes of women.
-
-The little man could not but feel that he was attracting a great deal of
-attention; but being probably well aware of his own attainments, he did
-not shrink from any gaze, but smiled complacently on every side. Then
-a local medical man, whose self-confidence had never been known to fail
-him in an emergency, thought that the moment was an auspicious one for
-exhibiting the extent of his researches in cerebral phenomena, beckoned
-the German to his side, and, removing the man’s hat, began to prove
-to the bystanders that the shape of his head was such as precluded the
-possibility of his playing any other part in the world but that of a
-distinguished homicide. But the German, who understood English very
-well, as he did everything else, turned at this point upon the local
-practitioner and asked him what the teuffil he meant.
-
-“Don’t be alarmed, ladies,” said the practitioner assuringly, as there
-was a movement among his audience. “I know how to treat this form of
-aberration. Now then, my good man----”
-
-But at this moment a late arrival in the form of a great London surgeon
-strolled up accompanied by the medical superintendent of the Asylum,
-and with an exclamation of pleasure, pounced upon the subject of the
-discourse and shook him warmly by the hand. The Teuton was, however, by
-no means disposed to overlook the insult offered to him. He explained
-in the expressive German tongue what had occurred, and any one could see
-that he was greatly excited.
-
-But Sir Gregory, the English surgeon, had probably some experience of
-cases like this. He put his hand through the arm of the German, and then
-giving a laugh that in an emergency might obviate the use of a lancet,
-he said loudly enough to be heard over a considerable area,--
-
-“Come along, my dear friend; there is no visiting an hospital for the
-insane without coming across a lunatic,--a medical practitioner without
-discretion is worse.”
-
-The local physician was left standing alone on the lawn.
-
-He shortly afterwards went home.
-
-If you wish to anger him now you need only talk about brain “sells.”
-
-*****
-
-At the same meeting it was my privilege to be presented to a really
-great London physician. He was the medical gentleman who was consulted
-by a special correspondent on his return from making a tour with the
-Marquis of Lome, when the latter became Viceroy of Canada. The special
-correspondent had left for Canada on the very day that he arrived in
-England from the Cape, having gone through the Zulu campaign, and he had
-reached the Cape direct from the Afghan war. After about two years of
-these experiences he felt run down, and acting on the suggestion of a
-friend, lost no time in consulting the great physician.
-
-On learning that the man was suffering from a curious impression of
-weariness for which he could not account, but which he had tried in vain
-to shake off, the great physician asked him what was his profession. He
-replied that he was a literary man--that he wrote for a newspaper.
-
-“Ah, I thought so,” cried the great physician. “Your complaint is easily
-accounted for. I perceived in a moment that you had been leading a
-sedentary life. That is what plays havoc with literary men. What you
-need just now is a complete change--no half measures, mind you--a
-complete change--a sea voyage would brace you up, or,--let me see--ah,
-yes, Margate might do. Try a fortnight at Margate.”
-
-*****
-
-I am bound to say that it was another doctor who, when a naval captain
-who had been in charge of a corvette on the South Pacific station for
-five years, went to him for advice, gravely remarked,--
-
-“I wonder, sir, if at any time of your life you got a severe wetting?”
-
-The modern physician is most earnest in recommending changes of air and
-scene and employment. He is an enemy to the drug system. But the last
-enemy that shall be destroyed is the drug system. The “masses” believe
-in it as they believe no other system, whether in medicine, religion, or
-even gambling.
-
-I shall never forget the ring of contempt that there was in the voice of
-a servant of mine at the Cape, when, on the army surgeon’s giving him
-a prescription to be made up, he found that the whole thing only cost
-fourpence, and he said,--
-
-“That there coor can’t be much of a coor, sir; only corst fourpence, and
-me ready to pay ‘arf-a-crown.”
-
-In the smoking-room of an hotel in Liverpool some years ago a rather
-self-assertive gentleman was dilating to a group in a cosy corner on the
-advantages of travel, not merely as a physical, but as an intellectual
-stimulant.
-
-“Am I right, sir?” he cried, turning to me. “Have you ever travelled?”
-
-I mentioned that I had done a little in that way.
-
-“Where do you come from now, sir?” he asked.
-
-“South America,” said I meekly.
-
-“And you, sir,” he cried, turning to another stranger; “have you
-travelled?”
-
-“Well, a bit,” replied the man. “I was in ‘Frisco this day fortnight,
-and I’ll be in Egypt on this day week.”
-
-“I knew by the look of those gentlemen that they had travelled,” said
-the loud man, turning to his group. “I believe in the value of travel.
-I travel myself--just like those gentlemen. Yes; a week ago I was at
-Bradford. Here I am at Liverpool to-day, and Heaven knows where I may be
-next week--at Manchester, may be.”
-
-*****
-
-So far as I can gather, the impression seems to be pretty general that
-some divergence of opinion is by no means impossible among physicians
-in their diagnosis of a case. Doctors themselves seem to have at last
-become aware of the fact that the possibility of a difference being
-manifested in their views on some cases is now and again commented on
-by the irresponsible layman. An eminent member of that profession which
-makes a larger demand than any other upon the patience, the judgment,
-and the self-sacrifice of those who practise it, defended, a short time
-ago, in the course of a very witty speech, the apparent want of harmony
-between the views of physicians on some technical points. He said that
-perhaps he might not be going too far if he remarked that occasionally
-in a court of law the technical evidence given by two doctors seemed
-at first sight not to agree. This point was readily conceded by the
-audience; and the professor then went on to say that surely the absence
-of this mechanical agreement on all points should be accepted as
-powerful testimony to the conscientiousness of the profession. One of
-the rarest of charges brought against physicians was that of collusion.
