JOURNALISM AND THE STAGE
(1864-1880)
After he had been unseated for Windsor, Mr. Labouchere went abroad
for some months, most of which time he spent at Nice. He also went
to Florence, and was at Homburg, in 1868, just before the General
Election. His connection with journalism began at this period, as he
sent frequent letters to the _Daily News_, both from Nice and
Florence. These were always remarkable for their pithiness and wit,
although he had by no means developed the style which he brought to
perfection two years later as "The Besieged Resident," and which made
his fame as a journalist. In 1868, he became part proprietor of the
_Daily News_, which it was decided to issue for the future as a penny
paper.[1] Sir John Robinson thus describes the syndicate of which
Mr. Labouchere became a member: "The proprietors of the _Daily News_,
a small syndicate which never exceeded ten men, were a mixed body,
hardly any two of whom had anything in common. The supreme control
in the ultimate resort rested with three of them, Mr. Henry
Oppenheim, the well-known financier, with politics of no very decided
kind; Mr. Arnold Morley, a Right Honourable, an ex-party Whip, {96}
and a typical ministerial Liberal; and Mr. Labouchere, the Radical,
financier, freelance. Others had but a small holding, and
practically did not count, save as regards any moral influence they
might bring to bear on their colleagues at Board meetings."[2]
The new editor selected for the penny _Daily News_ was Mr. Frank
Hill, but the paper was run at a loss until the winter of 1870, when
the special war news published in its columns caused the circulation
to increase in one week from 50,000 to 150,000. Mr. Robinson, its
far-seeing manager, attributed the success of the paper, at this
period, first, to the excellence of his correspondents, and secondly,
to his having insisted upon having the whole of his news telegraphed
to London, instead of being transmitted by the post. The number of
the correspondents on the staff of the _Daily News_ during the war
was seventeen, of which the chief was Mr. Archibald Forbes, who may
be rightly described as a prince among journalists. Henry Labouchere
too had the main _heureuse_ where newspapers were concerned. His
Paris letters were eagerly read all over the civilised world, the
excitement and interest created by them being even more vehement in
America than in London. The fortune of the _Daily News_ was made,[3]
and from then onwards for many years the great organ of Liberalism
grew and flourished. When Mr. Labouchere sold his share[4] in 1895
he did so at a large profit. As I shall not have occasion to return
again to Mr. Labouchere's financial connection with the _Daily News_,
{97} I shall give in this place an account Mr. Lionel Robinson
recently wrote to me of the transaction: "So many contradictory
statements have been put forward in the press with reference to the
late Mr. Labouchere's pecuniary interest in the _Daily News_, that
you may not be unwilling to find space for the recollections of one
who heard at the time, and subsequently, various versions of the
story. My own impression, derived from personal intercourse, is that
some time about 1868 or a little later, Mr. Labouchere purchased a
quarter share in the newspaper for about £14,000, and further, that
the vendor was Mr. Henry Rawson of Manchester. I do not pretend to
know what were the annual profits of the paper, beyond the fact that
they increased enormously during the twenty years dating from the
Austro-Prussian War and its subsequent developments. It was,
therefore, not surprising that when Mr. Labouchere decided to sell
his share in the paper it should have commanded a high price. I have
heard it, from a certain distance of time from the event, placed as
high as £92,000, but my personal recollection is that the sum
mentioned by Mr. Labouchere was £62,000 or thereabouts."
In one of Mr. Labouchere's letters from Nice to the _Daily News_ he
gave a characteristic account of some of his compatriots abroad. The
following quotation from it will show the reader that, if he had not
yet acquired the style of his later work, the spirit of it was very
active--the spirit which made him hate mediocrity and
pretentiousness: "Here, as in almost every foreign watering-place,
there is a colony of English Bohemians, who live among themselves,
give each other tea parties and such mild festivities, frequent
charity and other public balls, abuse each other and every one else,
pet the English clergyman or denounce his doctrines, worry their
Consul with every kind of complaint and requirement, and keep up a
gallant and hopeless struggle to penetrate into foreign society. As
most of them only speak their own language, as the men, who, no
doubt, have many {98} solid virtues, are devoid of the art of
pleasing in a mixed society, and the women, pillars as they are of
virtue, have little of the Siren about them, foreign society does not
respond to their advances."[5]
Labouchere was not so successful over his speculation in theatre
property. In the October of 1867, Messrs. Telbin and Moore did up
the New Queen's Theatre, formerly St. Martin's Hall, in Long Acre,
and it was opened under the management of Mr. Alfred Wigan, one of
the most accomplished comedians of the day. Mr. Alfred Wigan had a
mysterious partner in management, and Herman Merivale, who had
written a most successful farce, as the curtain raiser for the new
theatre, gives a charming little account of his discovery of the
identity of the mysterious personage. Alfred Wigan soon wanted some
melodrama for the theatre, and Merivale wrote a play. Wigan told him
that he must submit it to his partner. "Two or three days
afterwards," writes Merivale, "I was sent in fear and trembling to
the manager's room at the Queen's, to meet the mysterious partner. I
was introduced, and, sitting at the table with a cigarette in his
mouth, I saw Labouchere. 'Good Lord!' he said, 'are _you_ the
eminent author?' 'Heavens!' quoth I, 'are _you_ the mysterious
partner?'
