and literary men, who afterwards made their mark; but again, when
sub-editor of London’s oldest evening newspaper, the _Globe_, I met
many more celebrities whose names are to-day household words. The
contributors of the “By-the-Way” column were, in themselves, the
best collection of literary brains in London. Davenport Adams, the
dramatic critic, who wrote the standard _Dictionary of the Drama_,
and who was a bosom friend of Henry living and Ellen Terry, and who
wore a faded velveteen coat day and night, and who smoked the vilest
of cigarettes; Joe Knight, the jovial editor of the _Athenæum_;
Algernon Locker, the clever assistant-editor of _Punch_ to-day; the
brilliant C. L. Graves and his equally brilliant collaborator E. V.
Lucas, and the great Lord Salisbury, Premier of England. All these
wrote the front page of the _Globe_, in the days when I sat, amid
clicking tape-machines, doling out the world’s news to those who
cared to pay a penny for the pale pink sheet.
It is not generally known that those “turn-overs” in the _Globe_
describing the happenings of an imaginary village called Wozzle, by
“A Wozzleite,” were written by the great Lord Salisbury, then Prime
Minister, who really described the little town of Hatfield, where he
had his country seat.
Again, we had for years an unknown poet who dropped his brilliant
contributions of topical verse into the letter-box in the Strand, and
though we published them two or three times a week, he never applied
for any payment, and nobody knows even to-day of his identity.
I found my days of journalism full of interest, because I met so many
cultured and interesting people. Though my office hours were from
seven in the morning till four in the afternoon, I was sufficiently
eager to write fiction--as Zola had urged me to do--till late each
night, and often to the small hours.
In those days the late Sir George Armstrong was chief proprietor
of the _Globe_, with Sir William Madge as manager. My instructions
were to run it as a paper written by gentlemen for gentlemen, and I
endeavoured to do my best to make it _The Times_ of the evening.
My best reporter was Charles F. Palmer--who later became editor
when I resigned to become a novelist--and who eventually, under
Horatio Bottomley’s wing, became Member for the Wrekin Division. It
is a thousand pities that poor Palmer, a sturdy and devoted friend,
was cut off in his prime. I helped him by speaking at his election
meetings in the Wrekin Division, and I had great hopes of him as an
Independent Member. Through twenty years he had occupied a seat daily
in the Reporters’ Gallery in the House of Commons, and no man in
all Britain had a more intimate knowledge of British politics or of
Parliamentary procedure.
While I was on the _Globe_ I fretted at being so much confined in
the office, and whenever I could I went forth to report current
events happening in London; more especially the mysteries of crime.
I assisted in the investigation of each of the “Jack-the-Ripper”
murders in Whitechapel, accompanied by two friends--Charles
Hands, who was afterwards on the staff of the _Daily Mail_, and
Lincoln Springfield, who was reporter of the _Star_, and who is
to-day proprietor of that most breezy and popular journal, _London
Opinion_. During the “Ripper” scare ours was a three-handed game. We
practically lived as a trio in Whitechapel, and as each murder was
committed we wrote up picturesque and lurid details while we stood on
the very spot where the tragedy had occurred. One evening Springfield
of the _Star_ would publish a theory as to how the murders had been
done, together with a facsimile of those letters in red ink, received
by Scotland Yard the day before; next night Charlie Hands would have
a far better theory in the _Pall Mall_, and then I would weigh in
with another theory in the _Globe_. Only recently the actual identity
of “Jack the Ripper” has been discovered and will be found for the
first time disclosed in Chapter XVII.
Sir H. M. Stanley, the African explorer, was for many years my
intimate friend.
An incident that occurred in 1890, while I was still sub-editor of
the _Globe_, is very curious, and has never been before disclosed. I
will tell it exactly as it happened.
Stanley had returned after being lost for two years in the Forests of
Perpetual Night, and was the idol of the hour, lecturing and being
fêted everywhere, with honours being bestowed on him for his daring
to lead his gallant little band into the very heart of the Unknown.
He had written his monumental work _Through Darkest Africa_, which
was just about to be published, and, moreover, it was announced with
great _éclat_ that he was to be married to Miss Dorothy Tennant, the
clever author of _London Street Arabs_, and other books. The whole
world was excited at the romance.