-In fact, while he believed that, if put to it, his memory would be
-quite equal to recall some instances of a divergence of opinion between
-doctors in a witness-box, he did not think that he could remember a
-single case in which a charge of collusion against two members of the
-profession had been brought home to them.
-
-Most sensible people will, I am persuaded, take this view of a matter
-which has called for comment in all ages. It is because doctors are so
-singularly sensitive that, sooner than run the chance of being accused
-of acting in collusion in any case, they now and again have been known
-to express views that were--well, not absolutely in harmony the one with
-the other.
-
-The distinguished physician who made so reasonable a defence of the
-profession which he adorns, told me that it was one of his early
-instructors who made that excellent summary of the relative values of
-medical attendance:--
-
-“I have no hesitation in saying that it’s not better to be attended by a
-good doctor than a bad doctor; but I won’t go the length of saying that
-it’s not better to be attended by no doctor at all than by either.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX.--ON SOME FORMS OF CLEVERNESS.
-
-
-_The British Association--The late Professor Tyndall--His Belfast
-address--The centre of strict orthodoxy--The indignation of the
-pulpits--Worse than atheism--Biology and blasphemy allied sciences--The
-champion of orthodoxy--The town is saved--After many days--The second
-visit of Professor Tyndall to Belfast--The honoured guest of the
-Presbyterians--Public opinion--Colour blindness--Another meeting of the
-British Association--A clever young man--The secret of the ruin--The
-revelation of the secret--The great-grandfather of Queen Boadicea--The
-story of Antonio Giuseppe--Accepted as primo tenore--The birthday
-books--A movable feast--A box at the opera--Transferable--The discovery
-of the transfers--An al fresco operatic entertainment--No harm done._
-
-
-THE annual meetings of the British Association for the Advancement
-of Science can be made quite as delightful functions as those of the
-British Medical Association, if they are not taken too seriously; and I
-don’t think that there is much likelihood of that happening. I have
-had the privilege of taking part in several of the dances, the garden
-parties, and the concerts which have taken place under the grateful
-protection of science. I have also availed myself of the courtesy of
-the railway companies that issued cheap tickets to the various places of
-interest in the locality where the annual festivities took place under
-the patronage of the British Association. The only President’s address
-which I ever heard delivered was, however, that of Professor Tyndall at
-Belfast.
-
-I was little more than a boy at the time, and that is probably why I was
-more deeply interested in Biology and Evolution than I have been in more
-recent years. It is scarcely necessary to say that Professor Tyndall’s
-utterance would take a very humble place in the heterodoxy of the
-present day, for the exponents of theology have found it necessary to
-enlarge their borders as the century draws to a close, and I suppose
-that if poor Tyndall had offered to lecture in St. Paul’s Cathedral his
-appearance under the dome would have been welcomed by the authorities,
-as it certainly would have been by the public. But Belfast had for
-long been the centre of strict orthodoxy, and so soon as the address of
-Professor Tyndall was printed a great cry arose from every pulpit. The
-excellent Presbyterians of Ulster were astounded at the audacity of the
-man in coming into the midst of such a community as theirs in order to
-deliver an address that breathed of something worse than the ancient
-atheists had ever dreamed of in their most heterodox moments. If the man
-had wanted to blaspheme--and a good _primâ facie_ case was made out in
-favour of the assumption that he had--could he not have taken himself
-off to some congenial locality for the purpose? Why should he come to
-Belfast with such an object? Would the town ever get rid of the stigma
-that would certainly be attached to it as the centre from which the
-blasphemies of Biology had radiated upon this occasion?
-
-These were the questions that afflicted the good people for many days,
-and the consensus of opinion seemed to be in favour of the theory that
-unless the town should undergo a sort of moral fumigation, it would not
-be restored to the position it had previously occupied in the eyes of
-Christendom. The general idea is that to slaughter a pig in a Mohammedan
-mosque is an act the consequences of which are so far-reaching as to be
-practically irreparable; the act of Professor Tyndall at Belfast was of
-precisely this nature in the estimation of the inhabitants.
-
-Fortunately, however, a champion of orthodoxy appeared in the form of a
-Professor at the Presbyterian College who wrote a book--I believe some
-copies may still be purchased--to make it impossible for Tyndall or any
-other exponent of Evolution to face an audience of intelligent people.
-This book was the saving of the town. Belfast was rehabilitated, and the
-people breathed again.
-
-But the years went by; Darwin’s funeral service was held in Westminster
-Abbey, and Professor Tyndall’s voice was now and again heard like an
-Alpine echo of his master. In Belfast a University Extension Scheme was
-set on foot and promised to be a brilliant success--it collapsed after
-a time, but that is not to the point. What is to the point, however, is
-the fact that the inaugural lecture of the University Extension series
-was on the subject of Biology, and the chosen exponent of the science
-was Professor Tyndall. He came to Belfast as the honoured guest of the
-city--it had become a city since his memorable visit--and he passed
-some days at the official residence of the Presbyterian President of
-the Queen’s College, who had been a pupil at the divinity school of
-the clergyman who had written the book that was supposed to have
-re-consecrated, as it were, the locality defiled by the British
-Association address of 1874.