"Both of us had carefully concealed our hidden sin at the dinner
party.[6] What struck me most was a small array of bills of the new
play hung all round, each printed with a different title, that the
mysterious partner might see which looked best. It was, at all
events, bold expenditure. _Time and the Hour_ was the title that the
authors[7] had hit upon; and Labouchere decided that it should be
chosen. 'It's a splendid title, I think,' he said. 'Delighted that
you {99} say so,' was my flattered answer. 'It really is, you know.
Do for any play whatever that ever was written.'"[8]
_Time and the Hour_, as it turned out, was, in its way, a kind of
curiosity. For the cast comprised, besides Wigan himself, a whole
bouquet of coming managers, some of whom were at the beginning of
their professional careers. There were J. L. Toole, Lionel Brough,
John Clayton, and Charles Wyndham. Other plays acted at the Queen's
Theatre under Mr. Labouchere's management were Tom Taylor's _Twixt
Axe and Crown_, and H. J. Byron's _Dearer than Life_. In the former
the lovely Mrs. Wybert Rousby flashed for the first time in her full
beauty on the London stage, and in the latter the cast included Henry
Irving, J. L. Toole, John Clayton, Lionel Brough, and Charles
Wyndham, and last, but most important of all, as Lucy, that clever
artist and fascinating personality, Henrietta Hodson, who afterwards
became Mrs. Labouchere. Another star at the Queen's Theatre, during
the first year of Mr. Labouchere's management, was Ellen Terry. She
thus describes herself playing there in the _Double Marriage_. "As
Rose de Beaurepaire," she writes, "I wore a white muslin Directoire
dress and looked absurdly young. There was one curtain which used to
convulse Wyndham. He had a line, 'Whose child is this?' and there
was I looking a mere child myself, and with a bad cold in my head
too, answering: 'It's _bine_!' The very thought of it used to send
us off into fits of laughter."[9]
A contemporary picture of Mr. Labouchere at this time is given by Mr.
George Augustus Sala, in his _Life and Adventures_. Mr. Labouchere
had begged Sala to write him a play, full of exciting situations.
"An appointment was made with him," said Sala, "to meet Halliday
(another dramatic author) and myself at ten o'clock one evening at
the Queen's Theatre. He was then one of the members for the County
of Middlesex. He struck me as being in all respects a {100}
remarkable man, full of varied knowledge, full withal of humorous
anecdotes, and with a mother wit very pleasant to listen to. His
conversation was to me additionally interesting, because, when I was
in Mexico, I had gone over most of the ground which he had travelled."
The first numbers of _Truth_ abound with news of the Queen's Theatre,
and the unvarnished accounts Mr. Labouchere gave of the contretemps
that occurred during his management, and the strange, unexpected
things that happened, possibly contributed to the lack of
consideration he experienced as a theatrical manager. Here is part
of an article devoted to the art of the stage, published during the
first year of _Truth_: "The play on which I lost most was an
adaptation of _The Last Days of Pompeii_. Everything went wrong in
this piece. I wanted to have--after the manner of the
ancients--acrobats dancing on the tight rope over the heads of the
guests at a feast. The guests, however, absolutely declined to be
danced over. Only one acrobat made his appearance. A rope was
stretched for him, behind the revellers, and I trusted to stage
illusion for the rest. The acrobat was a stout negro. Instead of
lightly tripping it upon his rope, he moved about like an elephant,
and finally fell off his rope, like a stricken buffalo. In the
second act the head of a statue was to fall off, and to crush Mr.
Ryder, who was a magician. There was a man inside the statue, whose
mission was to push over its head. With folded arms and stern air,
Mr. Ryder gazed at the statue, awaiting the portentous event that was
to crush him to the earth, notwithstanding the mystic power that he
wielded. The head remained firm on its neck. The man inside had
solaced himself with so much beer, that he was drunk and incapable,
and Mr. Ryder had, much to the amazement of the audience, to knock
down the head that was to crush him. In the third act the stage
represented a Roman amphitheatre. In the midst of a gorgeously
dressed crowd sat Mr. Ryder. 'Bring forth the lion!' he said. The
audience thrilled at the idea {101} of a real lion being marched on
to the stage. Now I had no lion, and I had discarded the idea of
putting a lion skin on a donkey. An attendant therefore walked in
and said, 'Sir, the lion will not come.' Those of the audience who
were not hissing, roared with laughter. The last act was to
represent the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii.
The mountain had only been painted just in time for the 'first
night.' I had never seen it. What was my horror when the curtain
rose upon a temple with a sort of large sugar loaf behind it. At
first I could not imagine what was the meaning of this sugar loaf.
