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Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842 1885

S >> Stuart J. Reid, ed. >> Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842 1885




There was an old friend of my father's--Innes by name--who took it upon
himself to remonstrate with me. After exhorting me fervently for some
time, he sought to illustrate the dangers of the course on which I was
anxious to embark by a personal experience. "Thomas," he said solemnly
(and oh, how I hated to be called Thomas!), "I knew a laddie called
Forster. His father was a most respectable, decent man, that kept a
butcher's shop at the top o' the Side--a first-rate business; and this
laddie--his name was John--got just such notions into his head as ye
have; he was always reading and writing, and nothing would suit him but
to go to college instead of sticking to the shop. And at last he went
away to London, and his poor father died, and the business went all to
pieces, and I've never heard tell of that laddie from the day he went to
London until now. He's died of starvation, most likely, by this time."

"Why, Mr. Innes," I cried, "do you really mean to say that you have never
heard of Mr. Forster's books--his Life of Oliver Goldsmith and 'The
Arrest of the Five Members'? He's one of our great writers now, and if I
could only reach a position like his--" But this prospect was so dazzling
that it fairly took my breath away, and I lapsed into silence, delighted
to find that my old friend's "awful example" should have been a man in
whose footsteps I most ardently desired to tread.

As I have mentioned the opposition which my parents offered to my design
to become a journalist, it is only right that I should say that if it had
not been for the atmosphere in which I lived at home, the accomplishment
of that design would never have become possible. Ours was a home of
narrow and stinted means, but of wide and generous sympathies. We
children learned from the example of our dear father and mother to look
beyond ourselves and our own small interests upon the battle of life as
it was being fought in the world at large. If our table was of the
plainest, there were always books and newspapers in the house, and they
were not there for show. My mother had a genuine taste for literature,
and a judgment which, if not infallible, was at least sound. Many a time
would we discuss together the books we were reading. They were not, as a
rule, hot from the Press; but why should they have been, in the case of a
boy with all the literary treasures of the world still untasted? My
father leaned, as was natural, to the more serious side of literature;
but he had a keen interest in public affairs, and he brought to their
study a sagacious and well-informed mind. Whilst the spirit in which both
he and my mother viewed life and the problems which it daily presented to
them was that of a pure and lofty Puritanism, it was broadened and
softened, more particularly in the case of my father, by the gentleness
and liberality of their own characters. So it was in an atmosphere of
culture and liberal thought that I lived my life in those days both at
home and at the W.B. Lead Office.

The _Northern Daily Express_ was a penny newspaper which laid claim
to be the first provincial daily published at that price. The claim has,
I believe, been disputed by Mr. Justin McCarthy, who claims the honour
for a Liverpool journal with which he was himself at one time connected.
But whether first or second, it is certain that the _Express_ was
very early in the field. It had been started at Darlington in 1855 by a
gentleman named Watson. A year later it was transferred to Newcastle, and
it was in the _Express_ office that I first became acquainted with
actual newspaper work. A very curious place was that office when I first
knew it. It consisted simply of two rooms and two cellars in a house in
West Clayton Street. One of the rooms was devoted to the compositors who
set the little sheet; the other was by day the counting-house and the
place where the papers were sold and advertisements received, whilst at
night it became the editorial office--the editor, sub-editor, and
reporters all working together here at the desks occupied by the clerks
during the day. I ought, perhaps, to explain that the staff was not quite
so large as my description of it might lead people to suppose. The
sub-editor, for instance, doubled his part and acted as reporter also.
Still, it was a tight fit in that little room in West Clayton Street when
I went there of an evening to write some paragraph or letter for the next
morning's paper. In the cellars was the machine on which the
_Express_ was printed, and the stock of paper.