-
-This incident appears to me to be noteworthy--almost as noteworthy as
-the reception given in honour of Monsieur Emile Zola in the Guildhall
-a few years after Mr. Vizetelly had been sent to gaol for issuing a
-purified translation of a work of Zola’s.
-
-I think it was Mr. Forster who, in the spring of 1882, when Mr. Parnell
-and his friends were languishing in Kilmainham, said that the Irish
-Channel was like the water described by Byron: a palace at one side,
-a prison on the other. The Irish members left Kilmainham, and in a few
-hours found themselves in Westminster Palace--at least, Westminster
-Palace Hotel.
-
-Public opinion knows but the two places of residence--a palace and a
-prison. When a man leaves the one he is considered fit for the other.
-Public opinion knows but black and white, and vacillates from one to the
-other with the utmost regularity.
-
-The only constant thing in the world is change.
-
-*****
-
-At another meeting of the British Association I was a witness of a
-remarkable piece of cleverness on the part of a young man who has
-since proved his claim to be regarded as one of the most adroit men in
-England. Among the excursions the chief was to the locality of a ruin,
-the origin of which was, like the origin of the De la Pluche family,
-lost in the mists of obscurity. The ruin had been frequently visited
-by distinguished archæologists, but none had ventured to do more than
-guess--if one could imagine guesswork and archaeology associated--what
-period should be assigned to the dilapidated towers. It so happened,
-however, that an elderly professor at the local college had, by living
-laborious days, and mastering the elements of a new language, succeeded
-in wresting their secret from the lichened stones, and he made up his
-mind that when the British Association had its excursion to the ruin, he
-would reveal all that he had discovered regarding it, and by this _coup
-de théâtre_ become famous.
-
-But the clever young man had an interesting young brother who had gained
-a reputation as a poet, and who dressed perhaps a trifle in excess
-of this reputation; and when the old professor was about to make his
-revelation regarding the ruin, the clever young man put up his brother
-in another part of the enclosure to recite one of his own poems on
-the locality. In a few moments the professor, who had commenced
-his discourse, was practically deserted. Only half a dozen of the
-excursionists rallied round him, and permitted themselves to be
-mystified; the cream of the visitors, to the number of perhaps a
-hundred, were around the reciter on an historic hillock fifty yards
-away, and his mellow cadences sounded very alluring to the few people
-who listened to the jerky delivery of the lecturer in the ruin.
-
-But the clever young man did not yield to the alluring voice of his
-brother. He had heard that voice before, and was well acquainted with
-its cadences. He was also well acquainted with the poem that was
-being recited--he had heard it more than once before. What he was not
-acquainted with was the marvellous discovery made by the professor who
-was in the act of revealing it to ten ears--that is allowing that
-only one person of those around him was deaf. The clever young man sat
-concealed behind a wall covered with ivy and listened to every word of
-the revelation. When it was over he unostentatiously joined the crowd
-around his brother, and heard with pleasure that the delivery of the
-poem had been very striking.
-
-“But we must not waste our time,” said the clever young man, with
-the air of authority of a personal conductor. “We have several other
-interesting points to dwell upon”--he spoke as if he and his brother
-owned the ruins and the natural landscape into the bargain. “Oh, yes, we
-must hurry on. I do not suppose there is any lady or gentleman present
-who is aware of the fact that we are within a few yards of the place
-where the great-grandfather of Queen Boadicea lies buried.”
-
-A murmur of negation passed round the crowd.
-
-“Follow me,” said the clever young man; and they followed him.
-
-He led them to the very place where the professor had made his
-revelation, and then, standing on a portion of the ruined structure,
-he gave in choice language, and with many inspiring quotations from
-the literature of the Ancient Britons, the substance of the professor’s
-revelation.
-
-For half an hour he continued his discourse, and quite delighted every
-one who heard him, except, perhaps, the elderly professor. He was among
-the audience, and he listened, with staring eyes, to the clever young
-man’s delightful mingling of the deepest archaeological facts with
-fictions that had a semblance of truth, and he was speechless. The
-innocent old soul actually believed that the clever young man had
-surpassed him, the professor, in the profundity of his researches into
-the history of the ruin; he knew that the face of the clever young
-man had not been among the faces of the few people who had heard his
-revelation, but he did not know that the clever young man was hidden
-among the ivy a few yards away.
-
-When the people were applauding the delightful discourse, he pressed
-forward to the impromptu lecturer and shook him warmly by the hand.
-
-“Sir!” he cried, “you have in you the stuff that goes to make a great
-archæologist. I have worked at nothing else but this ruin for the last
-eight years, and yet I admit that you know more about it than I do.”
-
-“Oh, my dear sir,” said the clever young man, “the world knows that in
-your own path you are without a rival. I am content to sit at your feet.
-It is an honourable position. Any time you want to know something of
-this locality and its archæology do not hesitate to command me.”
-
-*****
-
-The only rival in adroitness to the young man whose feats I have just
-recorded was one Antonio Giuseppe. I came upon this person in London,
-but only when I was in Milan did I become acquainted with the extent of
-his capacity. One of the stories I heard about him is, I think, worth
-repeating, illustrating, as it does, the difference between the English
-and the Italian systems of imposture.