But when it proceeded to emit crackers I found that it was
_Vesuvius_!"[10]
Sometimes he let the theatre, and on that subject he was almost
pathetic: "Whenever this theatre is to let," he wrote, "I am
complimented by numerous persons with proposals which prove that I am
regarded by them as the most credulous and confiding of human
beings--hardly indeed a human being, but a simple, convenient lamb
... nothing that I can do convinces them that I am not a lamb covered
with nice long wool and eager to be shorn. On these occasions I
remember that the tempering of the wind to the shorn lamb is, after
all, but a poetical figure, and therefore I take care to meet the
tempest with a fleece on my back."[11] He had not a high opinion of
dramatic artists, as men of business. "I confess," he said, "that
for my own part I have never understood the meaning of high art in
its dignified aspect. I never, in the course of my existence, came
across one of its votaries--painter, sculptor, author, or
architect--who was ready to sacrifice one farthing of his own at its
shrine. I once was the owner of a theatre, and I was perpetually at
war with authors and actors who wanted me to ruin myself on the altar
of high art, but I soon found that this was a term which they used
for their own fads. Once I produced a play by Charles Reade. It was
a failure, and on the first night I was sitting with him in a box.
'They {102} seem to be hissing, Mr. Reade,' I said. 'What of that?'
he replied; 'if you want to please such a public as this, you should
not come to me for a play.'"[12] He had an amusing story too to
relate of how he rode roughshod over Tom Taylor's artistic prejudices
by insisting upon a chemical fire being lit upon the stage at his
production of the latter's _Joan of Arc_, in the flames of which the
heroine (Mrs. Rousby) was to perish realistically, instead of being
wafted to Heaven in the arms of angels, as the author had planned she
should be. But the story of his theatre-management days that he was
fondest of telling was in connection with the late Sir Henry Irving.
The latter, at a big banquet he gave to a party of his friends, was
relating some of the events of his professional career. "And to
think, Labby," he said, turning to his old friend, "that I was once
receiving five pounds a week from you!" "Three pounds, Henry, my
boy," retorted Labouchere quickly, "only three."
He professed the greatest contempt, and considering the financial
failure of his management of the Queen's Theatre, perhaps naturally
so, for those stingy votaries of pleasure who were always cadging him
for orders for his theatre. "Theirs," he said, "is the meanest, most
sneaky and contemptible form of beggary." But he got the better of
one of these beggars. One day his tailor asked him for an order. He
sent it to him, but the next morning he sent the tailor an "order"
entitling the bearer to a new suit of clothes. The tailor, realising
the tit for tat, sensibly complied with the request, but ever
afterwards bought his tickets for the "Queen's" in the conventional
manner. Another set of persons who encountered his righteous wrath
in his theatre days were the would-be dramatic authors. He described
how hundreds of worthless plays were sent him, resembling, in their
incoherence and lack of perspective, the crude pencil drawings of
infants. He gave in _Truth_ the opening of one of them, further than
which, he explained, he did not read: {103} "The broad Mississippi is
seen rolling its turbid flood towards the ocean, and carrying with it
the debris of a village. Steamers come and go on its surface. On a
frail raft a man and a woman are crossing the river. Enter the
negroes from a plantation monotonously singing."[13]
He attributed the failure of his own adaptation of Sardou's _La
Patrie_ to the narrow powers of appreciation possessed by Londoners.
"They fancy," he wrote, "that no drama or melodrama can be good,
which does not conform to certain rules. The heroine must be the
purest and the best of her sex; she must engage in a struggle with
adverse circumstances, and with bad men; and she must emerge, in the
last act, triumphant. The audience, in fact, must leave the theatre,
not only pleased with her acting, but with her. Now, the heroine of
_Fatherland_ is Dolores, and the plot turns upon her betrayal of her
husband. This was fatal to the success of the play, but it is an
open question whether it ought to have been fatal to it.
Conventionalism is the bane of advance in art."
All things considered, it was not surprising that Mr. Labouchere's
proprietorship of the Queen's Theatre was a financial failure.
Joseph Hatton gives a curious description of the way in which Mr.
Labouchere managed the business, the facts of which he got from the
same personal interview already quoted: "Sometimes he brought out
plays himself. He generally lost by them, but now and then had a
success. Occasionally in the preparations for a new production he
would go abroad. When particularly wanted by the management, he
could not be found. The work went on, however, all the same, and so
did the loss. Once he was advised to cram the house for a week with
orders, so that nobody could get in. The traditional 'Full' was
posted at all the entrances. He did this on condition that, after a
week, every one should be compelled to pay. When the second week
came the house was empty. Then the actors complained. {104} They
could not act to empty benches. 'Why don't you draw?' was
Labouchere's reply to their grievance. 'Draw! confound it! Why
don't you draw?' He announced Shakespearean revivals, proposing to
produce one new play of the bard's in splendid style every year.
Notices were put up at all the entrances, inviting the audiences to
vote on the piece. For a long time he worked up quite an excitement
by posting up the result of the voting. 'This was a capital idea; it
increased the number who paid at the door immensely.' Nevertheless
the Queen's did not prove a success, and it has lately been converted
into a co-operative store."[14]
At every period of his life, Mr. Labouchere displayed all the
happiest characteristics of the Bohemian, or, what comes to the same
thing, the instincts of the real aristocrat. He was comfortably at
home in whatever social milieu he happened to find himself--a camp of
nomadic Indians, a Court ball, a rowdy hustings, the manager's room
of a London theatre, the _vie intime_ of a royal country house, or
the bourgeois domesticity of a thrifty German home--and he was
welcomed and appreciated in every one of them--except by the prigs
and the bores.
