I hurried off instanter to the address mentioned; and, although
newspaper men of the New World, unlike ours, are uncommonly early birds,
getting up matutinally betimes so as to catch the typical worm--in which
respect they resemble the entire business population of Transatlantica--
I found, on my arrival, that I was the first candidate who had appeared
on the scene.
It was a good omen, for your "live Yankee" likes "smartness;"
consequently, I was sanguine of success.
You may, peradventure, be "surprised to hear" of my thinking myself fit
for such a post, having had such a slight acquaintance with literature
at home?
That did not dissuade me, however, in the least.
I have so great a confidence in myself, that I would really take the
command of the Channel fleet to-morrow if it were offered to me--as Earl
Russell proposed to do, when he was simple "Lord John;" and, as a
civilian First Lord of the Admirality has since done, although he
possessed so little nautical knowledge that he might not have been able
to tell you the difference between a cathead and a capstan bar, or, how
to distinguish a "dinghy" from the "second cutter." I suppose he
thought, like Mr Toots, that, "it didn't matter!"
Conceit, you say?
Not at all.--Only self-reliance, one of the most available qualities for
getting on in the world; for, if a man does not believe in himself, how
on earth can he expect other people to believe in him?
"Guess" I posed you there!--to use one of my patent Americanisms.
Besides, an American "editor," if you please, is of a very different
stamp to an English one. The "learned lexicographer"--and pedantic old
bore, by the way--Doctor Johnson, defined the individual in question to
be "one who prepares or revises any literary work for publication;" and,
we generally associate the name with the supreme head of a journalistic
staff--he who is addressed indignantly as "sir" by those weak-minded
persons who write letters to newspapers, and who signs himself
familiarly "Ed." But, at the other side of the Atlantic, the term bears
a much wider application, extending to all "connected with the press"--
from the "head cook and bottle-washer," down, nearly, to that bottle
imp, the printer's "devil."
Political writers; correspondents, "special" and "local;" reviewers;
reporters; stenographers, or "gallery" men; dramatic and musical
critics; "paragraphists"--the new name for fire and murder manifolders,
and other "flimsy" compilers; and, penny-a-liners:--each and all, are,
severally and collectively, "editors," beneath the star-spangled banner
of equality and freedom.
Hence, there was not so much effrontery after all in my applying for the
position, eh?
The proprietor of the paper whom I now canvassed did not think so, at
least; and _he_ was the party chiefly concerned in the affair besides
myself; so, I should like to know what _you've_ got to do with it?
He was a "Down-easter," a class of American I had already learnt
specially to dislike--the ideal and real, "Yankee" of the States; but,
he spoke to the point, as most of them do, without any waste of words or
travelling round the subject--more than can be said for some
"Britishers" I know!
He was leaning over the counter of the advertisement office as I
entered, settling some calculation of greenbacks with the cashier, and
"guessed," ere I had opened my mouth to explain my presence, that I had
come about that "vacancy up-stairs."
"Been in the newspapering line before?" was his next interrogatory--a
very pertinent one; for, Transatlantic journalists, as a rule, manage to
try every trade and calling previously to sinking down to "literature"--
similarly to some of those bookseller's "hacks" over here who mortgage
themselves to flash publishers when all other means of livelihood have
failed them.
When I answered "Yes" to this question, he did not wait to hear anything
further.
"Go up-stairs and try your hand," said he--"we'll soon see what you'll
amount to, I reckon. We don't want any references here. We take a man
as we find him. Guess I'll give you twenty-five dollars a week, anyhow,
for one week sartain; and then, if we suit each other, we can raise the
pile bimeby. Say, are you on?"
I "guessed" I _was_ "on;" and, went up-stairs to the paste-and-scissors
purlieus with much gusto.
It was a very good commencement for me--I who had nothing to bless
myself with before, for, the salary would pay my board and lodging twice
over. It was a beginning, at any rate; and, as we subsequently did
"suit each other," my down-east friend behaved very fairly, keeping to
his promise of "raising my pile"--a synonym for increasing the weekly
sum of "greenbacks" he allowed me for my labours. I had never any
reason to repent the bargain--nor did I.
