In 1860 Mr. Ingram visited America accompanied by his eldest son. They left Liverpool in the North American on the 9th of August, and landed at Quebec in time to witness, after traversing the Lower St. Lawrence, the knocking in of the ‘last wedge’ of the Victoria Bridge at Montreal by the Prince of Wales. They then went on to Niagara, where they stayed some days. From Niagara Mr. Ingram proceeded to Chicago, intending to cross the prairies, and to follow the Mississippi to New Orleans, and thence to New York, but more especially to Boston, which old associations of history had determined him to make the conclusion of his sojourn in the United States. He altered his plans, however, and decided to visit Lake Superior, and to prolong his stay in America, proposing to return to England about the end of October.
Mr. Ingram left Chicago at midnight on the 7th of September, accompanied by his son, in the Lady Elgin steamer, bound on an excursion up Lakes Michigan and Superior. Nearly four hundred persons were on board. The wind blew hard from the north-east, and a heavy sea was running, but no one thought of danger, and there was music and dancing in the saloon. Thirty miles from Chicago and ten miles from land, about two o’clock on the morning of the 8th, there came a sudden crash. The schooner Augusta, sailing at the rate of eleven knots an hour, had struck the Lady Elgin on the midships gangway, and then, having her sails set, and the wind blowing freshly, drifted off in the darkness. At first it was not thought that any serious damage had been done to the steamer, but those on board soon found that she was settling fast. The captain ordered parts of the woodwork of the vessel to be cut adrift to serve as rafts, and made such other provisions as the hurry would allow. In less than half-an-hour the hurricane deck floated off, and the hulk with the machinery went to the bottom with a tremendous noise. When the vessel parted all lights were extinguished, and the unfortunate passengers were left struggling amid the waves in total darkness. The steamer sank in three hundred feet of water, the sea was running high, and the land was ten miles away. Some of those who survived to see the dawn were drifted towards the shore on pieces of the wreck, and were drowned in the surf in the sight of hundreds of spectators. Out of 393 persons on board only 114 were saved. Among the drowned were Mr. Ingram and his son. The body of Mr. Ingram was washed ashore about sixteen miles from Chicago, and every effort was used to restore animation, but in vain. The body of his son was never found.
The citizens of Chicago were profoundly impressed by the melancholy fate of father and son, so far away from home and friends. Mr. Ingram’s remains were escorted from the Brigg’s House Hotel to the railway station by a procession of more than eight hundred of the British residents in the neighbourhood. The body was taken to Quebec and conveyed on board the Bohemian steamer, which arrived at Liverpool on the 2nd of October. From thence the remains were removed to Boston, and interred in the new cemetery at Skirbeck, about a mile from the centre of the town. On the day of the funeral all the shops and places of business in Boston were closed, the inhabitants filled the streets and followed the procession up to the gates of the cemetery. It was in every sense a public funeral, and afforded the strongest testimony of the respect in which the memory of the deceased was held by his fellow-townsmen. Two years afterwards, on October 6th, 1862, a statue of Mr. Ingram, raised by public subscription, was unveiled in the market-place at Boston. The life that began in the quaint old Lincolnshire town and ended amid the stormy waters of Lake Michigan, has now an enduring memorial standing not far from the spot where Herbert Ingram was born.
The Illustrated London News no sooner became an assured success than it was imitated. The Pictorial Times was the first competitor that entered the field, and a very strong literary staff was collected to contend for the new path that had been opened. Douglas Jerrold wrote the leading articles; Thackeray was critic and reviewer, in which capacity he reviewed Macaulay’s Essays and Disraeli’s Coningsby; Mark Lemon was dramatic critic, Peter Cunningham art critic, while Gilbert A’Beckett was the humorous contributor; the managing editor was Henry Vizetelly, and Knight Hunt, author of the Fourth Estate, afterwards editor of the Daily News, was the sub-editor. One man who has since become famous as a journalist was amongst the artists employed on the new paper. Those who only know Mr. George Augustus Sala as a brilliant writer will be surprised to learn that he is also a facile draughtsman, and was on the artistic staff of the Pictorial Times in 1847. The Pictorial Times was continued for several years, but it never achieved such a measure of success as to become permanently established. A story used to be told in connexion with it which gave some countenance to the popular belief that some of the sketches in illustrated newspapers were evolved from the inner consciousness of the artists. I cannot answer for the truth of the anecdote, but I know it served to amuse the world of Bohemia at the time. When the Queen and Prince Albert went first to Scotland, the newspapers in recording the movements of the royal party related, among other things (quoting a Scottish contemporary), that Her Majesty and the Prince had gone one day to ‘see the shearing.’ The conductors of the Pictorial Times seeing this, and being anxious to present their readers with a perfect record of the royal doings, forthwith set an artist to work to produce a pleasant pastoral scene, with a group of shepherds shearing their sheep—not knowing that ‘shearing’ in Scotland means cutting the corn, and forgetting for the moment that sheep-shearing is not usually done in the autumn.
Much energy and capital have been expended on several other attempts to found pictorial journals in London, but most of them failed to secure a profitable footing. Pen and Pencil contained some capital cuts by Linton; and the Illustrated Times, a threepenny paper, was well done. The Illustrated News of the World, in addition to numerous woodcuts, issued portraits engraved on steel. The Ladies’ Newspaper was started to fill a supposed void in journalism, but was ultimately absorbed by the Queen, in which connexion it still flourishes. The Illustrated Midland News was brought out in Manchester, but it could not find in that city and its neighbourhood sufficient sustenance to subsist beyond a brief period. The Illustrated London and Provincial News in its title endeavoured to attract both town and country, but it only had a short career. While these different ventures were in progress, the Penny Illustrated Paper appealed to a lower stratum of the public with great success, and it has now a very large sale, having combined the Illustrated Times with its original title. In some of these enterprises the promoters appear to have been unable to shake off, in choosing their titles, the fascinating influence of the word ‘illustrated.’ A joint-stock company broke the spell, and started a paper with the very original title of the Graphic on the eve of the great war between France and Germany. It was a most favourable time for establishing a new paper, and the conductors handled the opportunity with great ability and success. The printing and general get-up of the Graphic are excellent, and it has earned for itself a wide popularity. The Pictorial World was started as a threepenny paper, and after existing several years at that price it became the property of a company and was raised to sixpence. During the Egyptian War it made strenuous efforts to obtain a footing on the same platform with the Illustrated London News and the Graphic. The large lithographic portraits published by the Pictorial World were very good. As the public taste improved under the influence of the pictorial press new fields were opened up for cultivation by the enterprising journalist. The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News addressed itself not only to the sportsman and actor, but also to that section of the public which finds amusement in the incidents and humours of the sporting world and the stage. It has deservedly obtained a good position. The last new comer on the journalistic stage is the Ladies’ Pictorial, which has recently been enlarged and greatly improved. Its light and elegant contents are well suited to the tastes of its numerous patrons. All the existing illustrated papers in London have their publishing offices in the ‘Line of Literature,’ as Fleet Street and the Strand have been called. In the streets and courts in the neighbourhood are housed numbers of engravers and draughtsmen, who find it mutually convenient to work in the vicinity of the head-quarters of pictorial journalism. Many of the same fraternity consume the midnight oil in distant suburbs, their work gravitating to the great centre in the morning.
All the countries of Europe, the United States, some of the cities of South America, the Colonies of Canada and Australia, have now their illustrated newspapers. Some of them supplement their own productions by reproducing the engravings from the English papers, and many have attained a high degree of artistic merit. The American journals are especially noteworthy for their excellent engravings.
CHAPTER IX.