He knew his London well. "I have lived in London many years. I have
known the seamy side of London life for far more than a quarter of a
century, and am familiar with every detail of the 'old days' as they
are called. I can compare the present with the past, decency with
disgust, order with license, and remember the time when we supped in
a cellar under the Portico, where the Pall Mall restaurant now
stands, when the Haymarket cafés were open as long as customers
patronised them. I can recall the nights when Panton Street and
Jermyn Street were lined with watchmen and confederates, and
admittance was only gained to certain favoured meeting-places by
giving a sign, or peeping through a slit in the door or guichet....
I have seen a Chancellor {105} and a Cabinet Minister watching with
amused gaze a scene, which was at least decorous on the surface, at
the Argyll Rooms in Windmill Street, and, listening to excellent
music, I have sat unnoticed up in the corner of the old Holborn
Casino, where the Holborn restaurant now stands. I have seen some
wild scenes at the Foley Street rooms (Mott's) in the early hours of
the morning, and hideous scenes at 222 Piccadilly--the 'Pic' as it
was then called--since pulled down and destroyed for the now palatial
Criterion. In the warm summer nights I have driven down to Cremorne,
and wandered there till the daylight, in lilac and purple, came out
above the tall trees and put out the yellow glare of the gas. I have
even condescended to the decorous dissipation of Caldwell's dancing
rooms, beloved by milliners, and now turned into a National School.
I have been an eye-witness of the ups and downs of London life, and
the so-called humours of the West End. I have observed the contest
between common-sense and prudery, between the men of liberal mind and
those determined to make the vicious virtuous by Act of Parliament.
I have lived through the changes of licensing rules and closing
hours, and seen one place of amusement after another shut up and
confiscated--the decorous tarred with the same brush as the dirty.
Cremorne and the Holborn Casino bombarded equally with Mott's and the
Piccadilly Saloon,..." he wrote in the course of an article, which
ended with one of the most powerful indictments of British virtue
ever published,[15] and it was during the sixteen years that elapsed
between his departure from the Diplomatic Service and his entrance to
the House as the "Christian" member for Northampton that he acquired
most of his vast experimental knowledge of the artistic and vagabond
side of human nature about town.
He was close upon fifty when he entered upon his serious
Parliamentary life, which was, as all who knew him well are {106}
aware, but a phase, though an important one, in his extraordinarily
varied career. Three episodes stand out with clearness, apart from
his abortive electioneering experiences already described, in the
years between 1864 and his first Northampton election--his residence
in Paris throughout the siege, his connection with the _World_, as
its financial editor, and his founding of his own weekly publication,
_Truth_. The first of these is described in a separate chapter, and
so, with equal necessity, is the third. For an account of how he
came to be on the staff of the World we must go to the
_Recollections_ of the late Mr. Edmund Yates himself, who relates
that, previous to launching the first number of his journal upon the
public, he had issued a very original prospectus. "I had also sent a
prospectus to Mr. Henry Labouchere," he continued, "with whom I had a
slight acquaintance, and whose services as a literary freelance
might, I thought, be utilised. Some days after, I saw Mr. Labouchere
on the Cup Day at Ascot, seated on the box of a coach. I asked him
if he had heard from me, and he said, 'Oh, yes,' adding that he
'thought the prospectus very funny.' 'But,' I said, 'will you help
us in carrying it out--will you be one of us?' 'You don't mean to
say,' he replied, 'that you actually mean to start a paper of the
kind set forth?' I told him most assuredly we did, and that we
wanted his assistance. He laughed more than ever, and said he would
let me know about it. A few days after, I heard from him, proposing
to write a series of city articles, which he actually commenced in
the second number."
Labouchere's preliminary article in the _World_[16] was extremely
droll. It began as follows: "Some years ago, Mr. John F. Walker,
having derived a considerable fortune from cheating at cards in
Mississippi steamboats, determined to enjoy his well-earned gains in
his native city of New York, and purchased an excellent house in that
metropolis. In order to add to his income he advertised that he was
a {107} 'reformed gambler,' and, for a consideration, would instruct
novices in all the tricks of his trade. Mr. Walker was universally
esteemed by his fellow-citizens, and died last year, greatly
regretted by a numerous body of friends and admirers. In casting
about for the city editor for our journal, we have fallen upon a
gentleman, who, by promoting rotten companies, puffing worthless
stock, and other disreputable, but strictly legal, devices, has
earned a modest competence. He resides in a villa at Clapham, he
attends church every Sunday with exemplary regularity, and is the
centre of a most respectable circle of friends; many of his old
associates still keep up their acquaintance with him, and therefore
he is in a position to know all that passes in the city. This
reformed speculator we have engaged to write our city article."
The staff of writers selected by Mr. Yates for the first year of the
_World_ was a singularly efficient one. It comprised, besides Mr.