In one respect, the _Express_ was better equipped than is many a
pretentious journal of to-day. Its editor--Manson by name--was a man of
remarkable ability, and his carefully-prepared leading articles were
certainly second to none in the newspaper press of his day. This is a
strong saying, but my reader will not think it unjustified when he hears
that Manson's services had been eagerly sought for by more than one
London newspaper, including the _Times_. He was a man of real
genius, but, unfortunately, not without the defects of his qualities. In
my young eyes he was a marvel, and almost an idol. To sit beside him, as
I sometimes did, whilst he forged the thunderbolts which produced so
great an effect upon the opinion of the town, was to me a joy almost too
great for words. I would sit and watch the untiring hand moving across
the slips of blue paper with a mind filled with the awe and reverence
with which a pupil of Michael Angelo might have watched the master at
work. I had at last got my foot on the first rung of the ladder, and my
soul was filled with absolute content. True, my days were given to the
W.B. Lead Office; but seldom did an evening come round without finding
me, on one pretext or another, in the house in West Clayton Street.
Indeed, I had now become almost a recognised member of the staff, and my
little contributions in the shape of paragraphs, letters, and the
inevitable verses appeared almost daily.

I had been trying to teach myself shorthand, and had made some progress
with Pitman's system of phonography; but now, thanks to the kindness of
Mr. Marshall, I secured the services of a first-rate teacher, and soon
made rapid progress in that difficult art. My teacher was Mr. Lowes, an
admirable shorthand writer, who wrote a system of his own. To Mr. Lowes,
phonography appeared to be the chief evil afflicting mankind. What little
things divide the world! In my teacher's opinion it was divided into
phonographers and stenographers, and never did the schoolmen of old show
more bitterness in maintaining their own shibboleths than did Lowes in
asserting the superiority of his system to that of Mr. Pitman--an opinion
which I need scarcely say was not shared by the world.

Lowes was a good fellow, and a most kind and patient teacher. Under his
guidance I soon acquired a certain amount of facility in ordinary
press-work. Contributions to _Chambers's Journal_, the _Leisure
Hour_, and one or two minor religious magazines, gave me as the years
passed an opportunity of addressing a wider audience than the readers of
the _Express_, and though I had as many misfortunes and
disappointments as most young writers, I stuck steadily to my task, and
bit by bit strengthened my position in the world of journalism.

There were other fields of activity, besides the press, that I
assiduously cultivated. For example, in the plenitude of my wisdom, at
the age of seventeen I founded an institution in the west end of
Newcastle, not far from my father's church. I called it the "West End
Literary Institute," and truly it was designed upon a most ambitious
scale. When I recall the way in which I begged money from all and sundry
among my friends for the purpose of starting the institute, and the
manner in which I pestered distinguished authors for presentation copies
of their books, in order to furnish the shelves of the library, I am
driven to the painful conclusion that I must have been a terrible person
in the days of my youth, and something of a prig to boot. Apropos of the
begging for books as free gifts from authors, I had one or two amusing
experiences. Among those whom I importuned in this impertinent way were
Charles Kingsley, and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Longley.
Kingsley replied to my request in a manner that was as sensible as it was
severe, bluntly telling me that he was a poor man who wrote books in
order to get money, and who could not afford to give them away. I have
written books myself since then, and have had many an application as
unreasonable as that which I addressed to the author of "Alton Locke."
This fact, perhaps, explains my entire approval of the snubbing which
that distinguished man administered to me.

Very different, however, was the response of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. It was a courteous and dignified epistle, expressing his
pleasure at being able to comply with my request, and fifteen handsome
octavo volumes of sermons were forthwith forwarded to me from Hatchard's.
I had other similar experiences, and the result was that when my library
was thrown open to the public the amount of theology which it contained
far outweighed every other department of literature. However, people came
to my reading-room, and I was fortunately able to provide them with other
entertainment besides the reading of old sermons. I started a course of
lectures and readings. I blush to say that I distinguished myself one
evening by reading the play of _Macbeth_ to an unhappy audience of
bored victims. Heaven forgive me! I carried on my West End Institute for
some years, started a flourishing penny bank in connection with it, and
formed numerous acquaintances among the more intelligent artisans of the
district; but at last the building was wanted for an extension of the
Sunday schools connected with my father's congregation, and the little
performance came to an end. I trust it had not made me an incurable prig,
but I fear that it did not do anybody very much good; though, perhaps, it
kept some out of mischief.

