_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.