Labouchere, Mr. T. H. S. Escott, Dr. Birkbeck Hill, Lord Winchelsea
(who contributed articles on racing and turf matters), M. Camilla
Barrère, Mrs. Lynn Linton, Mr. F. I. Scudamore, Mr. Archibald Forbes,
and Mr. Henry Lucy (who commenced, in the eighth number, his series
of Parliamentary Sketches, "Under the Clock"). But, in spite of the
excellent writers engaged on its production, the _World_ did not sell
well. Again it was the _main heureuse_ of Henry Labouchere that gave
the necessary push to make the new weekly go. Mr. Yates writes as
follows: "Mr. Labouchere was dealing with City matters in a way which
they had never been dealt with before, and ruthlessly attacking and
denouncing Mr. Sampson, the city editor of the _Times_, whose
position and virtue had hitherto been considered impregnable. All
these features ... received due appreciation from our provincial
_confrères_, and the 'trade,' but, as yet, they seemed to have made
no impression on the public. We were in the desperate condition of
having a good article to sell without the power of making that fact
known. At last, and just in the nick of time, we obtained the
requisite {108} public notice, and without paying anything for it. A
stockbroker, a member of the Stock Exchange, who conceived himself
likely to be attacked for certain practices by Mr. Labouchere in the
city article, threatened to horsewhip that gentleman, should such
observations appear, and Mr. Labouchere had the would-be assailant
brought before the Lord Mayor for threatening to commit a breach of
the peace. The case was really a trivial one, and it was settled by
the defendant being bound over in sureties for good behaviour. But
it had been argued at full length, each side being represented by
eminent lawyers; Mr. Thesiger, Q.C., appeared for the defendant and
Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Lewis for Mr. Labouchere. A great deal
was said about the _World_, and its determination to purge Capel
Court of all engaged in iniquitous dealings. All that was said was
reported at length in the daily papers. The effect was
instantaneous; the circulation rose at once, and the next week showed
a very large increase of advertisements."
The case, as Mr. Yates says, was a trivial one, but remarkable for
Mr. Labouchere's irresistibly funny way of giving evidence. It was
tried on October 14, 1874, at the Guild Hall, and in answer to the
Lord Mayor, he gave the most absurd account of the assault as it
occurred:
"'I said to him (Mr. Abbott): "I presume that if you were attacked in
a newspaper unfairly, you would bring an action for libel, and if you
won it you would get heavy damages." He replied: "I should not go
into Court; I know what newspapers want; they always want to go into
Court, it is a fine advertisement for them. I should horsewhip the
man." "Well," I said, "under the circumstances, the observation is a
personal one, and I reply to you, in the words of Dr. Johnson, 'I
shall not be deterred from unmasking a scoundrel by the menaces of a
ruffian.'" He then said he presumed I meant this for him, or
something of that sort. I said, "Well, it looks like it. You were
just now talking about horsewhipping; why don't you begin?"'
{109}
"_Mr. Thesiger_: 'In that tone of voice?'
"'Very much like that,' drawled on Mr. Labouchere. 'He then stared
at me, and I repeated: "Well, why don't you begin?" I don't know
what his object was, but he rolled himself about and threw up his
hands. I presume he intended to frighten me by an exhibition of what
he imagined to be a pugilistic attitude more than anything else. I
again said: "Why do you not begin?" He then hit me a blow."
"Have you any fear of Mr. Abbott?" asked Mr. Lewis, later on in the
proceedings. "Well, no," replied Mr. Labouchere. "When I was at
Spezia, I used to bathe a good deal in the Gulf and there were a
quantity of porpoises--" But what Mr. Abbott's behaviour had to with
porpoises, was never revealed to the Court, for, in spite of the
hisses of the audience, who wanted to hear the end of Mr.
Labouchere's story, Mr. Thesiger interrupted, saying sharply: "This
is really making a farce of a Court of Justice."
"I am a calculator, not a speculator," was one of Labouchere's
retorts to Mr. Thesiger. "A distinction," said Mr. Thesiger, when
summing up for his client, "that Mr. Labouchere will be able to
explain to his own satisfaction, but perhaps not to that of other
people."
Mr. Grenville Murray was another able writer on the staff of the
_World_, and was for some time Mr. Yates's partner in the
proprietorship of the paper, but the partnership was dissolved
because Mr. Yates disapproved of Murray's repeated attacks upon Lord
Derby. It would have been well if Mr. Labouchere had been as prudent
as Mr. Yates. When Mr. Labouchere started _Truth_, he persuaded Mr.
Grenville Murray to write some of his "Queer Stories," and it was one
of these that brought upon the editor of _Truth_ the wrath, never to
be assuaged, of a very important personage. Mr. Labouchere told me
once that, by some accident, he never saw the "Queer Story" in
question, until it had actually appeared in print. Had he done so,
he should never have {110} permitted its publication. Reference had
already been made to Mr. Labouchere's somewhat imprudent championship
of the ex-Consul of Odessa, but, when it was asserted in a much-read
weekly that Mr. Labouchere was the proprietor of the Queen's
_Messenger_,[17] he was obliged to send the following letter to the
_Times_:
2 BOLTON STREET, July 5, 1869.
SIR,--Having been informed that the proprietorship of the _Queen's
Messenger_ has been attributed to me by a weekly newspaper, I shall
be much obliged to you to allow me a space in your columns to deny
the statement. I have not, and never had, directly or indirectly,
anything to do with the _Queen's Messenger_.
HENRY LABOUCHERE.
An old member of the staff of the _World_, in a recently published
article commenting upon certain unintentional misstatements of a
definite nature that had appeared from time to time in the press in
connection with the two gifted editors respectively of the _World_
and _Truth_, said, after dealing with one relating to Mr.