-
-Antonio Giuseppe certainly was attached to the State Opera Company, but
-it would be difficult to define with any degree of exactness his duties
-in connection with that Institution. He had got not a single note in his
-voice, and yet--nay, on this account--he had passed during a season at
-Homburg as a distinguished tenor--for Signor Giuseppe was careful to
-see that his portmanteau was inscribed in white letters of considerable
-size, “Signor Antonio Giuseppe, State Opera Company.” He gave himself as
-many airs as a professional--nay, as an amateur, tenor, and he was thus
-assigned the most select apartment in the hotel during his sojourn, and
-a large folding screen was placed between his seat at the _table d’hote_
-and the window. There was, indeed, every excuse for taking Signor
-Giuseppe for a distinguished operatic tenor. He spoke all European
-languages with equal impurity, he went about in a waistcoat that
-resembled, in combination of colours, the drop scene of a theatre, he
-wore a blue velvet tie, made up in a knot to display a carbuncle pin
-about the size of a tram-car light, and his generosity in wristband
-was equalled only by his prodigality of cigarette paper. These
-characteristics, coupled with the fact that he had never been known to
-indulge in the luxury of a bath, gave rise to the rumour that he was the
-greatest tenor in Europe; consequently he was looked upon with envy by
-the Dukes with incomes of a thousand pounds a day, who were accustomed
-to resort for some months out of the year to Homburg; while Countesses
-in their own right sent him daily missives expressive of their
-admiration for his talents, and entreating the favour of his autograph
-in their birthday books. Poor Signor Giuseppe was greatly perplexed by
-the arrival of a birthday book at his apartment every morning; but so
-soon as its import was explained to him, he never failed to respond to
-the request of the fair owners of the volumes. His caligraphy did not
-extend beyond the limits of his autograph, and his birthday seemed to be
-with him a movable feast, for in no two of the books did his name appear
-on the pages assigned to the same month. As a matter of fact, it is
-almost impossible for a man who has never been acquainted with his
-father or mother, to know with any degree of accuracy the exact day
-on which he was born, so that Signor Giuseppe, who was discovered by a
-priest in a shed at the quay at Leghorn on St. Joseph’s day, was not to
-blame for his ignorance in respect of his nativity.
-
-Of course, when Mr. Fitzgauntlet, the enterprising impresario of the
-State Opera, turned up at Homburg in the course of a week or two, it
-became known that whatever position Signor Giuseppe might occupy in the
-State Opera Company, it was not that of _primo tenore_, for the most
-exacting impresario has never been known to include among the duties of
-a _primo tenore_ the unpacking of a portmanteau and the arrangement of
-its contents around the dressing room of the impresario. The folding
-screen was removed from behind Signor Giuseppe on the day following
-the arrival of Mr. Fitzgauntlet at Homburg, and from being _feted_ as
-Giuseppe the tenor, he was scorned as Giuseppe the valet.
-
-But in regarding Signor Giuseppe as nothing beyond the valet to the
-impresario the sojourners at the hotel were as greatly in error as in
-accepting him as the tenor. To be sure Signor Giuseppe now and again
-discharged the duties that usually devolve upon the valet, but the
-scope of his duties extended far beyond these limits. It was his task
-to arrange the _claque_ for a new _prima donna_, and to purchase the
-bouquets to be showered upon the stage when the impresario was anxious
-to impress upon the public the admirable qualities possessed by a
-_débutante_ whose services he had secured for a trifle. It was also
-Giuseppe’s privilege to receive the bouquets left at the stage door by
-the young gentlemen--or the old gentlemen--who had become struck with
-the graceful figure of the _premiere danseuse_ or perhaps _cinquantième
-danseuse_, and the emoluments arising from this portion of his duties
-were said to be equal to a liberal income, exclusive of what he made
-by the disposal of the bouquets to the florist from whom they had been
-originally purchased. This invaluable official also made a little money
-for himself by his ingenuity in obtaining the photographs and autographs
-of the chief artists of the company, which he distributed for sale every
-evening in the stalls; but not quite so profitable was that part of his
-business which consisted in inventing stories to account for the absence
-of the impresario when tradesmen called at the State theatre with their
-bills; still, the thoughtfulness and ingenuity of Signor Giuseppe were
-quite equal to the strain put upon them in this direction, and Mr.
-Fitzgauntlet had no reason to be otherwise than satisfied. When it is
-understood that Giuseppe transacted nearly all their business for the
-chief artists in the company, engaged their apartments, and looked after
-their luggage when on tour in the provinces, it will readily be believed
-that he had, as a rule, more money at his banker’s than any official
-connected with the State Opera.
