It was at the early age of thirty-eight that à Beckett was appointed police-magistrate, chiefly owing to the masterly report he drew up as Poor-Law Commissioner in respect to the notorious Andover Union Workhouse scandals[35]—"one of the best," said the Home Secretary, "ever presented to Parliament." The appointment was much discussed, for the general feeling had been educated in the views of Lord Selborne, who asserted that no "person" connected with the Press nor any "gentleman in the wine trade" could be permitted to attain to such an honour as the Bench—an absurdity which has long since been dismissed. On one occasion, it is said, when à Beckett lived at No. 10, Hyde Park Gate South, Kensington Gore, he was instructed to hold himself in readiness, as magistrate, to answer a summons to read the Riot Act in Hyde Park to the unruly mob whose methods of protest against a popular grievance constituted the "Beer Bill Riots" of 1855. That summons never came, luckily for him; for later in the day he discovered, to his dismay, that his careful and solicitous wife, with greater respect for her husband's skin than for the needs of Government, Police, and Proletariat combined, had gone out early, after securely locking the unconscious magistrate in his library, and had prudently carried off the key.
À Beckett had been one of the shyest and most nervous men that ever lived, but his appointment to the police-court—first at Greenwich, then at Southwark—removed much of his undue modesty, and he was recognised as being energetic, sagacious, and humane. He was a tremendous worker, incomparably quick, and above all was absolutely punctual in his delivery of "copy"—a virtue quite sufficient to account for his popularity with publishers, who also were attracted by his retiring and distinguished manners. Though his conversation was bright, he preferred to keep his witticisms for his public or private writings, as when, in sending in a parcel of "copy" to Mark Lemon, he wrote on the outside:—
"Dear Mark—I do herewith enclose
Some 'copy' both in verse and prose.
'Tis neither very bright nor terse—
The verse is bad—the prose is worse.
But you, of course, will read and check it.
Yours ever, G. etcet'ra Beckett."
This paper passed, as a wrapper, from Lemon to Mr. Birket Foster, and from the hands of that gentleman to an autograph-hunter undiscoverable.
À Beckett's wit was exceedingly nimble, and as a consequence he was a facile punster. One of his happiest jokes of the kind has been set on record. When the election of Louis Napoleon appeared likely, the policy of Punch in respect to it was anxiously discussed at the Table. One of the Staff—Thackeray most likely—declared that it would be wisest to be indefinite. "Nonsense," said à Beckett, "if you're not definite, you'd better be dumb in it!"
While occupied in writing a series of papers called "Mr. Punch's Guide Books to the Crystal Palace," illustrated by Tenniel, Gilbert à Beckett died at Boulogne from typhus fever, his youngest son Walter predeceasing him by two days from the same complaint—the grief of any knowledge of it, however, being happily spared the father. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery, and the inscription engraved upon the tombstone was reproduced in an abbreviated and modified form from the touching obituary notice in which his brother-workers, through Jerrold's pen, testified to his merits and to their affection: "Endowed with a genial, manly spirit; gifted with subtlest powers of wit and humour, they were ever exercised to the healthiest and most innocent purpose. As a Magistrate, his wise, calm, humane administration of the law proved that the fulfilment of the gravest duties is not incompatible with the sportiveness of literary genius. 'His place knows him not,' but his memory is tenderly cherished."
The connection of Angus Bethune Reach with Punch was not of very long duration. With Albert Smith he had been joint editor of "The Man in the Moon," and with Shirley Brooks was one of the special correspondents of the "Morning Chronicle" in the South of France, as well as its Parliamentary reporter. He had followed up Albert Smith's series of "Natural Histories," of "The Gent," "The Flirt," and other specimens of English Society, with "Bores" and "Humbugs," which ran through several editions. He had joined "The Puppet Show" in 1848, while still quite a youth; he had written "The Comic Bradshaw" (which found an echo in Punch years later) and one or two successful novels, and had with Brooks laid siege to a position on Punch's Staff. This, it might almost be said, he carried, as Brooks did, by assault; and having given up the editorship of "The Man in the Moon" with its twenty-eighth number (1849), he was duly summoned to the Punch Table.
His life was at that time hardly a pleasant one, though his industry (for the craze of work was upon him) was as great as his versatility, and his field of labour as wide as his knowledge. When he came to the Punch Table, he found his haven; but he was heckled, of course, by Douglas Jerrold, on the score of his name and its quaint pronunciation. Concerning this name (pronounced Re-ach in the German manner, anglice Re-ack), Angus once asked his father, a Writer to the Signet, in the hearing of my informant, the late H. G. Hine, what on earth it meant. "As in Highland Scotch," was the reply, "'Dhu' means 'black' and 'Roy' means 'red,' so Reach means half-and-half, or 'brown.'" He therefore insisted on its proper pronunciation; with the natural result. Jerrold delighted in teasing him about it, and at a Dinner at the "Ship" at Brighton, where the Punch Staff held one of their meetings, Jerrold[36] leant forward at dessert and asked—"Mr. Re-ack, may I pass you a pe-ack?" And on another occasion, when Reach protested against Jerrold's persistent ill-treatment of his name, the wit replied, "Oh, I see. Re-ack when we speak to you, but reach when we read you!"
At last, in 1854, Reach's incorrigible industry bore its Dead-Sea fruit; broken down with over-work, his mind utterly gave way. Thereupon his friends of the Fielding Club, reinforced by Albert Smith of "The Man in the Moon," joined together to play for his benefit Smith's pantomime burlesque, "Harlequin Guy Fawkes; or, a Match for a King," at the Olympic Theatre, April, 1855. Arthur Smith, Albert's brother, played pantaloon; Bidwell was harlequin; Joseph Robins, clown; Albert Smith, Catesby; Edmund Yates, the lover; and Miss Rosina Wright ("always Rosy, always Wright," wrote Smith) was columbine. The rush, said E. L. Blanchard, was unprecedented, and stalls were cheap at ten pounds. The great broadsword fight between Smith (Catesby) and Robins (Guy Fawkes), in the rich traditions of the Surrey-Crummles School, was the hit of the evening, and has been immortalised by Sir John Tenniel in his drawing for Punch (p. 149, Volume XXVIII.), entitled "The Amateur Olympians." But Reach did not benefit long from the efforts of his friends, and died before he was thirty.