Labouchere's supposed partnership with Mr. Yates: "Equally contrary
to fact is the statement, even more generally made and accepted, that
Mr. Labouchere severed his connection with the _World_, and founded
_Truth_, as the sequel of personal differences between himself and
his sometime editor. No such personal differences occurred at any
period; and, though Yates would have been more than human if he had
rejoiced at the decision of a particularly able member of his staff
to leave him, in order to start another journal, planned on parallel
lines and appealing to the same {111} public, he was far too shrewd a
man of the world to show any sense of grievance or resentment. It
happened that the news of Mr. Labouchere's project first reached his
editor's ears through the medium of a third person; and on being
challenged by Yates, as to the truth of the rumour, the imperturbable
'Labby' characteristically replied that he had decided for the future
to have a pair of boots of his own with which to do his own kicking.
Rivals, in a journalistic sense, as they thenceforth necessarily
became, the friendly personal relations between the two were
maintained to the last, and the weekly mutual corrections of 'Henry'
by 'Edmund' and vice versa, which caused so much diversion to the
readers of both papers, were conducted at all times in an entirely
amicable spirit."[18]
Mr. Montesquieu Bellew, another journalist of that time, was an
_intime_ of Mr. Labouchere's. On the occasion of Mr. Bellew's son
choosing the stage as his profession, Mr. Labouchere took the
opportunity of writing in _Truth_ a racy article, in which he related
the whole story of his friendship and travels in company with this
most unconventional parson. They must indeed have been a queer pair,
and it is interesting to imagine the effect they must have produced
together at the various _tables d'hôte_ and social functions they
attended on their journey. They became acquainted in this wise. Mr.
Labouchere was idling one day on the steps of his hotel at Venice,
when he noticed a gentleman paying his bill and tipping the porters
preparatory to taking his departure. His carriage was waiting for
him at the door. "Where are you going?" said Mr. Labouchere, on the
impulse of the moment. "To the Holy Land," replied the stranger.
"Wait five minutes," replied Labouchere, "and I will come with you."
He flew to his room and flung his clothes into his portmanteau and
joined Mr. Bellew, who was waiting for him. He did not, however,
discover the identity of his travelling companion until they reached
Jerusalem, although he knew that he was {112} a clergyman, because
every night before retiring to rest Mr. Bellew pressed a manuscript
sermon into his hand, for "night-reading." At Jerusalem, Mr. Bellew
broke to him that, his bishop being in the place, he should probably
be asked to preach in the English Church. Labouchere took this as a
hint that Mr. Bellew would like him to be present, so he made his
plans accordingly. Finding out at what precise moment of the service
the sermon would begin, he marched into the church with great
impressiveness, at the head of a large band of Arabs and others, whom
he had bribed to accompany him. This, he explained afterwards to
Bellew, was to create in the bishop's mind the impression that Bellew
was such a prodigy of piety that even the inhabitants of the country
places of Syria had heard of his fame and were come in flocks to gaze
upon him. The bishop's annoyance on the occasion he assured Bellew
was entirely due to his jealousy of his more popular _confrère_.
They quarrelled on the journey. Bellew pointed out to Labouchere a
small stream. "That," he said, "is the source of the Jordan."
Labouchere pointed out another stream, declaring that that and that
alone was the source of the Jordan. They argued the matter hotly,
but Labouchere was not aware how deeply Bellew had taken the affair
to heart, until he found himself in bed that night with no manuscript
sermon under his pillow. But Bellew was a Christian and a man of
tact. The next day in the course of their wanderings, they came upon
another minute trickle of water. "That," said Bellew, with a note of
conciliation in his voice, "is the source of the Jordan; we were both
in the wrong yesterday." "Of course it is," assented Labouchere;
"how in the world we came to make such a mistake I can't imagine."
From Jerusalem they went on to the Dead Sea. Bellew had
picturesque-looking long white hair, which he would comb and arrange
before a looking-glass that accompanied him on all his travels. This
looking-glass got upon Labouchere's nerves, so one day "I got hold of
it," he related, "and sent it to join Sodom and Gomorrah beneath the
{113} gloomy waters that stretched out beneath us. The next night,
we pitched our tent in the desert. Dire was the confusion on rising.
The looking-glass could not be found. I held my tongue respecting
its fate. Probably some day or another some eminent explorer, poking
about the bottom of the Dead Sea, will fish up this looking-glass,
and we shall have archæologists divided in opinion, one half proving
that it belonged to a lady of Sodom and the other half that it was
the property of a gentleman of Gomorrah. Bellew was equal to the
occasion. He managed to arrange his hair by looking into the back of
a dessert spoon."[19] Mr. Bellew contributed a most interesting
account of his journey to the East in the first number of _Temple
Bar_ called "Over Babylon to Baalbeck."[20] He does not, however,
mention in it his travelling companion, nor any of the incidents
referred to by Mr. Labouchere in his account of the same journey.
Mr. Bellew subsequently joined the Church of Rome, and died in 1874.