The work I had to do was by no means arduous, although, in many
respects, of a novel character. From the fact that my residence in
America had not been yet sufficiently extended to enable me to master
the ins and outs of Transatlantic politics, the leading articles--or
"editorials" as they are there styled--which I had to write were but few
in number, and entirely referring to social subjects of local interest;
notwithstanding that I was occasionally allowed to enlighten the
Manhattan mind in the matter of European affairs. If my special
"editor's" duties were thus light, I made up, however, for their
deficiency, by enlarging upon the skeleton telegrams that came every
night across the ocean--"expanding news," so to speak--and by also
writing, on the arrival of every steamer, while seated in the back
parlour of the journal's office in New York, the most graphic special
correspondent's letters from Paris and London!
With regard to the telegrams. Half a dozen words only might come over
the cable, to say, for instance, that the late Emperor Napoleon, who was
the then supposed arbiter of the Old World, had nominated Count somebody
or General that to a fresh portfolio; or that, the "scion of the house
of Hapsburgh" was suffering from tooth-ache; or that, John Bright was
going to Dublin to lecture "on Irish affairs."
My duties were such, that, when these telegrams appeared, in all the
glories of print, the next morning, they had grown in such a miraculous
way, that they took up half a yard of room, instead of but a few lines
of type. Had you read them, you would have found their contents
thoroughly explanatory, entering into the most minute details--as to how
Napoleon's change of ministers would affect "the situation;" how poor
Francis Joseph's attack of caries might, could and would raise again the
ghost of "the Eastern question;" how the advent of the great Radical
leader in Ireland would be the signal for a general Fenian uprising--
and, so on.
I _only_ mention these cases in point, to describe the way in which I
clothed my skeletons with solid substrata of flesh and blood. The
public, you see, had only so much the more information for their money--
which was, probably, just as reliable as if it had been really "wired"
under the Atlantic! Nobody was the wiser; nobody, the sufferer by the
deception; so, what was "the odds" so long as they were correspondingly
"happy"--in their ignorance?
My correspondent's letters were much more mendacious compositions.
I am quite ashamed to tell you what long columns of flagrant description
I was in the habit of reeling off--touching certain races in the Bois de
Boulogne, soirees at the Tuileries, and working-men's "demonstrations"
in Hyde Park--of which I was only an imaginative spectator!
I used to rake up all my old reminiscences of the boulevards and cafes
and prados, giving details concerning the "petit-creves" and "cocottes,"
the "flaneurs" and "grandes dames" of the once "gay" capital--gay no
longer; and, interspersing them with veracious reports respecting the
latest hidden thoughts of "Badinguet," and vivid descriptions of the
respective toilets of the Empress Eugenie, Baroness de B---, Madame la
Comtesse C---, la belle Marquise d'E---, and all the other fashionable
letters of the alphabet--chronicling the very latest achievements in
"Robes en train" and "Costumes a ravir" of the great artist Worth. Even
the men folk of America--"shoddy" of course--dote on those accounts of
European toilets, which we never see given in any of our papers,
excepting where the appearance of the Queen's Drawing-Room may be
passingly noted; or, when the _Morning Post_ exhausts itself over a
"marriage in high life."
When my spurious intelligence was dated from London, I had to draw on a
fertile memory for popular rumours concerning revolutionary doctrine,
and express a conviction that things were not going very well with John
Bull, politically or socially, hinting, also, at the prospect of an
early Irish rebellion--and, generally, manufacture similar "news" of a
kind that is peculiarly grateful to the jaundiced palates of our
English-hating, jealousy-mad cousins over the way.
When Min came to know of this practice of mine, she did not like it.
She wrote to me to say that it was acting untruthfully to pretend to
correspond from a place when I was not actually there.
The habit was certainly reprehensible, I admit, as I admitted to her;
but, then, what can a writer do if blessed with a vivid imagination?