One warm afternoon I was seated in my office in the Strand, examining
piles of “copy” that came pouring in from all sources, sheeting what
news should appear in the “Special” edition of that night’s paper.
My office boy suddenly announced that a man was in the office below,
asking to see “the editor.”
In reply to my inquiry as to what he was like, the boy said:
“He looks like a workman, sir. He won’t go away till he sees you. He
says he has something very important to tell you.”
Thinking he might have some exclusive news, I ordered him to be shown
up. He proved to be a tall, thin, rather loosely-built man of about
forty, in a shabby old jacket and faded and patched blue trousers,
such as are worn by engineers.
As he stood cap in hand, I asked him his business, when he replied:
“Well, the fact is, sir, I’m a seafaring man, and I’m stranded! I’ve
had some funny experiences, and I thought if I told you some of them
to put in your paper, perhaps you might give me something, so that I
can get up to Liverpool to join another ship. I’ve been a long time
in Africa.”
“Well, lots of people have been in Africa,” I remarked dubiously.
“Yes, I know. But they haven’t been where I’ve been.” And then he
went on to mention places of which I had never heard. He began to
tell me a remarkable story of how he deserted from his ship, on
board of which he had been a stoker, and of his wanderings along the
African coast. Then he started to describe what he had seen. Some of
this I took down in shorthand, and still have my notes.
“Well,” I said at last, “I confess I know very little of West Africa,
but I have a friend who has been there, and he no doubt would like to
have a chat with you.” And then I gave him a few shillings and he
promised to return next afternoon at three o’clock.
I had formed an opinion that he was only cadging, and that I should
never see him again.
Later, however, I telephoned to Stanley, who was then living in De
Vere Gardens, and he promised to come and interview the fellow, who
had given his name as George Harding.
Next afternoon Stanley arrived just before three, and when the man
was shown up I introduced him as my friend.
“Oh! you know something about Africa, sir?” Harding said, never
having met Stanley before, and quite unaware of his identity.
The great explorer admitted that he knew a little concerning the
Congo.
“Ah! That’s just where I’ve been, and up the Aruwimi, too,” said the
man. “Do you know it?”
“Yes, I do,” Stanley replied, evidently much taken aback.
“How funny! I thought I was the only white man who’d been up in those
forests,” he said, and then he began to speak of various tribes
and their chiefs, and the names of native villages; all of which
held Stanley absolutely agape. Time after time he tested the man’s
knowledge of places and things.
I got out the large map of Africa where there were great blanks
showing unexplored country, and with his finger Harding pointed
to different spots where native villages were situated, and the
direction of rivers of which Stanley alone knew the names; for the
book _Darkest Africa_ had not yet been published, and was only in its
proof stage.
Then Stanley questioned him about certain other tribes, their chiefs,
their habits, and apparently learned much that was of interest to
him. The man described the pigmies, and gave such details concerning
their life that the great explorer sat utterly astounded.
“Do I tell you the truth, sir?” asked the man presently. “I thought
I was the only white man who had ever been right up the Aruwimi, but
you’ve evidently been there too.”
“Yes, you have certainly told the truth,” was Stanley’s halting
reply. “I confess I am amazed to find that you have been
there--evidently before me, from one or two of your remarks. One of
those chiefs you knew died nearly a year before I got there and had
been succeeded by his brother.”
The man Harding then told us more of his astounding adventures--how
he had escaped from a cannibal tribe, after witnessing one of their
disgusting orgies, and how he had become husband of a chief’s
daughter, as well as many thrilling episodes and narrow escapes he
had during his four and a half years in the Congo forests.
Eventually Stanley gave him a five pound note, without revealing his
identity, and made an appointment to meet him on the following day.
When he had gone, the famous African explorer, whose name was on
everyone’s lips, stood staring at me pale and aghast. At first he
could not utter a word.
“Only fancy, Le Queux, that fellow has done all the journey that I
have done--and more!” he gasped. “He was alone! _He is a greater
traveller than I have ever been!_”
A few days later _Through Darkest Africa_ was published, and
Stanley’s reputation became established throughout the world. But to
the day of his death, a few years later, he befriended the unknown
stoker who had really been the actual discoverer of the Aruwimi, the
Forests of Perpetual Night, and the pigmies.