-
-The confidence which had always been placed in Signor Giuseppe’s
-integrity by the artists of the company was upon one occasion rudely
-shaken, and the story of how this disaster occurred is about to be
-related. Signor Giuseppe did a little business in wine and cigars,
-principally of British manufacture, and he had, with his accustomed
-dexterity, hitherto escaped a criminal prosecution under the Sale
-of Drugs Act for the consequences of his success in disposing of his
-commodities in this line of business. He also did a little in a medical
-way, a certain bottle containing a bright crimson liquid with a horrible
-taste being extremely popular among the members of the extensive
-chorus of the State Opera. When a “cyclus” of modern German opera was
-contemplated by Mr. Fitzgauntlet, Giuseppe increased his medical stock,
-feeling sure that the result of the performances would occasion a run
-upon his drugs; but the negotiations fell through, and it was only by
-the force of his perseverance and persuasiveness he contrived to get rid
-of his surplus to the gentlemen who played the brass instruments in the
-orchestra. It was not, however, on account of his transactions in the
-medical way that he almost forfeited the respect in which he was held
-by the artists, but because of the part he played with regard to the
-disposal of a certain box of cigars. After the production of the opera
-_Le Diamant Noir_, Signor Boccalione, the great basso, went to Giuseppe,
-saying,--
-
-“Giuseppe, I want your advice: you know I have made the success of the
-opera, but I do not read music very quickly, and Monsieur Lejeune has
-had a good deal of trouble with me. I should like to make him some
-little return; what would you suggest?”
-
-Giuseppe was lost in thought. He wondered, could he suggest the
-propriety of the basso’s offering the _maestro di piano_ a case of
-Burgundy--Giuseppe had just received three cases of the finest Burgundy
-that had ever been made in the Minories.
-
-“A present to the value of how much?” he asked of Signor Boccalione.
-
-“Oh,” said the basso airily, and with a gesture of indifference, “about
-sixty francs. Monsieur Lejeune had not really so much trouble with
-me--no one else in the company would think of acknowledging his
-services, but with me it is different--I cannot live without being
-generous.”
-
-Giuseppe mused.
-
-“If the signor would only go so far as seventy francs, I could get him a
-box of the choicest cigars,” he said after a pause; and then he went
-on to explain that the cigars were in the possession of a friend of his
-own, whom he had passed into the opera one night, and who consequently
-owed him some compliment, so that the box, which in the ordinary way of
-business was really worth eighty francs, might be obtained for seventy.
-The generosity of the basso, however, was not without its limits; it
-would, sustain the tension put upon it by the expenditure of sixty
-francs, but it was not sufficiently strong to face the outlay suggested
-by Giuseppe..
-
-“Sixty francs!” he cried, “sixty francs is a small fortune, and I myself
-smoke excellent cigars at thirty. I will give no more than sixty.”
-
-Giuseppe did not think the box could be purchased for the money, but he
-said he would try and induce his friend to be liberal. The next day he
-came to Signor Boccalione with the box containing the hundred cigars of
-the choicest brand--the quality of the cigars will be fully appreciated
-when it is understood that the hundred cost Giuseppe originally close
-upon thirteen shillings.
-
-“Per Bacco!” cried the basso, “Monsieur Lejeune should be a happy
-man--he had hardly any trouble with me, now that I come to reflect. Oh,
-I am the only man in the company who would be so foolish as to think of
-a present--and such a present--for him.”
-
-“Oh, Signor!” said Giuseppe, “such a present! The perfume, signor,
-wonderful! delicious! celestial!” He then explained how he had persuaded
-his friend, by soft words and promises, to part with the box for sixty
-francs, and Signor Boccalione listened and laughed; then, on a sheet of
-pink notepaper, the basso wrote a dedication, occupying twelve lines,
-of the box of cigars to the use of the supremely illustrious _maestro di
-piano_, Lejeune, in token of the invaluable assistance he had afforded
-to the most humble and grateful of his friends and servants, Alessandro
-Boccalione.
-
-When Giuseppe promised to send the box to the maestro on the following
-day he meant to keep his word, and he did keep it. On the same evening
-he was met by Maestro Lejeune. The maestro looked very pale in the face.
-
-“Giuseppe, my friend,” he said with a smile, “you were very good to me
-upon our last tour, looking after my luggage with commendable zeal; I
-have often thought of making you some little return. You will find a box
-of cigars--one hundred all but one--on my dressing table; you may have
-them for your own use.”
-
-Giuseppe was profuse in his thanks, and, on going to the dressing-room
-of the maestro, obtained possession once more of the box of cigars
-he had sold to the basso. On the mat was the half-smoked sample which
-Monsieur Lejeune had attempted to get through.
-
-Not more than a week had passed after this transaction when Signor
-Giuseppe was sent for by Madame Speranza, the celebrated soprano.
-
-“Giuseppe,” said the lady, “as you have had twenty-seven of my
-photographs within the past month, I think you may be able to help me
-out of a difficulty in which I find myself.”
-
-Giuseppe thought it rather ungenerous for a soprano earning--or at least
-getting paid--two hundred pounds a week, to make any reference to such a
-paltry matter as photographs; he, however, said nothing on this subject,
-but only expressed his willingness to serve the lady. She then explained
-to him what he knew already, namely, that she had had a serious
-difference with Herr Groschen, the conductor, as to the _tempo_ of a
-certain air in _Le Diamant Noir_, and that the conductor and she had not
-been on speaking terms for more than a fortnight.
-
-“But now,” said Madame Speranza in conclusion, “now that I have made the
-opera so brilliant a success, I should like to make my peace with the
-poor old man, who must be miserable in consequence of my treatment of
-him,--especially as I got the best of the dispute. I mean to write
-to him this evening, and send him some present--something small, you
-know--not extravagant.”
-
-“What would Madame think of the appropriateness of a box of cigars?”
- asked Giuseppe after an interval of thought. “I heard Herr Groschen say
-that he had just smoked the last of a box, and meant to purchase another
-when he had the money,” he added.
