_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.