While on the staff of the _Globe_ I met Mr. Gladstone on several
occasions, and more than once he showed me kindnesses. I recollect
one day, when he opened a new wing of Guy’s Hospital, the Press were
invited to the luncheon, and it was expected that the Prime Minister
would make an important declaration of policy towards Turkey.
I chanced to arrive half-an-hour before the luncheon, and long before
any other representatives of the Press, when, to my surprise, I was
informed that Mr. Gladstone had already spoken, for his pressing
engagements would not allow him to remain to the luncheon. Just
as I had been told this the Prime Minister recognized me, and,
approaching, said in a low voice:
“There was no pressman here when I spoke, was there?”
I replied that there was not.
“Then come along. Lets go into that little room over there,” and he
took me across to what was apparently a sister’s private room, and
while I sat at a plain deal table the Grand Old Man leaned against it
and repeated his speech, which I took down.
But he turned it into the third person, dictating: “Mr. Gladstone,
having performed the formal opening ceremony, addressed those
present, and said that the policy of the Government towards the
Sublime Porte was----”
He dictated for about a quarter of an hour without hesitation in that
low, husky, yet perfectly clear voice of his, seated easily on the
corner of the table and swinging his leg as he spoke.
“Will that do, Mr. Le Queux?” he asked, laughing, as at last he stood
up.
“Excellently, sir,” was my reply, as I closed my notebook and thanked
him.
“I suppose the others will be horribly annoyed,” he said. “They have
all gone in to luncheon now, and are no doubt waiting for me to
appear. If you are going towards the Strand I can set you down at
your office.”
And thus I drove through the city beside the great Prime Minister.
The _Globe_ was the only newspaper to publish the speech that night,
and I had the satisfaction of knowing that _The Times_ was compelled
to use my report next morning.
Mr. Gladstone was also very kind to me when I published my second
novel, _Zoraida_. From Hawarden he wrote: “Quite by accident I saw
your novel, _Zoraida_, when staying at Chatsworth a fortnight ago,
and I read it. I want to congratulate you on your fertility of
invention and your vivid scenes of the Great Sahara and its desert
wanderers. The book has interested me.--W. E. GLADSTONE.”
I fear the praise was ill-deserved, but I confess I was much
gratified.
I afterwards learned that it was at Mr. Gladstone’s suggestion that
Queen Alexandra, then Princess of Wales, read my novels, and gave a
standing order for each of my books to reach her as soon as it was
published.
Somebody in the bookselling world discovered this fact, and when King
Edward ascended the throne, I was at once advertised by enterprising
publishers as “The Queen’s favourite novelist.” Among other notable
people who professed themselves interested in my novels, and
personally congratulated me, were Earl Balfour, Lord Derby, Lord
Birkenhead, Mr. Lloyd George, Bishop Ryle, Father Bernard Vaughan,
Sir Edwin Cornwall, Sir Henry Duke, and Mr. Justice Bray.
At a private house in the West End, where I was dining one night with
a number of distinguished people, soon after the publication of _The
Invasion_, Lord Halsbury, a little tubby figure, sidled up to me and
said very severely:
“Ah! So you are William Le Queux, eh? Well, I only wish I were still
Lord Chancellor. I would have had you up before the House for writing
that alarming book on the coming war.”
I was rather resentful, and he saw it.
Then the dear old lawyer laughed, and with a sly wink added:
“Wouldn’t you have liked it, eh? What an advertisement it would have
been for Roberts, Northcliffe, and your book!”
I can only here say that in addition to endeavouring to work in the
interests of my King and country, as every man should, I have at
times tried to entertain them with healthy, if exciting, fiction. I
am, alas! only too well aware of my own failings, of my hopeless
grammar when compared with the perfect English of some of my
contemporaries, yet to my critics I would point out that my early
knowledge of other languages interfered seriously with my knowledge
of English. I am a cosmopolitan, and for that I would crave the
reader’s forgiveness for any grammatical errors in this book or in
others I have written.
But in this chapter I am dealing with my early struggles--the days
when I was by day a London journalist and by night a struggling
novelist; when four hours’ sleep sufficed me, and when I used every
morning at half-past six to walk round Covent Garden in order to get
a breath of the fresh vegetables from the country. The dust of London
was, in those days, over my heart.