Besides, I had a precedent in Goldsmith's _Citizen of the World_, you
know; and, as Byron says--
"--After all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
The truth in masquerade; and I defy
Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to put
A fact without some leaven of a lie.
The very shadow of true truth would shut
Up annals, revelations, poesy,
And prophecy--except it should be dated
Some years before the incidents related."
Even on this side of the water, too, authors have frequently to use
their pens as if they did not chance to possess a conscience--one of the
worst possessions for any aspirant in the journalistic profession to be
encumbered with, I may remark by the way!
You seem to be astonished at my observation? I will explain what I mean
more lucidly.
Supposing a journalist belongs to a Conservative organ, he must back up
the party, don't you see, at all hazards; and, although in his inmost
heart he may have a faint suspicion that Mr Disraeli's popularity is on
the wane, it will not do for him to write his leading articles to that
effect exactly, eh? Oh, dear no! He has to assert, on the contrary,
that "the masses" are loudly calling on _Punch's_ friend "Dizzy" to save
England from the utter extinguishment predicted by our dear Bismarck the
other day at Versailles! While, should your potent pressman, on the
other hand, wield the goose-quill of any ponderous or lively daily paper
that may advocate "Liberalism," and support the elect of Greenwich
through thick and thin, do you think he gives you his candid opinion
anent "the people's William" then in power, or respecting that
bamboozling Alabama business?
Not he!
Why, he knows, as well as you do, of the tergiversation that has
distinguished the entire political career of the Risque-tout Prime
Minister; and yet, he has to speak of him as if he were the greatest
statesman England has ever seen--hanging on his words as silver, when
knowing them all the while to be but clap-trap Dutch metal! Convinced,
as he must be, that the Washington Treaty is one of the trashiest pieces
of diplomacy that has ever disgraced a government, and that the whole
community has been dissatisfied at having to make the Americans a nice
little present of three millions of money--in settlement of a claim for
which neither the law of nations nor moral opinion held us responsible--
he is obliged to argue that it is "a splendid triumph for the ministry,"
and that the "public is overjoyed" to grease Uncle Sam's outstretched
palm!
You know, the deeds of "our William" _must be_ bolstered up; lest
"waverers" should waver off to the ranks of the "Constitutionalists,"
and the "great Liberal party" come to grief at the next general
election!
So, how can a journalist have a conscience? You see I'm right, and that
I had some excuse for my foreign correspondence of American origin.
I lay the whole blame of the transaction, however, on the narrow
shoulders of my lanky "down-east" proprietor:--_he_ is the man to blame
in the matter, not I!
After a time, I got tired of this work. I then left the journal on
which I had been first engaged--with no hard feelings on either side,
let it be mentioned--to join the literary staff of the _Aurora
Borealis_, an organ of quite a different complexion, and of considerable
notoriety in the empire city, as it was famed for its bizarre sensations
and teeming news.
Here my labours became much more extended--my experiences and knowledge
of all shades of American life and character the more varied and
complete in consequence.
Years before, when at school in England, I had made some acquaintance
with shorthand, in order to save me trouble in noting down lectures--for
the purpose of afterwards writing themes thereon, as we had to do at
Queen's College, under "old Jack's" rule; and, having kept up the
acquisition, I found it now of considerable use, for, it caused me to be
sent about much more than might otherwise have been the case--to report
the speeches of prominent public men, whether they were "stumping the
provinces" throughout the Union, or basking in the blazing "bunkum" of
the capital at Washington.
What an enormous amount of empty talk have I not had to attend to,
noting it down carefully, as if it were of the most vital importance
that not a syllable should be lost!
