Sir,—In your impression of this day’s Daily Post it is observed that your Mr. Simpson, the recognised Dudley reporter of the Daily Post, has thought fit to advert to what he conceives to be “an indignity” offered to the reporters of the press, at the dinner given to the Earl of Dudley last evening.
As one of the Committee of Management in that matter, I would wish, by your permission, to rectify some of the erroneous impressions which your remarks are calculated to convey to the public.
I beg to inform your readers that the “Press” was one of the “first considerations” of the committee at its meetings; as a proof of which your Mr. Simpson obtained, through the influence of the committee, the exclusive privilege to report the proceedings of the Himley deputation, and received that distinguished recognition rarely accorded to the “Fourth Estate.”
The unprecedented rush for tickets to do honour to the Earl of Dudley, and the very confined nature of the space for dining at the disposal of the committee, necessarily compelled that body to adopt “extraordinary means” for the purpose of giving as many of the public as possible an opportunity of “doing honour to whom honour is due.”
Under these pressing circumstances, the representatives of the press were respectfully solicited to accommodate the committee by dining at its expense, truly “downstairs,” because there was “no available dining space” upstairs, with the clear intimation that they would be accommodated with seats, wines, and dessert in the dining-room as soon as the cloth was drawn. This offer the egotistical representatives of the press indignantly declined to accept, and, unfortunately for the gratification of the public, forgot their quota of courtesy due to the committee by neglecting to forward their portentous decision until it was too late for the committee to procure additional reporters.
These, Sir, are the naked facts of the case, and however much it is to be regretted that the interests of the press should get into disrepute by an assumption on behalf of its reporters, it must now be left to the dispassionate public to determine whether the committee would have been justified in displacing a number of gentlemen to make way for the reporters of the “Fourth Estate” (merely at the time of dining), and whether the press has the right to arrogate to itself, on all occasions, “the chief corners in the temple.”
I am, your obedient servant,
C. F. G. CLARK, High Bailiff.
Dudley, February 29th, 1860.
[In a few remote places, and in those circles of society into which modern notions of courtesy have imperfectly penetrated, we still find some lingering belief that the Press and its representatives are very much in the position of singers at a feast, to have a plate sent out to them in the corridor, and a chair in the windiest corner of the room when the cloth is drawn. But it is not often that we have the idea so honestly expressed. According to Mr. Clark, the accommodation of the Press was one of the earliest considerations of the committee, who seem to have balanced the profit of admitting 127 diners against the propriety of restricting that number to 125 and two reporters, by whose agency the whole of the vast district through which we circulate would in effect have shared in the honour done to the noble guest, and in the eloquence with which that honour was recognised. The committee, in its shortsightedness, deliberately chose to make room for two diners more, under the impression that they would manage the Press somehow,and the spirit of courtesy in which that “management” was undertaken may be inferred from the tone of the remarkable letter of our correspondent. It appears that by some gracious act of condescension our reporter was actually allowed to accompany a deputation to Himley Hall, “a distinguished recognition,” quoth Mr. Clark, “rarely accorded to the Fourth Estate.” The gentleman who can assume these grand airs, which the master of Himley Hall himself would be about the last to dream of, was very well qualified to execute and excuse the orders of the committee in asking the reporters to come in with the dessert. We quite approve of their refusal to submit to this servants’ hall treatment. They have no right to expect, and as far as we know, they never lay claim to the chief places at feasts; but so long as their refusal is expressed with courtesy they have our entire approval when they decline to submit to treatment, the result not of accident or oversight—this we are sure they would be the first to make allowance for—but, as the “early consideration” shows, deliberately resolved upon. It was not until all the tickets were sold that this dining-down-stairs project was made known to our reporter, or we would have taken good care that he should have had such accommodation as a guinea could have given him. It is very droll, in the midst of all that is silly in this letter, to hear it charged against the reporters that they didn’t study the convenience of these gracious gentlemen, so far as to allow them the opportunity of obtaining “other reporters.” Other reporters! One would imagine these commodities were as easy to procure as change for a shilling. But suppose they were provided; we say it for ourselves, and we dare say the same for the majority, if not the whole, of our contemporaries, that the product of the “other reporters” would have found its way to the office waste-paper basket. As it is, the committee have made a pretty mess of it. They have dined the Earl truly, but they have contrived to rob the honour of half its graciousness and all its value, by denuding it of the crowning grace of publicity.—Ed. Daily Post.]