WAS DICKENS A REPORTER?

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 17, 20 January 1934, Page 21

WAS DICKENS A REPORTER?

■New light appeais to be tin own upon the early, career of Charles Dickens by four extracts fioin its nles of " 1833 which the "London Times" has reprinted! Each of those passages is anonymous, but bears every mark of Dickens's chaiacteristic style, and the idea i* canvassed that Dickens himself actetd as a loporter for "The Times." On August 20, 1833. according to a reprint of exactly 100 years later, there, appeal eft' a 'report of tho speech of one Simp Son on the occasion of his benefit at Vauxhall. Simpson is lecorded to have said, "Excu'-o me, my illustrious, distinguished, noblo,'and othnr .respec- • table patrons; my grateful feelings— God /^mighty bless you—many thanks —heart overflowing—and thO' .Royal cQardenl!,. too—the ever-to-be-remem-bered twelfth of April, 1782—huge, redsided ship.—gilt lion—Count de Giasso.'* The resemblance of this to the style of Mr. Jinglo- is pointed out by a water in "The Times." On February 11, 1833, an account of a scene in the Justice Room in Hatton Garden closely recalls,the incidents in "Pickwick . Papers" in which Mr. Kupkins,: Mayor of Ipswich, brought a charge against a special,constable. On July-29, 1833, in a case at Marlborough Streetyreference. M is; made to ''a little personage,. with) a-proiligigusly luxuriant crop.of,hair, hay.ing the\wariike.-nomeri-clature. of Nelson:" Augustus priefijfed to the mdre peaceful spatro- ,. -nymic of; Jonesi'l On August 14) in the same year a Mr.; John'Downes defended

himself for stealing trouscTS With the. Dickensian plea; that he is "quite hinnoccnt, your vorship." He is reported to have alleged'that as he- was looking at thoni dangling ■ outside-'a shop he was "blessed, if they didn't all of a sudden drop naturally .slap-bang" into his arms. All these passages were quoted in "The Times" oh the appropriate dates last, year, and their similarity to the ordinary comic style of Charles Dickens is noted.

'There is no extant record of Dickctis ever having been connected with "The Times,'.' but. his mother's brpthei, John Barrow, was on the staff of that paper. In. 1833, Dickens himself worked for the"True Sun" and the "Mirror of Parliament," but it is thought, likely that he may Have occasionally done relief work for his uncle.

On the other hand, some people suggest that the explanation of the close similarity between Dickens's acknowledged work and the passages in question is that Dickens kept a notebook, in which he set down, journalistic extract*, that might come, in useful later in Mi novels. , This view is supported by the circumstance that the files of ''The Times" for 1850 dpntain a passage very similar to that in "Bleak House" in which a character is cross-examined. Dickens was in 1853,' -when "Bleak House" was written, one of thomost famous authors in the world. He could not then have been writing anonymously for "The Times,'{. but it is suggested that he might easily have-bor-rowed incidents an^ characters'from-it.'