No account of Newcastle at this period (1850-60) would be complete
without some reference to one of its most notable inhabitants, Mr. Joseph
Cowen, commonly known at that time to his fellow-townsmen as "Joe." Mr.
Cowen's subsequent career in Parliament, brief though it was, gained for
him a reputation for eloquence hardly inferior to that enjoyed by the
most illustrious of his contemporaries. But in those early days of my
youth it was not his eloquence but his advanced opinions about which his
fellow-townsmen thought most. He openly professed to be a Republican, in
theory at all events, and all his sympathies were engaged on the side of
the oppressed nationalities of Europe. A man of culture, of commanding
abilities, and of considerable wealth, he lived by choice in the plainest
fashion, delighting to be known as one of the people. He dressed at all
times in the kind of suit which a Northumbrian pitman wears when not
actually at work. Years afterwards, when he had just thrilled all England
by a great speech in the House of Commons on the subject of Russian
oppression, I chanced to meet him one day in Pall Mall, and, stopping to
talk to him, was amused to see the glances of curiosity which were cast
at the strangely attired man who had found his way to that fashionable
thoroughfare.

Nor was it only in his dress that he affected a likeness to the
working-men of Tyneside. In his speech he exaggerated the burr of the
Newcastle tongue. Most of us were anxious to get rid of that undesirable
distinction. Mr. Cowen clung to it as one of the most precious of his
possessions. He had to pay for this piece of affectation in later life,
when he became a figure in the House of Commons. His first notable speech
in that assembly was on the Royal Titles Bill of Mr. Disraeli. It was a
very brilliant performance, greatly admired by those who were able to
appreciate it. But, unfortunately, it was not understood by everybody.
The day after it was delivered, Mr. Disraeli was questioned at a
dinner-party by a lady, who asked him what he thought of the new orator
whose presence had been revealed to the House. "I'm sorry I can't answer
your question," said the Prime Minister. "It is true that a gentleman,
whom I had never seen before, got up on the Opposition side and made a
speech which seemed to excite great enthusiasm in a certain part of the
House; but, unfortunately, he spoke in a language I had never heard, and
I haven't the slightest idea in the world what he said."

But in the days of which I am now writing Mr. Cowen was still a long way
from the House of Commons. His fame, however, was even then of no common
kind. He was known throughout Europe as a man willing to befriend, not
merely with speech and pen, but with purse, every victim of political
oppression. By the despotic Governments of the Continent he was held in
feverish hatred, and at one time his modest house at Blaydon Burn was
regularly watched by French, Russian, and Austrian spies; nor was it
without good reason that the tyrants of Europe saw in him their natural
enemy. Under his roof many of the most eminent refugees from the
countries I have named and from Italy found a welcome shelter, and in one
room in that house was a small printing press on which thousands of
revolutionary proclamations in all the languages of Europe had been
printed. Mazzini, Garibaldi, Kossuth, Felice Orsini, and scores of other
notable revolutionaries whose names I forget, were his friends and
guests, and through his influence a large party of us in Newcastle were
led to take almost as warm an interest in political affairs on the
Continent as in the movements of parties at home. Again and again in
those days, when France was crushed under the heel of the Second Empire,
when Poland was vainly writhing in her cruel bonds, when Hungary was
filled with the spirit of rebellion, and when the people of Italy were
taking their first steps by the intricate paths of conspiracy and
insurrection towards unity and freedom, Joe Cowen would find some excuse
for summoning a public meeting in the old Lecture Room, Nelson Street, in
order that we might listen to some patriot exile as he told the story of
his country's wrongs, or give expression to our own detestation of the
despotism which at that time weighed upon Europe, from the banks of the
Seine to those of the Volga.

