It is amusing to note how proprietors, editors, and contributors, will differ as to the motive power which has given the first substantial rise in circulation. Voules always held—he has told me so a dozen times—that the success of Truth was brought about by the fashion articles of “Madge.” And Lucy of the World became possessed by the belief that the popularity of the Yates venture was partly due to the appearance therein of his articles from the gallery of the House of Commons. He determined to establish a paper on the lines laid down by Yates. And his leading article was to be his own series, entitled “Under the Clock, by One of the Hands.”
Lucy selected Mayfair as the name of the venture on which he was about to embark. There should be no mistake about his title to rank as a Society journalist. In that matter he could ruffle it with the best of them. He was, however, beset with difficulties from the beginning. In the first place—to his immense surprise and disgust—he found that Yates entirely declined to abandon his right in the heading of the Parliamentary articles, which continued to appear, from another “Hand,” until long after the death and burial of Lucy’s bantling.
Lucy found certain members of the staff of Mayfair intractable; the intractable aids declared that they found things impossible. And no one was greatly surprised when the new purveyor of social wares put the shutters up. Incidentally, Mr. Lucy’s paper was the means of enriching that harvest of English literature which is garnered by Mudie. It led to the publication of a couple of novels. In one of these works Mr. Lucy drew a character which was instantly recognized as a portrait of Mr. Christie Murray. Murray had been one of the intractables on the strength of the Mayfair. Christie was not only impatient of attack, but he was very well equipped for hitting back, which in due course he proceeded to do. Anyone interested in the literary amenities of the jocund days may find some diversion in referring to Christie Murray’s “The Way of the World.” Such merry jousts are inadmissible in these less strenuous times.
A much longer period of existence was granted to the St. Stephen’s Review, founded by Mr. William Alison. In the editorial scheme, this organ was to play Parliamentary measures—so to speak—in addition to its piping for Society. Its political cartoons by Tom Merry did good service on more than one electoral campaign. Alison was a member of the Junior Carlton Club, so that it is needless to indicate the policy for which his paper stood. Alison had chosen for his sub-editor one of the strangest of the strange persons who crowd the journalistic mart. His name was William Tasker. He wrote vapid verses and slushy prose by the ream, over the name of “Edgar Lee.” But if his literary output was of a middling sort, his lying was first-rate. He had become so much the servant of the habit that he often believed his own stories. Alison never contradicted him, and so the faculty increased, and the facility acquired by the little professor became quite marvellous. He was an extremely ill-dressed man, and grew the mutton-chop face fungi for which Frank Richardson affects such a distaste. He always wore a red tie, and it was always a soiled one. A bland, propitiatory smile played about the corners of his mouth. He would rush up to one in the Strand with this sort of news: “I’ve just been to Downing Street, and Disraeli told me—this is quite private, mind you—that he’ll go to the country in June.” The reply might be: “Hang it all! I’ve just left the House of Commons. Dizzy is on his feet, and has been for the last three-quarters of an hour.” But that sort of facer never disturbed Tasker. He would shake his head and smile a deprecatory smile, as he answered: “Optical illusion, my dear fellow. I tell you I’ve just left him in Downing Street. I mentioned your name to him, and he said: ‘Sound man that; give him my regards.’ And I said I would, and so I have.” I have heard him tell, with every detail, of his sprinting prowess. He could not run fifty yards. And he would descant on his success on the race-course, who did not know the meaning of a handicap. He survived for some years the passing of the journal with which he was associated. These he devoted to palmistry, astrology, and other wizard sciences, the profession of which, to a scientist knowing how to advertise—and where—may, even in these advanced days, yield a living of sorts.
But the surpassing claim of the St. Stephen’s Review to the respectful regard of posterity is the fact that it introduced Phil May to the British public. A Bohemian of Bohemians was Phil May when he was discovered, and a Bohemian of Bohemians he continued to the end—the all too early end. When he began to contribute to Alison’s paper, he was engaged in designing dresses for Alias the costumier. Alias had some funny stories about the difficulty he experienced in keeping Phil at his work. One day he arrived at the office having come through a heavy shower of rain. His boots, coat, and hat, were soaked. The humane little employer fussed about, induced him to remove his boots and coat, and provided him with slippers and a studio jacket. “I shall ’ave them dried,” he explained as he hurried off. The dear little chap, however, locked them up, assured that Phil May would not venture abroad without his boots and coat and hat. The hour was eleven of the forenoon. The programme of Alias was to hurry off, see his customers at one or two theatres, and return about one o’clock and take Phil—who he hoped would then have made several good designs—out to lunch. Passing Romano’s, he thought he would turn in and take a liqueur of brandy. He entered. There were shouts of laughter at the end of the bar. In the midst of an admiring crowd of “the boys” stood Phil May, fully attired in the costumier’s stock. He wore red Hessian boots to beyond his knees. On his head was the shako of a gendarme, and his slim figure was enveloped in a brigand cloak built for a big man. Of course the designs of the dresses had not been touched.
“I came here to see if they had got my boots,” Phil explained to the exasperated costumier. “Will you take anything?”
“I vill take You!” replied the little man, leading his designer into the Strand, where they were followed to the shop by a delighted crowd of urchins, who were divided in opinion as to whether the thin gentleman in costume was “Awthur Roberts” or “’Enery Hirving.”
When Phil had “come into his own,” when he was the favourite artist on Punch—favourite of the public, that is to say—he continued in the Bohemian courses which he had acquired in the lean and struggling years. At one time he was ordered horse exercise; and when he got the horse, it was thought, by the authorities at home, that it would be an excellent idea for Phil if he went into Fleet Street on horseback when business took him that way. This, it was thought, would insure his safe and early return to the domestic hearth. It answered well—for a bit. But one afternoon Phil was riding home from Fleet Street to his house in Kensington, and in passing through Leicester Square, thought that he would drop in at the “Cosy Club,” a small club then recently founded. He gave his horse in charge of an urchin to hold for him. It was then four in the afternoon. At two o’clock in the morning a police constable entered the club to inquire whether one of the members had left a horse in charge of a boy outside. The secretary remembered that May was the proud possessor of a steed. But May had left the club at midnight. He had forgotten all about his horse, and had driven home in a hansom.
Of the making of penny Society papers there was no end. But of those papers themselves there was generally an early end, and of these one may more conveniently treat in the chapter “De Mortuis.”