I have listened, with amused ears often, and busy pencil, to the
diabolical denunciations of our poor ill-used country, which have long
since made famous Senator Sumner--the greatest Anglophobist in the
States; hearkened to Horace Greeley's eager utterances, delivered in
thin falsetto voice, wherein he urged, as he urged to the last,
universal brotherhood and reconciliation between the North and South;
heard Andrew Johnson, the whilom president and one of the ablest who
ever occupied that position for ages, defend himself against
impeachment--that had been promoted through the bitter animosity of a
hostile faction--with the eloquence and legal ability of a Cicero and
the fearlessness of a Catiline:--
Reported Ben Butler, the ex-general, and now lawyer, of New Orleans,
where he attached to himself an infamous notoriety, that will never
desert him--"The Beast," as Brick Pomeroy, the western wit, calls him--
pelting his prosy platitudes and muddy language at the New York
"rowdies," who responded with a more practical shower, of dead cats, and
eggs that had seen their better days:--reported Frederick Douglas, the
tinted expounder of "advanced Ethiopianism," who regularly tells his
audiences--of sympathising abolitioners--that he had been "bought for
three thousand dollars when a slave"--a precious deal more than he was
worth, to judge by his appearance--although, he somehow always forgets
to speak of the present price he asks, for his "vote and interest!"
Reported Miss Anna Dickenson, the female champion, of whom report says
that she loveth the forementioned negro advocate even more as "a man"
than as "a brother," and who blinks her eyes and rolls out her sentences
at such a rate that the one dazzle while the other appal the poor
stenographer who may have to "follow" her:--reported Mesdames Susan B
Anthony--please notice the "B"--and Cady Stanton, besides a host of
other strenuous assertors of "woman's rights" and male wrongs--in
respect of petticoat government, "free love," and various similar
amiable, progressional theories that mark the advancement of our
Transatlantic sisterhood!--Yes, I have reported each and all of these as
they declaimed to their glory and satisfaction--and my disgust and
impatience, when their loquacity has extended to such a length that I
have had to sit up all night in order to write out my shorthand notes in
time for the waiting press--confound them!
Beyond this, I have "interviewed" politicians of every school and
temper--from Fernando Wood, the chief "wire puller" of swindling Tammany
Hall, up to doughty, tongue-tied General Grant, the "useless
slaughtering" commander of the northern forces during the civil war--
having had the pleasure of learning from the former how "logs" are
"rolled" in the furtherance of party ends; and, from the latter,
although the information only came out in dribbled monosyllables in
answer to gently disguised questions, for the reticent warrior can
hardly put two words of a sentence together, that he had been "bred up a
farmer," and, considered himself "more fit" for "that state of life"
than any other--in which opinion, as he has never been publicly tried in
the calling, I cordially agree with him.
I have, likewise, "interviewed" prize-fighters, before they proceeded to
take action in some "merry little mill;" Mormon prophets' wives, who had
come east to purchase Parisian finery for the after delectation of Utah
eyes, and the envy of other polygamous families not so favoured as they;
Chinese missions, under the escort of a Burlinghame; condemned
criminals, awaiting the fatal noose, and who wished to give their "last
speech and confession" to the world; Japanese jugglers, who expressed
their opinion of the States--the main object of every reporter's cross-
examination generally--in a sort of phonographic language, too, in which
the signs were feats of legerdemain and the "arbitrary characters," the
butterfly and basket tricks!
In fact, I "interviewed" everybody that was worth "interviewing," and
who could be got at to be "interviewed."
Seen life?
I should just think I had. I would not dream of fancying myself in a
position to give any trustworthy opinion on the subject of America and
its people, unless I had thus mixed amongst all classes of the community
during a lengthened stay in the country--although, mind you, your
"working-man's friend," and "trades' union delegate," and "Alliance"
teetotaller, and "liberal" peer, and disestablishing Nonconformist--
tourists all of only three weeks' experience--think they can take in, in
one glance, the whole extent of a continent embracing some hundred
million square miles, understanding the entire working of the
"institutions," of the "great republic" through travelling on a railroad
from New York to Chicago!
As you will have noticed, reporters over there are set to very varied
work instead of being fixed in any one especial groove as in England.
On the paper, for instance, to which I was attached, all the staff used,
regularly in turn, to do the dramatic criticism at the various theatres.
We, also, had to report the sermons at all the many churches of various
religious denominations on Sunday--whether they were Methodist,
Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Unitarian,
Universalist, or other which would tire you to even hear named; not
omitting the "Spiritualists," "Agapemonites," and the "Peculiar
People"--so, as was pointed out in an opposition paper at the time, we
"took the devil and the deity on week days and Sundays alternately!"