No impressionable youth could fail to be affected by such an influence as
this, and if in those days I shrank from Mr. Cowen's views on home
politics as being too advanced, I was one of the most enthusiastic of his
adherents in his self-appointed mission against the tyrannies of the
Continent. How well do I remember some of the faces and figures of Mr.
Cowen's friends and guests! I can still see Kossuth with his grey hair
and wrinkled brow, and Mazzini with his melancholy eyes and handsome
face; I can still hear the tones of Louis Blanc as he stands on the
platform of the lecture room and talks to us in excellent English of the
epoch of the Great Revolution. But the one man whose face and figure
dwell most vividly in my recollection is Orsini, the great Italian who,
after a lifetime spent in the attempt to deliver Tuscany and Lombardy
from the yoke of the tyrant, died under the guillotine in Paris, and by
his death secured for Italy her long-sought freedom. Orsini came to
Newcastle shortly after his escape from an Austrian dungeon at Mantua,
and addressed a great meeting in the Lecture Room. He spoke English
fairly well; but it was the appearance of the man, and the knowledge of
all that he had suffered in the struggle for Italian freedom, that
appealed to one more eloquently than his words. Never had I seen any man
whose appearance equalled that of this Italian martyr who died as an
assassin. His features were almost faultless, whilst his jet-black hair
set off the lustrous pallor of his complexion with extraordinary
effectiveness. Attired in fashionable evening dress, his hands encased in
white kid gloves, and a smile, gentle rather than pathetic, lighting up
his beautiful face, he looked the last man in the world whom one would
naturally associate with desperate deeds. Yet, not many weeks after I had
grasped his hand, he had brought about the terrible attempt upon the life
of the Emperor Napoleon, when the latter was driving through the Rue
Lepelletier, Paris, by which many innocent persons perished, and was
himself lying in prison under sentence of death. Mr. Cowen once told me
that it was he who provided the funds for carrying out Orsini's plot
against Louis Napoleon's life, but he did so in absolute ignorance of the
fact that this was the purpose to which the money was to be appropriated.
He understood that it was wanted for the equipment of another
insurrectionary expedition against the Austrians in Italy, and he
willingly subscribed the amount asked for.

As for Orsini, he met his death like a hero; but it is well known that
before dying he succeeded, as a leading member of the Carbonari, in
extracting from the French Emperor, who had himself belonged to that
society, a promise that he would free Italy from Austrian oppression. By
giving that promise, Louis Napoleon was delivered from the fear of
violent death at the hands of the Carbonari, whilst his fulfilment of it
in the war of 1859 gave Italy her first great step towards unity and
freedom. Even the romantic page of history has never recorded a more
notable transaction than that which thus took place in a condemned cell
between an assassin lying under sentence of death and a reigning Emperor;
nor would it be possible to denounce regicide so absolutely as most of us
do if there were many instances in which it had proved so successful as
it did in the case of Orsini.

I have dwelt at undue length on an episode which my readers probably
think altogether outside the scope of this narrative, but it does not lie
quite so far apart from it as they may imagine. It was my association as
a boy with Mr. Cowen's enthusiastic assertion of the rights of oppressed
nationalities, and the stirring of my spirit which necessarily resulted
from contact, however slight, with men like Kossuth and Orsini, that
first made me a real Liberal in politics.

As I have mentioned the Lecture Room--a dismal, stuffy, ill-lighted
little theatre--I may refer to two meetings unconnected with foreign
politics which I remember in it. One was in 1857, when the Dissenters of
Newcastle had revolted against the domination of the Whig clique, and at
the general election had set up a candidate of their own. They had great
difficulty in finding one, for they required a man who would pay his own
expenses (in those days a very serious item), and the chance of success
was by no means brilliant. At last, however, they secured a rich retired
Bombay merchant, and he came down to Newcastle forthwith to address his
first meeting. The Lecture Room was crowded with enthusiastic
Nonconformists, and these were the words with which the unhappy candidate
began his speech: "Gentlemen, four-and-twenty hours ago, if anybody had
asked me where Newcastle-on-Tyne was, I could not have told them." This,
to an audience full of the local pride which possessed the soul of every
genuine Newcastle man! I need hardly say that, having ascertained where
Newcastle was, Mr. C. speedily departed from it, amid a storm of
indignation, never again to be seen in its streets.

