"THE LITTLE BUSY BEE" GETS AHEAD OF ITS RIVALS.
Two days afterwards, that is, on the 9th of March, some hours after
the morning papers were in circulation, all London was ringing with
the news of the mysterious murder in Catchpole Square. The name of
Samuel Boyd was on every tongue; the newsboys shouted it out raucously
and jubilantly, with the full force of their lungs, and the wind
carried it into all the highways and byeways of the vast metropolis;
it was printed on the variously coloured waybills of the newspapers in
scarlet letters, green letters, yellow letters, as large as the width
of the sheets permitted; it was read aloud and discussed in omnibuses,
in public-house bars, in the workshops and places of business; it was
bandied about, tossed in the air, caught up and passed on,
embellished, illustrated and exaggerated, and rolled over the tongue
as the most tempting of tempting morsels. Editorial offices were alive
with it, their swing doors had not a moment's rest, the whole of the
staff were on the _qui vive_, reporters hurried this way and that in
their hunt for facts, fanciful or otherwise, that had the remotest
connection, or no connection at all, with the name of the murdered man
and the circumstances of the murder, as far as they were known. Now
was the chance for the descriptive writer, for the youthful aspirants
for journalistic fame, for the enterprising interviewer. Things had
been rather dull lately. There had been no stirring crime, no
bloodthirsty deed, no sensational trial, no tremendous conflagration,
no awful shipwreck, no colliery explosion, no terrible railway
collision, for quite a week, and circulation was languishing. But here
at last was a dish of hot spice to stir the blood, to set tongues
wagging, to fire the imagination, to make the pulses glow. A murder!
And such a murder! Dark, thrilling, impenetrable, inscrutable,
enveloped in delicious mystery. What is one man's meat is another
man's poison, and Samuel Boyd, who had never in life given a beggar a
penny or the price of a meal to a starving man, was the means, in
death, of filling many a platter and frothing up many a pewter pot.
Trade revived. People spent more, drank more, smoked more, went to the
music-halls and theatres more, for it was impossible to keep still
with such an excitement in the air. See the radiant faces of the
ragged street urchins as they shout it out and dispose of their
sheets, and are not asked for change of a penny--see the journalistic
scouts as they follow the trail, true trail, false trail, any
trail--see the crowds in Fleet Street and the Strand and all the
narrow thoroughfares leading riverwards--see the smart newspaper
carts, with their dapper ponies flying north, south, east, and west
with their latest editions--see the travellers on the tops of
omnibuses throwing down their coppers and bending over to seize the
papers--see the railway bookstalls besieged by eager buyers, who,
rushing to catch a train, pick up half a dozen different journals, in
the hope of finding in one of them two or three lines of different
import from those contained in all the others--see the men standing at
street corners, running their eyes down the columns, animated by a
similar hope--see the telegraph wires, blind and deaf to human
passion, carrying the message of murder, murder, murder, on their
hundreds of miles of silent tongues--see the envy of the hawkers of
wax matches, penny toys, and bone shirt studs, as they watch the
roaring trade that is being done by the busy armies of tag, rag, and
bobtail, who form the distributing street agency of journalistic
literature, and wish that heaven had sent them such a bit of luck.
Sold out again, Jack! Hurrah! Fly off for another quire. As good as a
Derby Day, Bill! As good? Ten times better! Where are "all the
winners" now? Shorn of their glory they sink into the background, and
no small punter so poor to do them reverence? What are "all the
winners" to a rattling spicy murder?
Never had "The Little Busy Bee" more fully justified its title than
on the present occasion. A daring scheme had suggested itself to one
of the members of the staff, which had been crowned with success.
Ahead of all its rivals it was the first to publish the exciting news,
and needless to say it made the most of its golden opportunity. The
office was besieged; it was like a Jubilee Day. Men and boys fought
and scrambled for the copies as the steam presses belched them forth,
and selling them out before they reached the wider thoroughfares,
rushed back for more. The day was Saturday, and the whirling tumult
lasted till midnight.
The manner of "The Little Busy Bee's" buzzing in its preliminary
editions was as follows: First, a quotation in large type from
"Macbeth." And one cried, "Murder!" Then half a column of the usual
sensational headings. Then the account of the daring scheme and the
discovery in the following fashion: