DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY'S EXPERIENCES.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7380, 5 August 1889, Page 3

DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY'S EXPERIENCES.

Mr Murray is one of the men who talk 9 much about everything but himself. However, I pressed for and managed'to get a little. '• What about your tour, Mr Murray ? " " I have prepared three lectures," answered Mr Murray. " 1 shall call one 'Reporter,' another 'Special Correspondent,' and the third ' Novelist.' The first I shall begin with my old Birmingham experience. I shall have some dramatic stories to tell in this connection—things which I have seen and gone through. Fo r instance, once I started with an exploring party, and I was the first to venture down the Pelsall Hall Mine with the man who found the first dead bodies there. We very nearly lost our lives by venturing into a part of the works which was filled with choke-damp. Oar purpose of rescue failed, and we had to return with the news that all the poor fellows lost their lives. Again, I was the witness of a tremendously dramatic scene at Black Lake, when a mine there caught fire, and a lot of devoted fellows went one after another into the flames. Then, apart from these things, I have stories of men of local celebrity, and others who are known throughout the world—men like John Bright and George Dawson. I shall deal in the same lecture with my parliamentary experience. I have stories of Isaac Butt, Mr Biggar, Major O'Gorman, and a whole crowd of that kind. I remember some very dramatic scenes. During my parliamentary experience Irish obstruction was commenced. I recollect seeing Kenealy \ hang his hat upon the mace, and heard , him deride the ' goblin smile' of Disraeli. ■ I was 'one of the half-dozen people who , saw Disraeli's installation as a peer. I have a thousand other interesting reminiscences of that period of my life.' A STUDY OF RASCALDOM. " Once, continued Mr Murray, " in order to make myself thoroughlyacquainted with the working of the poor law, I went seven weeks on tramp, living in the poorest lodging-houses, and on alternate nights putting up at the workhouse, picking oakum and breaking stones in the morning. I came at last to the conclusion that whilst the administration of the poor law failed to suppress the tramp, it succeeded altogether in breaking the honest man, the workman in search of employment. I put most of my experience to use in my first novel —' A Life a Atonement.' I have studied poverty and rascaldom in Birmingham, Liverpool. London—in pretty near all our great cities. I think," he added, with a smile of conscious pride, " I think I may claim, modestly, to know the British loafer almost a well as anybody." A3 A "SPECIAL" ANP NOVELIST. "In the lecture on my work as a ' special,' I shall deal mainly with my experience in the Ruseo-Turkish War. In that, as in the previous lecture, I shall recite the poems and stories which I have gathered from these two passages in my career. Then, as to one on novel writing, it will be less anecdotal, and more critical and literary, than either of the two I have mentioned. I shall nevertheless try to give it some reminiscences dealing with the people I have met in my career as a writer of fiction, and shall try to show, by a number of illustrations, in what fashion a writer may get his inception of new types of character. STTTDVING CHARACTER. " For instance, I will give you a type. I am walking with a man whom I have known for years. We are in the Strand together, and he tells me£a story which throws a flood of absolutely new light upon himself. He begins to speak about a man I know with great intimacy, one whom I value very highly. He tells mc I am completely mistaken; that this man is a cad, and that it is almost impossible to walk about with him. I ask him what he means by this, and he relates the amazing story. " 'We were together,' says he, * in the Tottenham-court-road. At a corner there, there sits a blind old Irish apple-woman. We were passing by her stall, when a hansom cab went by, and spilled the old woman and her stock into the road. J. makes a dash into the street, lifts up that infernal old woman, and actually, in the eight of all Israel, goes down upon his knees in the dust and picked up her stock in trade. I never was so ashamed in my life, and I had to walk away in order to hide my own confusion and embarassment.' 'Now," continued Mr Murray, " there is a person who comes as an actual gift from Heaven —a type self-proclaimed and not often to be equalled. A3 REPORTER. " How did you like your position as re-1 porter?" " With the kind of work I had to do it was very enjoyable. I am certain of this, that for a* man who wants to study men and manners there is no better school than that of journalism. 1 began journalism at twenty-five, first going to the police court for the Birmingham Morning News. I was soon, however, made special correspondent, I went to a flower show, of which I was told to do a paragraph. I did an article. I could not help it. I first made i ray mark, though, at a private execution at Worcester the first private execution in the Midlands. My article created a considerable sensation. Mr Sala wrote to the editor about it, and spoke very 'warmly of the writer, whom he did not know. At that same execution I met Archibald Forbes for the first time. He introduced mc to Mr Edmund Yates. I was engaged to do some articles for the World, which was just then started. The articles were entitled " Our Civilisation," and they have been reprinted in book form under the title " A Novelist's Note Book." "gallery" reminiscences. Then Mr Murray talked of his days in the House of Commons, spoke in his kindly way of some old friends who still occupy positions there. " I spent only a session and a half in the ' gallery, , * he said, " and if it be of any interest to anyone you may tell them I was the worst reporter in the place. I never could write shorthand. I remember a peculiar experience. Mr Robert Lowe, now Earl of Sherbrooke, was one of the best speakers in the House. He was also the most difficult man to report. My turn had just come as Mr Lowe rose to speak on the Army Purchase Bill. His speech was a regular mass of literary quotations, all most wittily applied. He quoted from Father Prout, from the last new novel, from the last society verses, from Horace, Juvenal, and Shakespeare. I tried to take the speech. I sweated; in my anxiety my book got greasy. At last I gave up the attempt as useless. I folded my arms and listened. 'We want this, every word, , said my chief, tapping mc on the shoulder. •For God's sake, hold your tongue,' I answered; and so I sat and listened. As the speech was over, my relief came. At the same time I saw another reporter, an Irishman—a fine fellow he was, one of the old type which seem to be almost extinct in the gallery. 'By Jove! , said he, 'Parliamentary eloquence is not dead yet." He was an extraordinarily fine classical scholar. He knew all the Greek and Latin quotations; I knew all the English ones. So we wrote out our report —I doing mine from memory. The result was that the next morning I got a special letter thanking mc for my report I stood out as a shining light that morning, and got known for a time as the man who reported difficult speeches by looking upon the painted ceiling." A MARVELLOUS MEMORY. "You seem to have a marvellous memory, Mr Murray." " I have rather a good memory," he responded, and he gave a few illustrations which showed that it is a very unusual memory indeed. " There," said he, " are ten novels of mine; pick out any one you please, and I think from beginning to end I will remember almost every word. And sure enough he recited piece afterpiece from that probably most delightful of all his works, " A Bit of Human Nature," word for word as it appeared in "Newspaper articles which I wrote seventeen years ago I can repeat to-day with equal accuracy." Mr Murray became acquainted with Dickens through a mutual friend, Mr David Christie, the senior reader at Wm. Clowes', where Dickens's "Mutual Friend " was printed. David Christie w«a Murray's godfather. «*„.«■ "Dickens's manuscript," said Mr Murray, " was entrusted to the foreman of the works, Wm. Day. As I itwae written in pale blue Ink on daric blue paper. It was extremely difficult-to decipher : nearly all that charm which once characterised Dickene's manuscript was gone. The writing got cramped and scarcely decipherable. In the year 1885 I sot to know Dickens through old Christie. I went down to see him. He showed mc a manuscript. The old gentleman's eyes were beginning to fail. I read the opening 'chapters lor him. Then month after

