“That’s as may be,” said I; “for to my mind the law of libel resolves itself into this: Whether twelve men on their oaths consider that the words published by A have injured B.”
He went to his desk, initialled the galley, rang the bell, and handed the slip to the man answering the summons, with the intimation: “For the printer.” Then, turning to me, he said defiantly: “I’ll let it go.”
Whether it ever did go I never inquired. The reminiscence comes back to me unbidden. It had clean vanished from my memory from that day to this.
He was constantly—but, as I believe, quite unconsciously—giving offence to all sorts and conditions of men. His black beard, curly hair, gleaming teeth, and fierce grin, obtained for him an offensive sobriquet thus bestowed: One of his contributors sent him a letter resigning his position on the staff. He alleged but one reason for this course. It was: “I can no longer put up with the antics of a Barbary ape.” The eccentric recipient of the letter, instead of putting it into the fire and forgetting all about it, assembled the members of the staff, and read the document as though it proved the hopeless insanity of the writer. Having read it, he ran round the room, pretending to scratch his arms after the manner of a caged monkey, uttering the most comical squeals and chattering his teeth no end.
He was drawn over the incident by Pottinger Stephens, who was running a weekly called The Topical Times. In that smart little journal a question was asked the following week in these words: “When did Mr. Bingham-Cox receive the degree of B.A.?” The unfortunate man did not see what lay under the inquiry. He wrote a letter on the note-paper of the Junior Athenæum—the “Junior Prigs,” as it used to be called—explaining that he had dispensed with the advantages of a University training, and that he was not a B.A. The letter appeared in Pot’s paper in due course; but with this heading: “Mr. Bingham-Cox denies that he is a B.A.” The person of the newspaper proprietor was less sacrosanct in the jocund days than in these greyer times.
Bingham-Cox was a collector in his way. He was very keen on engravings, and was by no means a bad judge. He started on his hobby long before the “engraving craze” set in, and his collection became worth four or five times the price he gave for it. The first-floor above the office was full of his samples from floor to ceiling. One day when I was looking over the gallery in his company, he invited me to select a couple of the engravings. I chose two—by no means the least valuable in the collection—and was about to ask when I might send for them, when he whipped out a notebook, and saying, “I’ll leave them to you in my will,” made an elaborate pretence of recording the incident. He was a collector of musical instruments, and had a piano or an American organ on every landing in the house. The most intolerable trials to which he subjected his friends were his recitals on one or other of these instruments. As he crashed out his Masses and fugues he rolled his head, showed his teeth, and grinned awfully, as though he thoroughly enjoyed witnessing the torture he inflicted.
The end of his story is a mingling of tragedy and comedy. He sold his paper. During the years in which he had conducted it he always “lived over the shop.” He could never have spent a fourth part of his net profits, and the balance had been well and luckily invested. When he received the purchase money for the Gazette and left Southampton Street, he was worth considerably over £100,000. When he crossed the threshold of his old offices his astuteness and his luck seem to have deserted him. He bought a brewery in St. Albans, where he had a house. From the first this venture was foredoomed to failure. He became the prospective Unionist candidate for the division. But Captain Middleton and the Central Office would have nothing to do with him, and ran a candidate of their own against him. Bingham-Cox persisted, and actually went to the poll. At this period I became more intimately associated with the eccentric man. I made some speeches for him, and even canvassed the independent electors. More than once during the campaign I thought it my duty to inform him that his methods, should he be elected, must insure his being unseated on petition. He only bared his teeth at the suggestion. He was quite sure of winning, and he was equally sure that there would be no petition.
One of my trials in accompanying him was being obliged to drive about with him in a little village cart, painted a vivid green, and drawn by a big black donkey. The candidate, with his swarthy face, grizzly beard, and fierce expression, might have been the avant-courier of some travelling show. The little villagers evidently accepted him as something of the sort, and accompanied the strange vehicle and its grinning occupant in and out of their hamlets with joyful “whoops.” He was badly beaten at the polls. I don’t believe that even the well-bribed employés in the brewery voted for him. Then the brewery itself went smash, and Bingham-Cox returned to Southampton Street (the new owners of the paper having found less expensive premises), and recommenced life as a newspaper proprietor.
His new paper was called The Rocket. His idea was to give the public a Truth for a penny. The title was an ill-omened one. The paper went up like the explosive after which it was named, and came down like the stick. He sent for Clement Scott, and instructed him to write an article dealing abusively with stage-players. Clemmy agreed provided his name was kept a profound secret. Bingham-Cox promised. The worthy man had probably suffered from some further slight at the hands of the managers. “Cut ’em up! Slash ’em! Flay ’em alive!” he exclaimed to the accommodating contributor. Scott, secure in his anonymity, proceeded to cut up, slash, and flay, the unfortunate mummers in a strain of pious indignation that was peculiarly his own. The article duly appeared with Clement Scott’s name in large letters both at the top and bottom of it. Scott never really got over the incident, and his reproaches had no effect on his employer. “Breach of faith indeed! Why, you have broken faith with a whole profession!” was the only satisfaction he could get from his betrayer.
The Rocket was a failure from the first. It stopped for want of funds. For the unfortunate man had been drained dry. Even the engravings and the musical instruments had gone. In a few short years his fortune had melted. He was overdrawn at the bank; he had not a cent in the world. One morning the word went round that he had been found dead in bed, and there was no inquest.