On one of Mr. Labouchere's frequent visits to Italy, he met Dumas
_père_, with whom he had an amusing adventure. Strolling into a
restaurant at Genoa for breakfast, he perceived Dumas at another
table, and, seated by his side, a very pretty girl, dressed like a
Circassian boy, young enough to be Dumas's granddaughter. To
continue the story in his own words: "Dumas told me that they had
just landed from a yacht and were spending the day in Genoa. He
introduced the girl to me as Emile. After luncheon he proposed that
we should all take a carriage, and go and see a show villa in the
neighbourhood. When we reached the villa, we were told that it was
not open to the public on that day. 'Inform your master,' said Dumas
to the servant, 'that Alexandre Dumas is at his door.' The servant
returned, and told us that we could enter. We were ushered into a
dining-room, presenting a typically Italian domestic scene. The
father and mother of the family were present, and several well-grown
boys and girls. Dumas was somewhat taken aback for a {114} moment,
but introduced Emile and me vaguely as '_mes enfants_.' As we were
asked to sit down to coffee we made ourselves at home. Afterwards
the owner showed us his garden. He and Dumas walked first. Emile
and I wandered about hand-in-hand to denote our brotherly and
sisterly affection. The Circassian was in a playful mood, and told
me that Dumas was of a jealous disposition, which grandfathers
sometimes are. He had one eye on the beauties of the garden and the
other on his children. 'What are you doing?' said Dumas. I replied
that I was embracing my sister. As he could not well object to this,
for once, I think, I got the better of the lady's eminent
grandfather." He had a story too of the younger Dumas. Labouchere
was at the wedding of Mlle. Maria Dumas, and her brother, on coming
to the sacristy with all the family friends for the signature of the
register, looked at the document for a minute, as if perusing it
carefully, and then said with mock gravity, "The accused have nothing
further to add for their defence? Be it so!" And then he signed.
Mr. Labouchere's curiosity at this period of his life was insatiable.
He wanted to know what it felt like to be a criminal about to be
hanged. So, having procured an invitation to see all over Newgate,
he carried out his experiment, and described his sensations in the
columns of the _Daily News_. After giving a vivid account of the
prison and some of its inmates, he wrote the following realistic
lines: "And now we were led through a long stone passage open to the
sky. This was the Newgate graveyard. Beneath each flag is the
corpse of a murderer, and on the walls opposite are their initials,
which have been cut by the warders to guide them through this
murderous labyrinth. At the other end of the passage is the
execution yard. The scaffold is put up the night before an
execution, in a corner close by the door through which the condemned
prisoner issues. The court is surrounded by high gloomy walls, and
looks like the ante-chamber of Hades. I asked the warder whether in
his opinion murderers {115} preferred being executed in public or
private. He opined the former. 'The crowd keeps them up,' he said.
'They are not so firm, now it takes place in private.' I understand
this feeling. If I were going to be hanged myself I should like the
ceremony to take place _coram populo_. I should feel myself already
dead in that dreary yard; and I should prefer, I imagine, after weeks
or months of prison life, to have one more look at the world, even
though that world were a howling mob, before quitting it for ever.
"We passed through the chapel and were shown the chair on which the
prisoners condemned to death are perched--in obedience to what seems
to me a barbarous custom--to hear their last sermon, and then we
entered the 'Press Room.' It is a room of moderate size with plain
deal tables, benches, and cupboards. One of these latter the warder
opened, and showed us Jack Sheppard's chains, and other interesting
relics, which are as religiously preserved as though they had
belonged to saints. A leather sort of harness was also brought out.
It consisted of two belts with straps attached to the lower one for
the wrists. This is the murderer's last dress, and with it round him
he walks to the scaffold. I tried it on, and when my hands were
buckled to my side, I pictured to myself my sensations if I had been
waiting to fall into the procession to the neighbouring yard. I
heard my funeral bell toll; I saw the ordinary by my side; the
warders telling me that my time was up; Calcraft bustling about eager
to begin. So strong was the impression that I hastened to get out of
the prison, and was not fully convinced that I was not going to be
hanged until I found myself in the midst of a crowd in Fleet Street,
who, for reasons best known to themselves, were cheering the
'Claimant,' who was issuing from a shop, while a chimney sweep who
was passing by was welcomed as Bogle, being mistaken for that dusky
retainer."[21]
With reference to the "Claimant," Mr. George Augustus {116} Sala has
a curious story to relate about him and Mr. Labouchere, who, of
course, took the greatest interest in the famous trial. "I saw a
great deal of the Claimant during 1872," says Mr. Sala, "and I
remember once dining with him and the late Mr. Serjeant Ballantine at
the house of Mr. Labouchere, who then resided in Bolton Street,
Piccadilly. The senior member for Northampton had, upon occasion, a
curious way of putting things; and over the walnuts and the wine--of
which our host was not a partaker--he startled us all by coolly
asking his obese guest, 'Are you Arthur Orton?' 'Good Heavens, Mr.