On the whole, putting the higher class of Americans on one side--I refer
to those who mostly belong to the older families, in some instances
tracing back their descent to the days of the Puritan Fathers, and who,
having learnt culture and refinement abroad, rarely mix in public life
in the States--the general faith and morality of our Yankee "cousins"
have never been so tersely described as in the "Pious Editor's Creed" of
the _Biglow Papers_, which were written, as you are doubtless aware, by
an American, too:--
"I du believe in special ways
O' prayin' an' convartin';
The bread comes back in many days,
An' buttered, tu, for sartin;
I mean in preyin' till one busts
On wut the party chooses,
An' in convartin' public trusts
To very privit uses!"
In one speciality, the New York journals, otherwise so inferior, set an
example which might be imitated to advantage by their London
contemporaries;--and, that is, in their news, the back-bone of an
ostensible "news"-paper.
I say nothing for their tone, which is essentially low--exhibiting, as
it does, a tendency of rather pandering to the vitiated appetites of the
mob than seeking to raise the standard of public taste and public
manners; nor, for their literary power and status, as their leading
articles are mostly a collection of loose sentences, strung loosely
together without method or reasoning, and they frequently display such
crass ignorance in the way of blunders in history and geography, as
would shock an English school-boy.
But then, their variety of intelligence from all parts of the world,
telegraphic and specially written, in one morning's issue, is greater
than you would gather in any one of our dailies in the consecutive
numbers of a week!
Take away the leading articles, foreign correspondence, and
parliamentary intelligence of our Jupiters of the press; and what have
you got left? Only some police reports and an attenuated column of
telegrams--solely from France and Germany, or some other part of Europe.
We have an Atlantic cable; what news of America do our newspapers
publish through its means? Simply the rise or fall in the value of
gold, and the price of Erie and other shares! We have a telegraph line
to India:--of course, we get general intelligence, of interest to all
people, respecting our great eastern, empire? No, we only hear what
"shirtings" and cotton goods generally realise at Calcutta; and, the
current rupee exchange of Bombay!
It is the same case with regard to Australia and elsewhere.
Although we have ample means of communication, the reading public know
no more now about what is going on in "Greater Britain" than it did
before the days of steam and telegraphs--comparatively-speaking. The
Americans, on the contrary, learn every morning the least incident that
has occurred in their remotest territory; besides, having European news
in abundance--the Atlantic cable being used to an extent which would,
judging by their slight patronage of it, send an English newspaper
proprietor into a fit!
We in London hardly keep pace with the the doings of our provincials
within easy railway distance of the metropolis, much less take notice of
our dependencies:--the existence of places without the London radius is
seldom brought home to the readers of our daily metropolitan papers,
except some "Frightful Murder," or "Painful Accident," or "Dreadful
Calamity" occurs, to fasten ephemeral attention on them for awhile!
Why, cannot we have such general news as the Americans have every day,
in our papers, from all parts of the British empire, as well as that
"foreign" intelligence, which is limited mostly to the adjacent
continent?
The expense, you say?
Rubbish, my dear sir! Why, in the case of a war, no pains are spared to
send out good correspondents of position and ability; no money grudged
to bring home information, even if special modes of conveyance have to
be organised. Surely, in times of peace, a tithe of this expenditure
would not be wasted in making our colonies and the "mother" country
better acquainted with each other--to the future benefit of both?
I may be wrong, certainly, for we are all of us liable to error. You
know--
"Different peoples has different opinions--
Some likes apples and some likes inions!"
Still, I think that English readers are probably just as anxious to know
what is going on in India, in Australia, the West Indies, and others of
our outlying settlements--where their relatives and friends, and our
country-men, are spreading our nation, our language, and our
civilisation--as to hear that Monsieur Thiers has gone to Switzerland,
or that Prince Esselkopf is taking "the waters" at Dullberg on the
Rhine! Such, is my opinion--at all events.
But, Min's letters, eh?
I'm just coming to them.