The same artist who made his sketches into pills, being at Bremerhafen, found himself so watched and dogged by the police and others who had observed he was a stranger, that he could not make the sketch he wanted. After much walking about he at length returned to the place where he desired to sketch, and sitting down at the edge of the harbour he began to draw lines with his umbrella on the mud, as if in a fit of abstraction, and soon had sketched in this way the principal points of the scene before him. This he repeated several times, until the view was fixed in his memory, when he retired to the railway-station, and there, unobserved, committed the scene to his sketch-book. On another occasion, in the neighbourhood of Mezières, he was driven at nightfall to seek a lodging in a very lonely and villainous looking inn. The occupants of the place looked upon him with evil eyes, and dreading lest one more should be added to the numerous graves already near the cabaret, he betook himself to a neighbouring wood, where he spent the whole night surrounded by the carcases of dead horses. At Lyons he penetrated into the theatre where the people were storing corn and flour in anticipation of a siege. He had made some hasty notes in his sketch-book, when he was observed and obliged to retreat, followed, however, by several men. He had noticed an umbrella shop round the corner in the next street, and into this shop he rushed, seized an umbrella, opened it, and kept it expanded between himself and the door, as if examining the quality of the silk, while his pursuers ran past, when he demanded the price of the umbrella, paid the money, and walked off, glad to escape at so small a cost. Sometimes his adventures had a more amusing termination. When the spy-fever prevailed very strongly both in France and Germany, he was one day looking into a shop-window when he became conscious that he was watched by two officers. ‘Now,’ thought he, ‘I am in for it again, and shall certainly be arrested.’ This feeling was confirmed as one of the officers advanced towards him, and raising his hand as if to seize him by the collar, addressed him thus: ‘Permit me, monsieur, to adjust the string of your shirt collar, which has escaped from behind your cravat.’[1] This gentleman was somewhat old-fashioned in his costume, and during his wanderings was sometimes mistaken for a sea-captain. He had even received confidential proposals to discuss the question of freight.
The Illustrated London News had five artists in the field during the Franco-German war: W. Simpson, R. T. Landells, G. H. Andrews, C. J. Staniland, and Jules Pelcoq. From the fact of Landells being already known to the Crown Prince of Prussia and several of his staff, it was settled that his destination should be Germany, and I remember that before his departure he expressed to me just the slightest shade of discontent that he should be selected to go on what he thought would be the losing side. He was destined, however, to be present at the proclamation of the German Emperor in the palace of Versailles, and he was one of the first to enter Paris after it capitulated to the German army. Soon afterwards he very nearly experienced the unpleasant consequences of being taken for a German spy. Landells himself was of a dark complexion, and might very well have passed for a Frenchman, but on the occasion referred to he was in the company of a brother artist (Mr. Sidney Hall, of the Graphic), who, being fair, might easily be mistaken for German. The excited mob of Paris had just vented their rage on a suspected spy by drowning him in the Seine, and the two special artists were loitering on the outskirts of the crowd, when Mr. Hall imprudently took out his sketch-book, which was no sooner perceived than a cry was raised of ‘Prussian spy!’ and they too would probably have been pitched into the river had they not managed, with great difficulty, to escape from the crowd.
| NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS ON THEIR WAY TO THE FRONT. SISTOVA, 1877. |
When the German armies were closing round Paris M. Jules Pelcoq consented to be shut up in the devoted city for the purpose of supplying the Illustrated London News with sketches. During the hardships of the siege he was quite unable to obtain fuel to warm his apartment, and was compelled to retire to bed, where, wrapped in a blanket, he finished up the rough sketches he had made out of doors, which were then photographed and sent off by balloons to London. These balloons were regularly despatched during the prevalence of winds that would carry them to the provinces unoccupied by the Germans. They were followed by Prussian light cavalry as long as they were in sight, and some were captured. Afterwards, as the city became more closely invested, and the danger increased, the precaution was taken of despatching the balloons at night, and the time fixed on was kept concealed from all save those immediately concerned, in order to avoid, as far as possible, the chances of its being communicated to the enemy, and thereby exposing the aëronauts to the fiery rockets and other projectiles with which the Germans were prepared to favour them. The railway-stations were generally chosen as the starting-places, for they not only offered large open spaces in which to fill the balloons, but, being situated away from the centre of Paris, there was less risk, in ascending, of coming in contact with buildings.
To provide against the loss of sketches so sent, photographic copies were despatched by other balloons. In some cases two, and even three, copies of the same sketch reached my hands by balloon-post during the German investment of Paris. Considering the danger and difficulty of this mode of communication, the intercourse between the Illustrated London News and its artist in Paris was kept up pretty regularly during the whole siege.
| SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. HERZEGOVINA, 1876. |
The requirements of special artists when on the ‘war path’ vary according to circumstances. Mr. Simpson, in France during the Franco-German war, found no scarcity of food, but could seldom get a bed to sleep in. On the other hand, Mr. Melton Prior, in South Africa and other hot countries, found that he was never sure of obtaining either food or drink. During the war in Herzegovina in 1876 the newspaper correspondents had to rough it pretty considerably. Sometimes, when the special artist got to a resting-place for the night, he would have to work up his sketches by the light of a single candle, which he kept in an upright position by holding it between his feet as he sat on the ground, while the correspondent of a London ‘daily’ scribbled his notes beside him. The difficulty of obtaining sleeping accommodation was experienced by another artist in Servia, who was obliged one night to go to rest in a sort of diligence or covered waggon which stood in the inn yard. It was the only ‘spare bed,’ and the tired ‘special’ was very glad to coil himself up within its recesses. These hardships, however, belong to the past. Just as the combatants in modern warfare fight their battles with the most scientific weapons, so the newspaper correspondent now goes to the field armed with the latest appliances against cold, fatigue, hunger, and thirst. He provides himself with an abundant supply of tinned meats and champagne, plenty of clothing, the latest improvements in saddlery; and when he arrives at the scene of action he buys as many horses as he wants for himself and servants. Acting on the experience of former campaigns, Mr. Prior was able in the Zulu War to travel much more comfortably than any member of the staff, not even excepting Lord Chelmsford himself. ‘I had then no fewer than five horses: two in the shafts of my American waggon, one for myself, one for my servant, and one spare horse. I followed the army through all its marches in my travelling carriage, and on the eve of the Battle of Ulundi I was the only man who had a tent; all the others lay down in the open.’
| THE SPARE BED. |
While recording the progress of events—the deeds of war mingling with the works of peace—the pictorial press is not unmindful of what is done in the cause of humanity. One of the recent experiences of the special artist was in making a journey across Siberia in search of the survivors of the crew of the American exploring ship Jeanette. Mr. J. Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of the New York Herald, having sent out a commissioner to search for the missing expedition, he was joined by the special artist of the Illustrated London News. They had before them a journey of two or three thousand miles, and they travelled in one of the covered sledges used in Siberia in the winter time. It was their travelling carriage by day and their sleeping apartment at night. Sometimes they had to turn out and defend themselves from the wolves which followed them over the snowy waste. The artist on this occasion was Mr. Larsen, of Copenhagen, who proved himself a first-rate special.
| SPECIAL ARTIST’S TENT. |