NEWSPAPER OBITUARIES.

Bush Advocate, Volume V, Issue 354, 16 August 1890, Page 9

NEWSPAPER OBITUARIES.

SOME DEATH NOTICES WHICH WERE A LITTLE TOO PREVIOUS. (THE NEJVB ABEST.) Newspaper obituaries are not alwaya written on the spur of the moment, in fact^. the reverse is, as a rulo, the case, aud: chelives of our greatest men are w taken," go^ to speak, by the hand of tho journalistic biographer, long before Death knocks aft the door. In other words, at - every important newspaper office in 6ho kingdom nuraeroa* memoirs, shorter or longer, according to tto& public position of the subject, are: rejeoteriy "pigeon-holed," and held ... .rea^f ' for use when the fatal moment cdmo?V> These memoirs are often written rori&.'.bsf&te the' decease of the celebrated person. Ts!!li«he?era • distinguished man reaches an advanced age, or is attacked by illness, or shows signs ot failing health, some member of the staff i» instantly told off to write his life-story/ It is a remarkable facts, well known Co #11 experienced journalists, that this practise of writing obituaries of. great man edenra almost invariably to have the effect fcf keeping them afire. At any rate, fluey rarely die very soon after their memoirs are put into ' type, and sometimes many years elapse before their departure gives opportunity for their posthumous praises to be sounded. Instances are quite common ia which memoirs have been composed so longbefore the event that the writers fchemselFes have been the first to die. A Tepy curious example of this ia supplied in the ease of TheThnes biography of the late Earl Russell, It- " was originally written about twenty yearsbefore tho statesman's decease. Ife was *' brought up to date" from, time to fiiiae, and, strange to say, overy one of ite contributors died, until a sort of ill-lue"k seemed to attach to it, and no one was inclined to touch it. Many hundred* of «olumns must hare been written and printed about the Prince of Wales in 1871, when he was Buffering under a severe attack of typhoid fever. A large portion of tfcjse have, perhaps, been preserved — it is to be hoped not to be used for many a day. In One case, a provincial journalist had prepared .n long memoir of the Prince, and on that anxious day — a Sunday— when the hairapparent seemed horerinjr between hio and death, nnd when bulletins were feeingsent from the newspaper offieea to 6he churches to be read oat from the pulpit, thewriter gave orders that the article should bar sent to him in proof on the following Monday . That morning tho journalist in question cam© down to breakfast to find the ladies of his family in tears. ;t The poor Prince," exclaimed one, "ia dead!" The journalist then asked for evidence of the sad fact, whereupon his own proofs, headed M Death of tho Prince of Wales," were handed to him. "Is that all?'' was the cold-blooded remark. "All?" echoed the lady. "Doyou mean to cay tha t that article was written while the Prince of Wales was alive ?" The journa - list frankly avowed that such was indeed the case, and perhaps was notas much moved as he ought to have been on'being told that "it was a great shame to do suoh things." Somo distinguished people hays shown no objections to have their "lives taken " prematurely. More than onp instance could be cited in* which some public personage has actually been "interviewed" with a view to a posthumous record of his life. It is a tolerably well-ascertained fact that the great Lord Brougham spread through the intermediary "of a relation a false report of his own death in order to seewhat tho newspapers wouli say about him, in which design ho was more or less satisfied, as he was biourraphised in several journals. Miss Harriet Marfcineau, again, wrote her own memoir for the Jli-tfy Newa, and it remained for many years in the office of that journal to bo published in about five columns at the timo of her death. It is a singular fact that the obituary loading article* on the death of Pope Pius IX. in The Times* and the' Daily Tefcjptep' 1 respectively were both written by the same hand. Tho author waa the late "James Maedpnell. He was on tho staff of thn Telegraph when he wrote the article to be "pigeon-holed," and had joined The Times !-ome years before the Pope's demise. Newspapers are rarely taken by surprise in tho case of a sudden deith of a great man. It was do, however, in oao infltjiuoo, as regards the decease of the late M. Thiers. The news arrived late in. the evening ; uo memoirs were ready, but five of the best writers on the staff were employed to trace the great statesman's carwer, ftnd in lesa than, two bom's turned out among them about eight columns of an able and interesting memoir. In the ense of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Tennyson, Mr. John Raskin, Sir Richard Owen, Prince Bismarck, Count von "Moltke, and many other distinguished men of advanced age, their mcanoira aro now ready either in MS. or print in every leading journal in the kingdom, wanting for their completion only the details of the last hours of the illustrioussubject. _________»_«»«„