FLEET STREET PICTURES.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 271, 13 November 1909, Page 7

FLEET STREET PICTURES.

ROMANCE OF JOTJRNAX.ISTIC LIFE. "STKEET OF ADVENTURE. ,, ] (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, October 1. Very seldom do the public get a peep , behind the scenes of newspaper life. The | ' romance of the daily newspaper which . they read so casually and throw away | so remorselessly is to almost all outside the workers on the Press a closed book. Of the making of the paper, the stories that are never printed —they are usually the best!—the disappointments, the joys, r the fruitless, heart-breaking quests, the 1 1 strange encounters, the multitude of j ; busy brains concentrated on a produc- j tion that lives but a single day—of these j things only pressmen know, and as a | rule they do not write their own life-r , story. But in "The Street of Adventure" a London journalist, Mr. Philip Gibbs, has lifted the curtain which hides the inner life of Fleet-street from the world. He describes the career of a young reporter, and tells the tragic story of the death of "The Tribune" a year or two ago. He calls it "'The Liberal" in his novel, but the disguise will deceive nobody who knows anything of Fleet-street, so photo- j graphic is the author's picture of the men and women who shared in the sad downfall of a great daily paper. 1 The book gives many pictures of Fleet- 1 street life. It shows how the weak go ; to the wall under a system of remorse- I less, so\illcss competition. It paints the j triumph of the strong and the tragedy ' lof the weak. It describes a life made fascinating by its very uncertainty and insecurity—a life in which success is a gambler's chance, with men and women's I souls as the stakes of play. 1 THE CRUELTY OF FLEET-STREET, j "It's a funny thing," says one of the ■ characters in this book, "I don't think 1 men are naturally more cruel in FleetStreet than in other places. It's the j system that makes them cruel. Look at! our Chief, Bellamy, he is the kindest- i hearted little man in the world, yet he : 1 puts the paper first, before men's lives ' ?and souls. Of course, when you get really cruel men like—well, one mustn't mention names—their opportunities are unlimited. If their men get tired or stale or slack, if they make a mistake ior if they are not so good—or thought j not to be so good—as one of the hundred j people outside asking for their job, if they get worsted in office intrigue, out they go into the street, to become the. , j hungry space men." j Another side of the picture, the lot of : I the pressman's wife, is described by the | ', same character, who, by the way, is a j j woman journalist. j "Journalists' wives 1 . . . Those I tragedies have not been written down ; I ... They live in little hack streets iat Heme Hill and Brixton. Some of | j them . take to drink—poor creatures — I others take to religion. -It is leas harm- . ! ful to them, perhaps, though their husi bands resent it. Others just have chilI dren, and watch the clock go round while they darn stockings, and put the whisky i on the sideboard before they go to bed, j and wake up in the middle of the night i when their husbands drop their boots by j the hall table. . . . Oh, it is bad to I be a woman journalist—some people call ; us lady journalists!—but heaven pre- j serve mc from being a journalist's wife!" j This touching passage need not, I imagine, be taken too seriously. Jour- I nalists' wives are not all the poor vie- 1 time that this young woman describee j with such zest of commiseration. It I has to be remembered that Bhe felt very, very superior to the old-fashioned domestic type of woman-kind. AMONG THE REPORTERS. An evening amongst that extraordinary race of men known as reporters, of whom no two are alike, is described by the author with a few graphic touches. "A slim, boyish fellow, in a frock-coat, very creased about the tails, and trousers baggy at the knees, was telling with a perfectly grave faco an obviously impossible story of how he was wrecked in a small yacht on the Goodwin Sands. He piled absurdity on absurdity. A stout, youngish man, with a Shakespearean forehead above a Cupid's face, which seemed to be oozing with the most genial good-nature, was criticising contemporary literature and drama with laughing scorn. "A good-looking young Jew, with piercing eyes and an actor's mobile lips, was dissecting the souls of society women with a clever cruelty which made Luttrell shiver. "A tall, swarthy young man, with frizzy black hair, upon which rested a tall ha"t of an oily brilliance, was describing the bribery and corruption which he had seen at a recent by-election. 'If I had told the truth about it In the "Rag," there would have been the devil to pay,* he Said. "In all this conversation there wae not one word of optimism, of idealism, or enthusiasm. These men, young and old, seemed to have lost all illusions, and a knowledge of life had made them utterly cynical. "But the conversation of these men was impressive to one who came from another world. Each spoke always with knowledge. They had all come closely and constantly in touch with interesting people and interesting things. They had seen most of the world's peep shows and measured up its puppets aDd pomposities. They were all critics, untouched by heroworship, and lacking all instincts of reverence." The story of "The Street of Adventure" suffers from discursiveness, and the love-interest is not very enthralling. But the writer speaks with an intimate knowledge of Fleet-street and its ways, and the story of the "Liberal's" downfall 13 told with sympathy and power.