The arms of Serjeants' Inn, worked into the iron gate opening on Fleet Street, are a dove and a serpent, the serpent twisted into a kind of true lover's knot. The lawyers of Serjeants' Inn, no doubt, unite the wisdom of the serpent with the guilelessness of the dove. Singularly enough Dr. Dodd, the popular preacher, who was hanged, bore arms nearly similar.
Half way down Bouverie Street, in the centre of old Whitefriars, is the office of the Daily News. The first number of this popular and influential paper appeared on January 21, 1846. The publishers, and part proprietors, were Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, the printers; the editor was Charles Dickens; the manager was Dickens's father, Mr. John Dickens; the second, or assistant, editor, Douglas Jerrold; and among the other "leader" writers were Albany Fonblanque and John Forster, both of the Examiner. "Father Prout" (Mahoney) acted as Roman correspondent. The musical critic was the late Mr. George Hogarth, Dickens's father-in-law; and the new journal had an "Irish Famine Commissioner" in the person of Mr. R.H. Horne, the poet. Miss Martineau wrote leading articles in the new paper for several years, and Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens was also a recognised contributor. The staff of Parliamentary reporters was said to be the best in London, several having been taken, at an advanced salary, off the Times.
"The speculative proprietorship," says Mr. Grant, in his "History of the Newspaper Press," "was divided into one hundred shares, some of which were held by Sir William Jackson, M.P., Sir Joshua Watkins, and the late Sir Joseph Paxton. Mr. Charles Dickens, as editor, received a salary of £2,000 a year."
THE DORSET GARDENS THEATRE, WHITEFRIARS
The early numbers of the paper contained instalments of Dickens's "Pictures from Italy;" yet the new venture did not succeed. Charles Dickens and Douglas Jerrold took the night-work on alternate days; but Dickens, who never made politics a special study, very soon retired from the editorship altogether, and Jerrold was chief editor for a little while till he left to set up his Weekly Newspaper. Mr. Forster also had the editorship for a short period, and the paper then fell into the hands of the late Mr. Dilke, of the Athenæum, who excited some curiosity by extensively advertising these words: "See the Daily News of June 1st." The Daily News of June 1, 1846 (which began No. 1 again), was a paper of four pages, issued at 2½d., which, deducting the stamp, at that time affixed to every copy of every newspaper, was in effect three halfpence. One of the features of the new plan was that the sheet should vary in size, according to the requirements of the day—with an eye, nevertheless, at all times to selection and condensation. It was a bold attempt, carried out with great intelligence and spirit; but it was soon found necessary to put on another halfpenny, and in a year or two the Daily News was obliged to return to the usual price of "dailies" at that time—fivepence. The chief editors of the paper, besides those already mentioned, have been Mr. Eyre Evans Crowe, Mr. Frederick Knight Hunt, Mr. Weir, and Mr. Thomas Walker, who retired in January, 1870, on receiving the editorship of the London Gazette. The journal came down to a penny in June, 1868.