-
-“How much would a box of cigars cost?” asked the _prima donna_.
-
-“Madame can have cigars at all prices--even as low as sixty-five
-francs,” replied her confidential adviser.
-
-“Mon Dieu! what extravagant creatures men are!” cried the lady.
-“Sixty-five francs’ worth of cigars would probably not last him more
-than a few months. Never mind; I do not want a cheap box,--my soul is
-a generous one: procure me a box at sixty-six francs, and we will say
-nothing more about the photographs.”
-
-Signor Giuseppe said he would try what could be done. A man whom he had
-once obliged had a sister married to one of the most intelligent cigar
-merchants in the city; but he did not think he had any cigars under
-seventy francs.
-
-“Not a sou more than sixty-six will I pay,” cried the soprano with
-emphasis. Giuseppe gave a shrug and said he would see what could be
-done.
-
-What he saw could be done was to expend the sum of twopence English in
-the purchase of a cigar, to put in the centre of the package from which
-the maestro had taken his sample, and to bring the box sealed to Madame
-Speranza, whom he congratulated on being able to present her late enemy
-with a box of cigars of a quality not to be surpassed in the island of
-Cuba. The lady put her face down to the box and made a little grimace,
-and Giuseppe left her apartment with three guineas English in his
-pocket.
-
-Two days afterwards he encountered Herr Groschen.
-
-“Giuseppe,” said the conductor, “you may remember that when you so
-cleverly contrived to have my luggage with the fifteen pounds of tobacco
-amongst it passed at the Custom House I said I would make you a present.
-Forgive me for my negligence all this time, and accept a box of choice
-cigars, which you will find on my table. May you be happy, Giuseppe--you
-are a worthy fellow.”
-
-It is needless to say that Signor Giuseppe recovered his box. On the
-hearth-rug lay a half-smoked specimen, and by its side the portion of
-Madame Speranza’s letter to the conductor which he had used to light the
-one cigar out of the hundred.
-
-Before another week had passed, the same box had been sold to the tenor,
-to present to Mr. Fitzgauntlet, who, on receiving it, put his nose down
-to the package, and threw the lot into a corner among waste papers, and
-went on with his writing. The box was rescued by Giuseppe, and presented
-by him to the husband of Madame Galatini-Purissi, the contralto, in
-exchange for three dozen copies of the fair _artiste’s_ portrait. Then
-Signor Purissi sent the box to the flautist in the orchestra, who played
-the obbligato to some of the contralto’s arias, and as this gentleman
-did not smoke he made it over once more to Signor Giuseppe. As the box
-had by this time been in the hands of every one in the company likely to
-possess a box of cigars, Giuseppe thought it would show a grasping
-spirit on his part were he to attempt to dispose of it again; so he
-merely made up the ninety-nine cigars in packages of three, which he
-sold to thirty-three members of the chorus at a shilling a head.
-
-It so happened, however, that Herr Groschen, Signor Boccalione, and
-Signor Purissi met in a tobacconist’s shop about a week after the final
-distribution of the cigars, and their conversation turned upon the
-comparative ease with which bad cigars could be procured. Herr Groschen
-boasted how he had repaid his obligations to Giuseppe with a box of
-cigars, which he was certain satisfied the poor devil.
-
-“Corpo di Bacco!” cried the basso, “I bought a box from Giuseppe to
-present to Maestro Lejeune.”
-
-“And I,” said the husband of the contralto, “bought another from him.
-Can it have been the same box?”
-
-Suspicion being thus aroused, Boccalione sought out Monsieur Lejeune,
-who confessed that he had given the box to Giuseppe; and Signor Purissi
-learned from the flautist that his gift had been disposed of in the
-same direction. The story went round the company, and poor Giuseppe
-was pounced upon by his indignant and demonstrative countrymen, and an
-explanation demanded of him on the subject of his repeated disposal of
-the same box. Giuseppe was quite as demonstrative as the most earnest of
-his interrogators in declaring that he had not disposed of the same box.
-His friend had obliged him with several boxes, and he had himself been
-greatly put about to oblige the ungrateful people who now turned upon
-him. He swore by the tomb of his parents that the obligations he had
-already discharged towards the ingrates would never be repeated; they
-might in future go elsewhere (Signor Giuseppe made a suggestion as to
-the exact locality) for their cigars; but for his part he washed his
-hands clean of them and their cigars. For three-quarters of an hour
-the basso-profundo, the soprano, and the husband of the contralto
-gesticulated before Giuseppe in the portico of the Opera House, until
-a crowd collected, the impression being general that an animated scene
-from a new opera was being rehearsed by the artists of the State Opera.
