OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
We are apt to think of Lord Northcliffe as the "onlie begetter" of the New Journalism. But here comes Mr. Kennedy Jones, M.P., to remind us, in Fleet Street and Downing Street (Hutchinson), that he too had a very large share in its parentage. And up to a point he is a proud father. Circulations reckoned in millions instead of thousands, journalistic salaries raised from hundreds to thousands, advertisement-revenues multiplied many-fold—these are some of the outward signs of the success of a policy which the author summarised when he told Lord Morley, "You left journalism as a profession; we have made it a branch of commerce." But there is another side to the medal. Frankenstein's monster was perfect in everything save that it lacked a soul. In all material things the New Journalism is a long way ahead of the Old; and yet, after chronicling its many triumphs—culminating in the capture of The Times—its part-creator is fain to admit that "public distrust of news is the most notable feature in journalism of recent years," and that the influence of the daily Press on the public mind has hardly ever been at a lower ebb. This frankness is characteristic of a book which on nearly every page contains something to startle or amuse. The author's experiences on his first day in London, including an encounter with a sausage-seller (more friendly than Cleon's rival); his negotiations for the purchase of The Times, and his offer of the editorship to Lord Curzon, who unfortunately refused it; the provenance of "The Pekin Massacre," which originated, it appears, not with a "stunt" journalist, but with a Chinese statesman wishing to pull the Occidental leg—these and many other incidents are admirably described by a writer who, though he long ago doffed his journalistic harness, has not forgotten how to write up a "good story." Be your opinion of the New Journalism what it may I guarantee that you will find its champion an agreeable companion.
There are parts of Mr. W.J. Locke's latest novel, The House of Baltazar (Lane), which will, I fear, make almost prohibitive demands upon the faith (considered as belief in the incredible) of his vast following. To begin with, he introduces us to that problematical personage, whose possibility used to be so much debated, the Man Who Didn't Know There Was A War On. John Baltazar had preserved this unique ignorance, first by bolting from a Cambridge professorship through amorous complications, next by living many years in the Far East, and finally by settling upon a remote moorland farm (locality unspecified) with a taciturn Chinaman and an Airedale for his only companions. This and other contributory circumstances, for which I lack space, just enabled me to admit the situation as possible. Naturally, therefore, when a befogged Zeppelin laid a couple of bombs plonk into the homestead, the ex-professor experienced a mental as well as a bodily shake-up. I had no complaint either with the transformation that developed John Baltazar from the only outsider to apparently the big boss of the War; while the scenes between him and the son of whose existence he had been unaware (a situation not precisely new to fiction) are presented with a sincere and moving simplicity. So far so good, even if hardly equal to the author's best. But the catastrophe and the melodramatics about War-Office secrets, preposterously put on paper, and still more preposterously preserved, simply knocked the wind of reality out of the whole affair. A pity, since Mr. Locke (though I prefer him in more fantastic vein) has clearly spent much care upon a tale that, till its final plunge, is at least lively and entertaining.
The amateur of lace, whether as expert or owner, will be pleasantly stirred by learning that another book has been added to the already large bibliography of a fascinating subject in The Romance of the Lace Pillow (H.H. Armstrong), published at Olney from the pen of Mr. Thomas Wright. Olney, of course, has two claims on our regard—Cowper and Lace, and it is now evident that Mr. Wright has kept as attentive an eye on the one as on the other. His book makes no pretence to be more than a brief and frankly popular survey of the art of lace-making chiefly in Northamptonshire and Bucks, and to it he has brought a wealth of various information (which the average reader must take on trust) and an enthusiasm that can be judged by his opening statement that "lace ... is the expression of the most rapturous moments of whole dynasties of men of genius." So now you know. Even those of us who regard it with a calmer pulse can take pleasure in the many excellent photographs of lace-work of different periods and schools that adorn Mr. Wright's volume. As for the letter-press, though I will not call the writer's style wholly equal to his zeal, his chapters are full of interesting gossip, ranging from the late Katherine of Aragon (the originator, according to one theory, of English lace-making), to some jolly stuff on the literature of Bobbins and the old Tells, or working-songs, sung by "the spinners and the knitters in the sun, and the free maids that weave their threads with bones." I have a fancy that the whole volume has been more or less a labour of love (never certainly did I meet an author with such a list of helpers to thank), so I am glad to think that its reward in one sense is already assured.
In The Fairy Man (Dent), a most engrossing phantasy, Mr. L. Cope Cornford takes for raw material a family of Maida Vale, victims of all those petty, sordid, but deadly troubles known only to the middle class. Without warrant, explanation, or excuse he introduces into their routine a sudden touch of magic; the tired City man, the acid foster-mother, the children (mercifully devoid of any priggishness), and the pre-eminently human housemaid and cook are transplanted for a moment into the age of the knights-errant. Thither also are transplanted their special friends and enemies, all retaining their modern identities and their current troubles, and all getting unpleasantly involved in the troubles of the ancients, to boot. Eventually the interlude is found to have provided the solution of the difficulties, pecuniary and other, of the home in Maida Vale; and I will say no more than that a very telling story ends well and naturally. No reader should imagine he has read all this before; the admixture of fairy imagination with the intensely practical things of life is something new, and there is a definite purpose in it all. The book may be labelled intellectual, but the characters always remain very human; thus George, finding himself back in the times of a thousand years ago, says critically, "It looks old, but it feels just the same;" and his father, seeing him engaged in an assault on the castle, shouts, "George! put that sword down instantly." Mr. Cornford makes his points with such discretion and understanding that even the most solid materialist must, after reading, feel a little less sure of himself.