More vivid still is my recollection of the Lecture Room on the occasion
when Thackeray delivered his lectures on the Four Georges to an audience
more select than numerous. I was at the age when, as the author of
"Vanity Fair" himself has said, "to behold Brown, the author of the last
romance, in the flesh, is a joy and a delight." Anybody who had written a
book seemed to me to be a hero; what was it then to see and to hear the
literary idol of my youth? Thackeray, with his tall figure, his silvery
hair, his upturned face, expressive and striking, though by no means
beautiful, seemed to me as I sat on my bench and listened to him to be
nothing less than one of the gods. He was an admirable lecturer; his
voice was musical and clear, his pronunciation singularly distinct and
accurate, and the little touches of sarcasm and humour which he conveyed
to his audience by a tone or an inflection, quite inimitable. I heard, as
I sat listening to his lecture on George the Third--by far the best of
the series--someone near me yawn, and my soul was filled with horror at
what I thought nothing less than an act of sacrilege. I never saw the
great novelist except on the occasion of his visit to Newcastle, but to
the end of my days it will be a delight thus to have beheld him in the
flesh. Dickens I heard read several times, though never in the Lecture
Room; yet I cannot say that any of his readings made upon me the
impression produced by Thackeray's lectures. The actor and the arts of
the popular entertainer were too plainly visible in all that he did, and
I received something like a shock when, having written an enthusiastic
but juvenile panegyric upon him on the occasion of one of his visits to
Newcastle, I learned that he had sent his secretary to buy a dozen copies
of the paper to send to his friends. That so great a man should have
thought a mere newspaper effusion worth noticing seemed to me altogether
incredible. The reader may smile at the confession, but I own I never
thought quite so much of Dickens, as a man, after this incident. This
only shows how high was the pedestal upon which I had placed him, and how
slight was my knowledge of human nature.



CHAPTER III.

MY LIFE-WORK BEGUN.

On the Staff of the _Newcastle Journal_--In a Dilemma--Lord John
Russell and Mr. Gladstone at Newcastle-upon-Tyne--Mr. Gladstone's
Triumphal Progress--A Memorable Colliery Disaster--A Pit-Sinker's
Heroism--Adventure at a Dickens Reading.


At last my term of probation came to an end. My friend and teacher, Mr.
Lowes, after a temporary absence from Newcastle, had returned to it to
undertake the editorship of the _Newcastle Journal_, a weekly Tory
newspaper which was about to appear in a daily edition. We had kept up
our friendship, and to my intense delight he offered me the post of chief
reporter on the daily paper. This was in the spring of 1861. My father
had come, reluctantly enough, to the conclusion that I must be allowed to
go my own way, and accordingly, on July 1st in that year, I entered on my
career as a professional journalist. On the previous day I had said
good-bye to the W.B. Lead Office, and to Mr. Fothergill, whose kindly
interest in my fortunes had never wavered, and whose own literary tastes
and sympathies led him at last to look with something like approval on
the step I was taking. Never was a young subaltern prouder of his first
commission than was I of an appointment which gave me a recognised
standing, however humble, on the English Press.

Nor was I without substantial reason for my delight at the change in my
lot. My work at the W.B. Lead Office had been light enough in all
conscience; but the drudgery of official routine, the strict keeping of
office hours, and the monotony which made one day the counterpart of any
other, were no more to my liking than they are to the liking of anyone
who is young and high-spirited. All this was now at an end. No special
hours had to be kept, and no two days were the same. Instead of the four
walls of my office, I now had the whole of the northern counties as my
sphere of work. To this hour I remember the delight with which on my
second morning at the _Journal_ office I set off, in company with
the reporters of the _Chronicle_ and the _Express_, to report
the Quarter Sessions at Hexham. A poor task no doubt it was, but it
involved a journey up the beautiful Tyne valley, and a glimpse of the old
abbey town; it meant, in short, the change from a life of drudgery to one
of adventure, and that morning I felt that I had recovered my lost youth.

But enough of my own feelings. The readiness with which I adapted myself
to my new surroundings, the zest with which I entered into the
friendships of my new comrades, certainly indicated that I had something,
at all events, of the Bohemian in my nature. Of the public events of that
year, 1861, there is comparatively little to be said. I remember, indeed,
that I happened to be acting for the first time as sub-editor in the
temporary absence of my friend, Mr. Lowes, when I received a telegram
announcing that the first shot had been fired in the American War. Some
two or three months later Newcastle was favoured with a visit from Lord
John Russell, who had recently accepted an earldom. He was entertained at
a great banquet in the Town Hall, whereat all the Whig notabilities of
the North of England assembled to do him honour. Now, in my days,
provincial reporters were an unsophisticated race. To a young journalist,
living in Newcastle, the journalism of London seemed so remote and
unattainable that it might as well have been in another planet. The sight
of a reporter for one of the London dailies was awe-inspiring, and the
notion of being called upon to work in the company of so august a being
almost took one's breath away.

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