Labouchere,' exclaimed the stout litigant, 'what do you mean?' 'Oh,
nothing in particular,' quoth Mr. Labouchere; 'help yourself to some
more claret.'"[22]
Mr. Labouchere however afterwards was quite convinced that the
Claimant was not Orton. When the latter was released from penal
servitude in 1884, he published the following reminiscence:
"It is a curious fact that during his trial the London papers sold
more copies than during the Franco-Prussian War, or any other recent
eventful epoch. I confess that it never was proved absolutely to my
mind that he was Arthur Orton; on the other hand, whilst there was
the strongest presumption that he was, he entirely failed to make out
that he was Sir Roger Tichborne. I remember once during the trial,
in company with Mr. G. A. Sala, passing an evening with the 'stout
nobleman' at his hotel in Jermyn Street. We found him very pleasant,
and he told us many tales of his existence in Australia. He
certainly had a wonderful command over his features. On that last
day of the civil trial, the room at the hotel was filled with
adherents, many of whom were Tichborne bondholders. Suddenly the
Claimant walked in. He leant against the mantelpiece, took his cigar
out of his mouth, and announced the fatal news. Great was the
excitement, great was the despair and {117} the indignation. But the
Claimant calmly smoked on, apparently the only person in the room who
had no sort of interest in the matter."[23]
Soon after Mr. Labouchere's founding of _Truth_, he became involved
in several lawsuits, the most famous of which, at this period, was
the one which indirectly led to his expulsion from the Beefsteak
Club. He invariably commented with great wit and asperity upon his
enemies, frustrated and otherwise, in the columns of his paper, and
there is no doubt that its enormous popularity depended in large
degree upon the fearlessness and unconventionality with which he
attacked all persons of high degree and low, guilty of injustice,
bullying, _snobisme_, or wilfully ignorant prejudice, who, for long,
had been silently endured by their weaker brethren, for no other
reason than because there had never before been a--Labby.
Sometimes he was accused by an envious press of being a liar. The
title he had chosen for his paper possibly provoked the criticism.
He was rather sensitive on the subject, and expressed a certain
amount of annoyance whenever the well-known ditty of Sir Henry
Bridges, "Labby in our Abbey," which was published in M. A. P., was
mentioned.[24] In _Truth_ he once produced what may be called an
apposite alibi when confronted by the accusation. Some correspondent
had referred rather pointedly to the existence of Lying Clubs in the
last century. "There is no occasion to go back to the last century
to prove the existence of Lying Clubs," {118} he wrote. "When I was
at Bishop-Auckland in County Durham, a few years ago, I found a Lying
Club existing and flourishing. There were different grades of
proficiency. If a man could not lie at all, he was expelled. If he
lied rather badly, he was given another trial. I never knew any one
expelled. I was blackballed."
[1] _The Daily News_ was the first Liberal daily paper to be
published in London and at first cost fivepence. It was afterwards
reduced to threepence.
[2] Sir John Robinson, _Fifty Years of Fleet Street_.
[3] It was humorously said at the period that Mr. Robinson (the
Manager of the _Daily News_) and Count Bismarck were the only persons
who had gained by the war, and that only the former deserved to do so.
[4] Mr. Labouchere gave the following reasons for severing his
connection with the _Daily News_. "On Mr. Gladstone's withdrawal
from public life," he wrote in _Truth_, "the party, or rather a
majority of the officialdom of the party became tainted with
Birmingham imperialism. My convictions did not allow me to be
connected with a newspaper which supported a clique of intriguers
that had captured the Liberal ship, and that accepted blindly these
intriguers as the representatives of Liberalism in regard to our
foreign policy."
[5] _Daily News_, Feb. 8, 1869.
[6] Merivale and Labouchere had recently met at a dinner party at the
house of the former's father.
[7] Merivale had collaborated with Palgrave Simpson in the
construction of the play.
[8] Herman Merivale, _Bar, Stage, and Platform_.
[9] Ellen Terry, _The Story of my Life_.
[10] _Truth_, August 16, 1877.
[11] _Ibid._, June 12, 1877.
[12] _Truth_, Nov. 12, 1887.
[13] _Truth_, November 8, 1877.
[14] Joseph Hatton, _Journalistic London_.
[15] "The Ghastly Gaymarket," _Truth_, Dec. 8, 1881.
[16] _The World_, July 15, 1874.
[17] Mr. Grenville Murray, who was the editor of the _Queen's
Messenger_, was assaulted by Lord Carrington on account of an article
he wrote about the latter's father, and out of the case which Mr.
Grenville Murray brought against Lord Carrington arose Mr. Murray's
prosecution for perjury, which resulted in his departure from
England. He died in Paris in 1881. It was at the time of the
scandal aroused by the article for which Lord Carrington assaulted
Grenville Murray, that Mr. Labouchere was accused of being the
proprietor of the paper.
[18] _The World_, Jan. 23, 1912.
[19] _Truth_, October 11, 1877.
[20] _Temple Bar_, December 1, 1860.
[21] _Daily News_, February 19, 1872.
[22] G. A. Sala, _Life and Adventures_.
[23] _Truth_, October 23, 1884.
[24] The first and last verses are as follows:
Of all the boys that are so smart
There's none like crafty Labby;
He learns the secret of each heart,
And lives near our Abbey;
There is no lawyer in the land
That's half as sharp as Labby;
He is a demon in the art
And guileless as a babby!
The ministers and members all
Make game of truthful Labby,
Though but for him it's said they'd be
A sleepy set and flabby;
And when their seven long years are out,
They hope to bury Labby;
Ah then how peacefully he'll lie,
But not in our Abbey!
{119}