Another rather curious circumstance occurred to me during my
journalistic career. As usual, I entered my room at the _Globe_ at
seven o’clock one morning--for I have ever been an early riser,
and even to-day am often at my desk at five o’clock and work till
noon--when I saw on my blotting-pad several private telegrams in
their buff envelopes, distinguishable from the ordinary Press and
“agency” telegrams on their multiplicated “flimsies,” as they are
called in Press parlance.
One of them I opened bore the words “_Editor Globe--Victoria sunk_.”
There was no name of the sender, but the message had been despatched
a few hours before from a small town on the Tunisian coast.
This intrigued me. I looked up Lloyd’s Shipping List and found two
_Victorias_. Then in the Navy list I found H.M.S. _Victoria_ was the
British flag-ship in the Mediterranean.
I dashed along to the Admiralty and there interviewed the official on
duty.
“Probably a hoax,” he said. “We’ve had no news of it. No name is
given of the sender, you see.”
“But is the Fleet anywhere off the coast of Tripoli or Tunis?” I
asked.
“How do I know where the Mediterranean Fleet is?” asked the dapper
young man. “No, don’t publish the report. I expect it is somebody
trying to pull your leg--perhaps a tourist who has gone to see the
ruins of Carthage and thought he might have a bit of fun.”
So I replaced the telegram in my pocket and returned to the office.
Four times during that day I sent to the Admiralty to ask if they
could throw any light on the mysterious telegram, but they were
unable. No word reached them till twelve hours after the first news
of the disaster arrived that H.M.S. _Victoria_, with Vice-Admiral
Sir George Tryon on board, had been sunk in collision with the
_Camperdown_ on account of a faulty manœuvre on Sir George’s part.
The Admiral remained on the bridge as his vessel sank under him,
while twenty-two officers and three hundred and thirty-six crew also
perished.
Official knowledge often comes many hours after what is known and
discussed in London and New York newspaper offices long before the
authorities are informed.
The _Globe_ on that June day, in 1893, was the first to give the news
of the disaster to the world--news that they had received early in
the morning.
But till to-day the sender of that mysterious telegram has never
revealed himself. I have often wondered who despatched it from the
shore so quickly after the disaster occurred.
In the strike of the Metropolitan Police in London I narrowly
escaped serious injury--even death. After the last edition of the
_Globe_ had gone to press, I strolled round to Bow Street Police
Station--only a minute’s walk from the office--to see what was
happening, for it seemed very grotesque that the police of London
should go on strike and leave malefactors to do what they liked.
The streets were crowded by all the hooligans from the East End,
cheering the police and jeering against all law and order. The whole
underworld of London seemed to have been let loose that night, and
had assembled in that rather narrow street that leads from the Strand
to Long Acre.
I managed to get to the steps of the police station, where Charlie
Hands was standing with my reporter Charles Palmer and Lincoln
Springfield, when suddenly a heavy earthenware spittoon was flung
from an upper window of the section-house, and, escaping my ear by
an inch, smashed on to the pavement. Another inch, and it would have
undoubtedly smashed my skull.
Not long afterwards I sat in Bow Street Police Court, where the
charge against Oscar Wilde was being investigated, my interest being
all the keener because I had met him many times at Lady (Walter)
Palmer’s fine house in Grosvenor Square, she being one of Wilde’s
best friends.
I reported the whole of Bottomley’s trial in connection with the
Hansard Union, when “Mr. Bottomley in the Box” appeared day after day
on the contents-bills of the _Globe_ and the _Echo_. From a youth
I had always attentively studied criminology, so I endeavoured to
attend every sensational murder trial at the Old Bailey. Often I had
as companion my very old friend George R. Sims. Throughout thirty
years we frequently sat together at the Old Bailey, watching murder
trials, the last occasion being when we sat side by side through the
trial of Smith, who murdered his “brides” by drowning them in their
baths.
Let me whisper it. Both Sims and myself, rather portly persons, got
into those fatal zinc baths produced in court during a luncheon
interval, while several famous counsel looked on, making humorous
remarks.
In that case, Sir E. Marshall-Hall rose to such brilliancy as an
advocate that Smith would undoubtedly have been acquitted if the
accused had not, at the very last moment, taken his defence into his
own hands. Smith was hanged, but Sir E. Marshall-Hall’s magnificent
conduct of the case--like, later on, the defence of Greenwood at
Carmarthen Assizes--won for him the admiration of both Bench and Bar,
as well as great popularity with the public.