-A policeman who arrived on the scene could not be persuaded to take this
-view of the matter, and he politely requested the distinguished members
-of the State Opera Company either to move on or to go within the
-precincts of the building. The basso attempted to explain to the
-policeman in very choice Italian what Giuseppe had done, but he was so
-demonstrative the officer thought he was threatening the police force
-generally, and took his name and address with a view to issuing a
-summons for this offence. In the meantime Giuseppe got into a hansom
-and drove off, craning his neck round the side of the vehicle to make
-a parting allusion to the maternity of the husband of the contralto, to
-which the soprano promptly replied by a suggestion which, if true, would
-tend to remove the mystery surrounding the origin of Giuseppe. A week
-afterwards of course all were once again on the most friendly terms;
-but Giuseppe now and again feels that his want of ingenuousness in the
-cigar-box transaction well-nigh jeopardised the reputation for integrity
-he had previously enjoyed among the principals of the State Opera
-Company. He has been much more careful ever since, and flatters himself
-that not even the _tenore robusto_, who is the most suspicious of
-men, can discover the points on which he gets the better of him. As
-a practical financier Signor Antonio Giuseppe thinks of himself as a
-success; and there can hardly be a doubt that he is fully justified in
-taking such a view of his career.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI.--“SO CAREFUL OF THE TYPE.”
-
-
-_Why the chapter is a short one--Straw essential to brick-making--A
-suggestion regarding the king in “Hamlet”--The Irish attendant--The
-overland route--“Susanna and the editors”--“The violets of his
-wrath”--The clergyman’s favourite poem--A horticultural feat--A
-tulip transformed--The entertainment of an interment--The autotype
-of Russia--A remarkable conflagration and a still more remarkable
-dance--Paradise and the other place--Why the concert was a success--The
-land of Goschcn--A sporting item--A detective story--The flora and
-fauna--The Moors dictum--Absit omen!_
-
-
-IF this chapter is a short one, it is so for the best of reasons: it
-is meant to record some blunders of printers and others which impressed
-themselves upon me. It would obviously be impossible to make a chapter
-of the average length out of such a record. The really humorous faults
-in the setting up of anything I have ever written have been very few.
-In the printing of the original edition of my novel _Daireen_ one of the
-most notable occurred in a first proof. Every chapter of this book is
-headed with a few lines from _Hamlet_, and one of these headings is from
-the well-known scene with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
-
-               _Gull_.--The King, sir----
-
-               _Hamlet_.--Ay, sir, what of him?
-
-               _Gull_.--Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
-
-               _Hamlet_.--With drink, sir?
-
-               _Gull_.--No, my lord, rather with choler.
-
-This was the dialogue as I had written it. The humorous printer added a
-letter that somewhat changed the sense. He made the line,--
-
-               “No, my lord, rather with _cholera_.”
-
-This was probably an honest attempt on the compositor’s part to work
-out a “new reading,” and it certainly did not appear to me to be more
-extravagant than the scores of attempts made in the same direction.
-If this reading were accepted, the perturbation of Claudius during the
-players’ scene, and his hasty Bight before its conclusion, would be
-accounted for.
-
-Another daring new reading in _Hamlet_ was suggested by a compositor,
-through the medium of a comma and a capital. In the course of a magazine
-article, he set up a line in the third scene of the third act, in this
-way,--
-
-               _Hamlet_.--Now might I do it, Pat!
-
-It is somewhat curious that some attempt has not been made before now
-to justify such a reading. Could it not be suggested that Hamlet had an
-Irish servant who was in his confidence? About the time of Hamlet, the
-Danes had an important settlement in Ireland, and why might not Hamlet’s
-father have brought one of the natives of that island, named Patrick, to
-be the personal attendant of the young prince? The whole thing appears
-so feasible, it almost approaches the dimensions of an Irish grievance
-that no actor has yet had the courage to bring on the Irish servant who
-was clearly addressed by Hamlet in the words just quoted.
-
-So “readings” are made.
-
-Either of those which the compositors suggested is much more worthy of
-respect than the late Mr. Barry Sullivan’s,--
-
-               “I know a hawk from a heron. Pshaw!”
-
-But if compositors are sometimes earnest and enterprising students of
-Shakespeare, I have sometimes found them deficient on the subject of
-geography. Upon one occasion, for instance, I accompanied a number of
-them on an excursion to the Isle of Man. The day was one of a mighty
-rushing wind, and the steamer being a small one, the disasters among the
-passengers were numerous. There was not a printer aboard who was not in
-a condition the technical equivalent to which is “pie.” I administered
-brandy to some of them, telling them to introduce a “turned rule,” which
-means, in newspaper instructions, “more to follow.” But all was of no
-avail. We reached the island in safety, however, and then one of the
-compositors who had been very much discomposed, seeing the train about
-to start for Douglas, told me in a confidential whisper that he had
-suffered so much on the voyage, he had made up his mind to return to
-Ireland by train.
-
-*****
-
-Quite a new reading, not to _Hamlet_, but to one of the lyrics in _The
-Princess_, was suggested by another compositor. The introduction of a
-comma in the first line of the last stanza of “Home they brought her
-warrior dead” produced a quaint effect.
-
-                   “Rose a nurse of ninety years,
-
-                   Set his child upon her knee,”
-
-appears in every edition of _The Princess_. But my friend, by his timely
-insertion of a comma, made it read thus:
-
-                   “Rose, a nurse of ninety years.”
-
-Perhaps the nurse’s name was Rose, but Tennyson kept this a secret.
-
-One of the loveliest of Irish national melodies is that for which Moore
-wrote the stanzas beginning:--
-
-               “Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy waters!”
-
-The title of this song appeared in the programme of a St. Patrick’s Day
-Concert, which was published in a leading London newspaper, as though
-the poem were addressed to one Mr. O’Moyle,--“Silent, O’Moyle.”
