One of the most striking features of the last seventy years is the prodigious growth of the Press. In 1836 there were only about a hundred and sixty newspapers published in England, whilst all the daily papers put together had only an average of 12,000 copies a day. At that time there were, I believe, but five hundred and fifty newspapers in the United States, of which fifty were dailies. The London morning papers were, of course, few in number, and as a rule not more than sixty to eighty persons were employed upon their production. None of the illustrated papers now issued were then in existence, the Illustrated London News only making its appearance in the ’forties. Newspapers were considered quite precious things in old days, being frequently treasured up to be sent on to friends—a very different state of affairs from to-day, when edition succeeds edition with lightning rapidity, and a paper a day old is never looked at again.
NEWSPAPERS OF THE PAST
In the way of provincial journalism Norfolk was early in the field, for the Norfolk Chronicle was founded in 1761, whilst the Norwich Postman is said to have been the first local newspaper published in England. It has frequently been stated that the oldest provincial newspaper is the Worcester Journal, the first copy of which appeared in 1709; but as a matter of fact, I believe that the Norwich Postman appeared some three years earlier, being first published in 1706 by T. Goddard, a bookseller of the town. It was sold for a penny, unless that sum could not be obtained, when, it is rather amusing to learn, a halfpenny would generally be accepted.
The Newcastle-upon-Tyne Courant is another paper which can lay claim to a very respectable antiquity, dating as it does from 1711. Many people, in consequence, have stoutly declared that the organ in question, and not the Worcester Journal (or Worcester Postman, as it was originally called), was in reality the first provincial newspaper; but, as I have said, it is now pretty well authenticated that from Norwich issued the first beginning of what has now become the great and influential Provincial Press.
John Bull, a daily paper which has long ceased to exist, was a great favourite with my father, and we children used to look upon its columns with a sort of respectful awe. In 1855 began a new era in journalism with the foundation of the Daily Telegraph and the Saturday Review, the latter of which for many years exercised such a remarkable influence by reason of the able writers who at different times were members of its staff. Ten years later, in 1865, was founded the Pall Mall Gazette, which still flourishes under the very able editorship of my friend Sir Douglas Straight. It may not, perhaps, be generally known that the word “Gazette” is derived from the name of a small Venetian coin which was the price asked for the first newspaper sold in the city of Venice.
One of the most curious advertisements which has ever appeared was that inserted in the Times of 10th March 1858. This stated that the secretary of the Army and Navy Club would pay the sum of £50 on the due conviction and punishment of the offender who had sent the Punch cartoon of “The Crowing Colonel” (a picture very unflattering to the French army, it is hardly necessary to say), accompanied by a forged message from the club to an officer in command of a French regiment. Notwithstanding this liberal reward, the culprit was, I believe, never discovered.
SOCIETY JOURNALISM
Although so-called society journalism, as it exists to-day, was unheard of, the newspapers of the past occasionally inserted scraps of gossip dealing with well-known scandals and the like. In 1840 was published a somewhat amusing correspondence between Lady Seymour, the Queen of Beauty at the Eglinton tournament (to whom reference has before been made—she was afterwards Duchess of Somerset), and Lady Shuckburgh. Lady Seymour, having written to the latter to ask the character of a servant named Stedman, and whether she was a good plain cook, received the reply that Lady Shuckburgh, having a professed cook and housekeeper, knew nothing about the under-servants. Upon this, Lady Seymour wrote again to explain that she understood that Stedman, in addition to her other talents, had had some practice in cooking for the little Shuckburghs. Lady Shuckburgh instructed her house-maid to answer this as follows:—“Stedman informs me that your ladyship does not keep either a cook or a housekeeper, and that you only require a girl who can cook a mutton chop; if so, Stedman or any other scullion will be found fully equal to cook for or manage the establishment of the Queen of Beauty.”
At the Eglinton tournament, which had taken place just a year before, Prince Louis Napoleon appeared in a broadsword encounter with a Mr. Lamb, who enacted the part of the Knight of the White Rose.
Prince Napoleon’s pretensions to the throne of France were not at that time regarded as being serious, though he himself ever entertained a fixed idea that he would one day succeed in obtaining the Imperial Crown. This conviction, which was firmly implanted in his mind, no doubt had a good deal to do with his ultimate success.