month I used to get a telegram, * Dickens Is here. It was m> habit to go down and dine with Christie, and after dinner I used to reed the chapters in hand. I made the acquaintance of • Silas Wegg, , 'Mr Nicodemus Boffin,' 'Bella WUfer, , and* John Rokesmith,' and all the rest of that delightful crowd at least, a month before th< general public were made aware of theli existence at aIL INSPIRATION IN INK. With a single drop of ink for a mirror, as George Eliot reminds us, the Egyptian sorcerer Is supposed to have been able to reveal far-reaching visions of the past. A fanciful person might think that Dickens believed in its inspiring effect in a still more special sense. Those who happened to be present for the first time when Dickens was writing must have been surprised not a little, for numerous as are supposed to be the eccentricities of men of letters, one does not usually find them smearing their faces in the ink in which they write. With Dickens, on occasions at least, this was actually the case. "I learned one very remarkable thing frem Christie, ,, said Mr Murray. "In one book Dickens entirely obliterated a whole chapter. When the whole thing had been read over, he actually wrote demanding that the proofs should be sent to him together with his manuscript, and while Christie himself waited for them, Dickens re-wrote the whole of the missing chapter. Christie told mc he wrote it in the very greatest haste and excitement. He noticed particularly that Dickens soaked his middle finger in the pale blue ink he was using, and smeared his forehead and cheeks with it, so that he was quite a spectacle before his work was over. Every now and again he would rub his finger across his forehead and leave a streak there. The writing was done, according to Christie's narrative, with almost incredible rapidity. A swift special correspondent or descriptive reporter could hardly have got the work out at a greater pace.