Here and There in London

by J. Ewing Ritchie

“To point a moral or adorn a tale.”

Perhaps, after all, in nothing is the astonishing improvement made in these latter times so conspicuous as in our system of parliamentary reporting. The House was in terror when reporters first found their way into it. “Why, sir,” said Mr. Winnington, addressing the Speaker, “you will have every word that is spoken here misrepresented by fellows who thrust themselves into our gallery. You will have the speeches of this House printed every day during your session, and we shall be looked upon as the most contemptible assembly on the face of the earth.” In consequence of such attacks as these, the reporters became frightened, and gave the debates with the speakers disguised under Roman names, though nothing could be more wearisome than the small type of the political club, where Publicola talked against turnpike-gates and Tullus Hostilius declaimed on the horrors of drinking gin. Nor is it to be wondered at that the House grew angry when such reports as the following professed to be a faithful account of its proceedings: “Colonel Barré moved, that Jeremiah Weymouth, the d---n of this kingdom, is not a member of this House.” Even when the reporters triumphed, the public were little benefited. Nothing can

be more tantalising than such statements as these, which we meet with in old parliamentary reports: “Mr. Sheridan now rose, and, during the space of five hours and forty minutes, commanded the admiration and attention of the House by an oration of almost unexampled excellence, uniting the most convincing closeness and accuracy of argument with the most luminous precision and perspicuity of language; and alternately giving force and energy to truth by solid and substantial reasoning, and enlightening the most extensive and involved subjects with the purest clearness of logic, and the brightest splendour of rhetoric.” Sheridan’s leader fared no better. “Mr. Fox,” we are told, “was wonderfully pleasant on Lord Clive’s joining the administration.” Equal injustice is done to Mr. Burke. We read, “Mr. Burke turned, twisted, metamorphosed, and represented everything which the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Pitt) had advanced, with so many ridiculous forms, that the House was kept in a continual roar of laughter.” Again: “Mr. Burke enforced these beautiful and affecting statements by a variety of splendid and affecting passages from the Latin classics.” It is no wonder, then, that a prejudice should have existed against the

reporters. On a motion made by Lord Stanhope, that the short-hand writers employed on the trial of Hastings be summoned to the bar of the House to read their minutes, Lord Loughborough is reported, in Lord Campbell’s life of him, to have said, “God forbid that ever their lordships should call on the short-hand writers to publish their notes; for of all people, short-hand writers were ever the furthest from correctness, and there were no man’s words they ever had that they again returned. They were in general ignorant, as acting mechanically and not by considering the antecedents, and by catching the sound and not the sense they perverted the sense of the speaker, and made him appear as ignorant as themselves.” At a later period, the audacity and impudence of the reporters increased; loud and numerous were the complaints made against them. Mr. Wilberforce, who really deserved better treatment at their hands, read to the House, on one occasion, an extract from a newspaper, in which he was reported as having said, “Potatoes make men healthy, vigorous, and active; but what is still more in their favour, they make men tall; more especially was he led to say so as being rather under the common size, and he must lament that

his guardians had not fostered him upon that genial vegetable.” Mr. Martin, of Galway, has immortalised himself by his complaint made about the same time, though based upon a less solid foundation than that of the great Abolitionist. The reporter having dashed his pen under some startling passages which had fallen from the Hibernian orator’s lips, the printer was called to the bar. In defence he put in the report, containing the very words. “That may be,” said Martin; “but did I spake them in italics?” Of course the printer was nonplussed by such a question, and the House was convulsed with laughter. Happily, this state of things no longer exists, and, in the language of Mr. Macaulay, it is now universally felt “that the gallery in which the reporters sit, has become a fourth estate of the realm.” The publication of the debates, which seemed to the most liberal statesmen full of danger to the great safeguards of public liberty, is now regarded by many persons as a safeguard tantamount, and more than tantamount, to all the rest put together. “Give me,” said Sheridan, whilst fighting the battle of the reporters on the floor of the House—“give me but the liberties of the press, and I will give to the

minister a venal House of Peers—I will give him a corrupt and servile House of Commons—I will give him the whole host of ministerial influence—I will give him all the power that place can confer upon him to purchase up submission and overawe resistance—and yet, armed with the liberties of the press, I will go forth to meet him undismayed; I will attack the mighty fabric he has raised with that mightier engine. I will shake down from its height corruption, and bury it beneath the ruins of the abuses it was meant to shelter.”

The reporters have now a comfortable gallery to themselves—they have cushions as soft to sit upon as those of M.P.’s—they have plenty of room to write in, and whilst they wait their turns they may indulge in criticism on high art or Chinese literature—on the divine melodies of Jenny Lind, or the merits of Mr. Cobden—a very favourite topic with reporters—or go to sleep. Mr. Jerdan, in his Memoirs, tells how different it was in his day; then the reporters had only access to the Strangers’ Gallery, and could only make sure of getting in there by being the first in the crowd that generally was collected previous to its being opened. But about the smart new gallery there are no associations on which memory cares to

dwell. It was different under the late one; old Sam Johnson sat there with his shabby black and unwieldy bulk, taking care to remember just enough of the debate to convince the public that “the Whig dogs,” to use his own expressive language, “had the worst of it.” We can fancy Cave, of the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” with a friend in the gallery, stealthily, for fear they should be detected and turned out, taking a few brief notes of the debate, and then, at the taproom of the nearest public-house, amidst the fumes of tobacco and beer, writing out as much as they could, which Guthrie then revised, and which afterwards appeared in the magazine under the head of “Debates in Great Lilliput.” Woodfall we see—the Woodfall of Junius—his pocket stuffed with cold, hard-boiled eggs—sitting out the livelong debate, and then writing out so much of it as his powerful memory retained—a task which often occupied him till noon the next day, but which gave the “Diary” a good sale, till Perry, of the Morning Chronicle—Perry, the friend of Coleridge and of Moore—introduced the principle of the division of labour, and was thus enabled to get out the Chronicle long before Woodfall’s report appeared.

We see rollicking roysterous reporters, full of

wine and fun, committing all kinds of absurdity. For instance, one night the debate has been very heavy—at length a dead silence prevails, suddenly a voice is heard demanding a song from Mr. Speaker. If an angel had fallen from heaven, it is questionable whether a greater sensation could have been created. The House is in a roar. Poor Addington, the Speaker, is overwhelmed with indignation and amazement. Pitt can hardly keep his seat for laughing. Up into the gallery rushes the Sergeant-at-Arms to take the delinquent into custody. No one knows who he is—at any rate no one will tell. At length, as the officer gets impatient and angry, a hand is pointed to a fat placid Quaker without guile, seated in the middle of the crowd. Much to his amazement, on his devoted yet innocent person straightway rushes the Sergeant-at-Arms; and protesting, but in vain, the wearer of square-collar and broad-brim is borne off to gaol. The real delinquent is Mark Supple, a big-boned, loud-voiced, rollicking Irish blade—just such a man as we fancy M., of the Daily News, to be. Mark has been dining. He is a devoted follower of Bacchus; and, at this time, happens to be extraordinarily well primed. Hence his remarkable