A more able, astute, and learned counsel there is none in the
kingdom. For many years he has been my friend, and I think I
can safely say that he is personally one of the most modest,
large-minded, and most charitable men I have ever met.
Those large, dark, penetrating eyes, which terrify a witness under
cross-examination, that big, mobile countenance, those eyebrows that
shift up and down, and yet, in contrast, that pleasant, easy-going,
even fraternal manner that he sometimes assumes towards the jury, is
that of a great legal genius, a man who studies the psychology of
crime and who knows its degrees as few other men in England know them.
The country admires him, it is true, but I happen to know that
criminal judges, even though he falls foul of them sometimes, admire
and trust him even more.
Once I congratulated him on a great success at an Assize Court in the
north, whereupon he simply sighed, and, turning to me, said:
“Luck, my dear fellow--only luck!”
My work on the _Globe_ was not without its humorous side. On one
well-remembered day I had been out to snatch a hasty lunch at
Simpson’s, across the way, when on my return I glanced at the
tape-instruments as usual. On one of them was a startling message,
printed on the slip:
“_Her Majesty the Queen died at Windsor at ten o’clock this
morning._”
I re-read it, and held my breath.
My next action was to telephone down to the printers to place the
margins of the paper in deep mourning, telling the head printer that
the Queen was dead.
My message caused the greatest consternation in the printing works,
but all goes like clockwork in the office of any London evening
newspaper, and it was a standing joke that if the last trump sounded
the _Globe_ should come out with an “extra special.”
Ere I had time to consider what I should write concerning the great
calamity that had overtaken the nation the head printer was in my
room, exhibiting a wet contents bill in heavy mourning, with the
words “Death of the Queen.”
In the meantime Mr. “Jack” Jewell, the sporting editor, who, for
so many years as “Larry Lynx,” wrote the sporting article for the
_Globe_ and also Sir William Madge’s weekly paper, _The People_, had
passed through the printing-room and heard the news. He went out into
the Strand, where he met the sub-editor of the _Echo_, and told him
of the calamity.
I stood alone in my room, undecided. All was ready. I had written
some lines that began with the words:
“The whole British nation, and the world, will learn with
deepest sorrow that Her Majesty Queen Victoria passed away at
Windsor Castle, where she was spending Easter, at ten o’clock
this morning. No further details of our national calamity have
reached us before going to press.”
I had the proof in “double-leads,” as the printers call it, in my
hands.
Everyone was out at lunch--Sir George Armstrong, the chief
proprietor, Sir William Madge, the manager, and all the staff, except
Charles Palmer who came in at that moment.
“Inquire of the Press Association,” Palmer suggested.
It only required me to press a bell on my table to set the great
presses going, and to launch on the world the unexpected news that
“Victoria the Good,” who had just celebrated her second jubilee, was
dead!
I rang up, and in answer to my eager inquiry I heard an insulting
voice say:
“Whatever we send out is true. Ours is a reliable service, you know.
Others are not.”
And he rang off.
Of Reuter’s, and of the Central News, I inquired, but both declared
that they knew nothing of the Queen’s death.
At that moment the inspector of the Exchange Telegraph Company, an
electrician, who visited the newspaper offices each hour to renew the
spools of tape, ink the machines, and see they were in working order,
entered the room without knocking, as he always did.
I pounced on him instantly, asking:
“What about this report of the Queen’s death that your people have
sent out?”
“Queen’s death? What do you mean?” he asked, staring at me.
Then with a smile on his face the little man, who for years had
trudged from one newspaper office to another all day long, dived
into the huge waste-paper basket set beneath the automatic machine
to receive the hundreds of yards of printed tape that we never used,
and presently drew out a piece about six inches long, on which were
the words--after giving the time--“John Walters, for thirty years
coachman to----”
_It was the Queen’s coachman who had died!_
And so I very narrowly made the _Globe_ the laughing stock of the
whole world.
Yet as a matter of fact the _Echo_ did actually publish the
report--as a rumour only--and many copies were sold outside the Royal
Exchange before the edition was suppressed.
No! The life of a news-editor is not exactly a bed of roses.
The dear old _Globe_ has, alas! passed away, and is merged into the
_Pall Mall Gazette_, after Charles Palmer became editor, and fell
foul of the German-paid betrayers during the war.