-
-*****
-
-Another humorist set up a reference to “Susanna and the Elders,”
-
-“Susanna and the Editors,” which was not just the same thing. Possibly
-the printer had another and equally apocryphal episode in his mind’s
-eye.
-
-I felt a warm personal regard for the man who made a lecturer state
-that a critic had “poured out the violets of his wrath upon him.” The
-criticism did not, under these circumstances, seem particularly severe.
-
-I must frankly confess, however, that I had nothing but reprobation
-for the one who made a clergyman state in a lecture to a class of young
-ladies, that his favourite poem of Wordsworth’s was “Invitations to
-Immorality.” Nor had I the least feeling except of indignation for the
-one who set up the title of a picture in which I was interested, “a rare
-turnip,” instead of “a rare tulip.” The printer who at the conclusion of
-an obituary notice was expected to announce to the readers of the paper
-that “the interment will take place on Saturday,” but who, instead, gave
-them to understand that “the entertainment will take place on Saturday,”
- did not, I think, cause any awkward mishap. He knew that the idea was
-that of entertainment, whatever the word employed might be.
-
-The compositor who caused an editor to refer to “the autotype of the
-Russian people,” when the word _autocrat_ was in the “copy” before him,
-was less to be blamed than the reader who allowed such a mistake to pass
-without correction.
-
-When I read on a proof one night that the most striking scene in _The
-Dead Heart_ at the Lyceum was “the burning of the Pastille and the dance
-of the Rigmarole,” I asked for the “copy” that had been telegraphed;
-and I found that the printer was not responsible for this marvellous
-blunder.
-
-*****
-
-It will be remembered that at one of his lectures in the United States,
-Mr. Richard A. Proctor remarked that in the course of a few million
-years something remarkable would happen, but that its occurrence would
-not inconvenience his audience, as he supposed they would all be in
-Paradise at that time.
-
-In one paper the reporter made him say that he supposed his audience
-would all be in Paris at that time.
-
-The next evening Mr. Proctor turned the mistake to a good “scoring”
- account, by stating that he fancied at first an error had been made; but
-that shortly afterwards, he remembered that the tradition was, that all
-good Americans go to Paris when they die, so that the reporter clearly
-understood his business.
-
-*****
-
-The enterprising correspondent who sows his telegrams broadcast is a
-frequent cause of the appearance of mistakes. I recollect that one sent
-a hundred words over the wire regarding some village concert, the great
-success of which was due to the zeal of the Reverend John Jones, “the
-_locus standi_ of the parish.” He had probably heard something at one
-time of a _pastor loci,_ and made a brave but unsuccessful attempt to
-reproduce the phrase.
-
-Another correspondent telegraphed regarding the arrival of two American
-cyclists at Queenstown, that their itinerary would be as follows: “They
-will travel on their bicycles through Ireland and England, and then
-crossing from Dover to Calais they will proceed through Europe, and from
-Turkey they will pass through Asia Minor into Xenophon and the Anabasis,
-leaving which they will travel to Egypt and the Land of _Goschen_.”
-
-The reference to Xenophon was funny enough, but the spelling of the
-last word, identifying the country with the statesman, seemed to me to
-represent the highwater mark of the flood-tide of modernism. A few years
-before, when the correspondent was doubtless more in touch with the
-vicissitudes of the Children of Israel than with the feats of cyclists
-from the United States, he would probably have assimilated Mr. Goschen’s
-name with the Land of Goshen; but soon the fame of the ex-Chancellor of
-the Exchequer had become of more immediate importance to him, and it was
-the land that changed its name in his mind to the name of the ex-Finance
-Minister.
-
-It was probably the influence of the same spirit of modernism that
-caused a foreman, in making up the paper for the press, to insert under
-the title of “Sporting,” half a column of a report of a lecture by a
-clergyman on “The Races of Palestine.”
-
-*****
-
-It was, however, the telegraph office that I found to be responsible
-for a singular error in the report of the arrest of a certain notorious
-criminal. The report should have stated that “a photograph of the
-prisoner had been taken by the detective camera,” but the result of the
-filtration of the message through a network of telegraph wires was the
-statement that the photograph “had been taken by Detective Cameron.”
-
-*****
-
-Some years ago a too earnest naturalist was drowned when canoeing on a
-lake in the west of Ireland. An enterprising correspondent who clearly
-resided near the scene of the accident, forwarded to the newspaper with
-which I was connected, a circumstantial account of the finding of the
-capsized canoe. In the course of his references to the objects of
-the naturalist’s visit to the west, the reporter made the astounding
-statement that “he had already succeeded in getting together a
-practically complete collection of the _flora_ and _fauna_ of
-Ireland,”--truly a “large order.”
-
-I feel that I cannot do better than bring to a close with this story my
-desultory jottings, which may bear to be regarded as a far from
-complete collection of the _flora_ and _fauna_ of journalism. Perhaps my
-researches into these highways and byways may induce some more competent
-and widely experienced brother to publish his notes on men and matters.
-
-“Not a jot, not a jot,” protested the _Moor_.
-
-Am I setting the omen at defiance in publishing these Jottings? Perhaps
-I am; though I feel easier in my mind on this point when I recall how,
-on my quoting in an article the proverb, “_Autres temps, mitres mours”_
-a wag of a printer caused it to appear, “_Autres temps, autres_ Moores!”
-
-
-THE END.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg’s A Journalists Note-Book, by Frank Frankfort Moore
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