THE FIGHTING EDITOR.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 52, 26 May 1910, Page 3

THE FIGHTING EDITOR.

In 1851 a law was passed by the French Chamber enacting that all articles published in political newspapers should bear signatures. Its oyjject was to curb the free expression of opinion in the Press. Its effect was to call into existence a curious sort of employment for poor men of courage and determination—for the most part retired soldiers—who, by having their names printed at tha foot of the respective newspapers they served, accepted all responsibility for the political opinions therein expressed, and did much for the freedom of the Press by enabling editors to hold up a man of straw to the bullets of Press censorship, and oppose a professed duellist to any bellicose individual who

might desire to '"pink" or make a target of any writer on the staff; If summoned before the Tribunal Correctionnel for an objectionable article, the "fighting editor" had to accept all responsibility for it and whatever term of imprisonment be melted out of him. Needless- to say, these gentlemen were well paid Many of them were unable to do more than write their

names, but they succeeded in driving a good income from journalism by assuming responsibility for brilliant and caustic attacks upon the Government which they were hardly able to read, and to go to prison on behalf of opinions with which very often they had no sympathy. Th<? occupation of the "fighting editor" of Paris did not terminate with the overthrow of the Empire and the repeal of the repressive Press laws. There are still attached to some of the newspapers noted duellists who are ready to fight in de.'eace of articles they have never even seen, who answer the demands of aggrieved individuals, which are too unreasonable to be entertained, with a polite request for the names of their seconds, and a meeting in the Bois de Vincennes.

Then there is "the dummy editor." In Japan there is practically no such thing as freedom of the Press. Whenever a newspaper publishes something unfriendly to the Government it is suppressed, and the editor is sent to gaol. The real editor, however, is never questioned. Every newspaper lias what is called a "'dummy editor," and it is his sole duty to go to prison every time the paper is crushed for offending the Mikado. Then the real editor changes the name of the paper, and keeps on publishing it. Dummy editors spend most of their time in prison.

The "fighting editor" and the "dummy editor" were not always things of fiction even in England. In the old days when the Press censorship in England was rigorous to the last degree, the printer or publisher, whose name was given in each newspaper, filled the part of the "dummy editor." When the real editor transgressed the laws regu-

I lating political discussion in the I Press, and rendered himself liable to I prosecution, the Government pounced upon the printer or publisher whose name appeared in the newspaper. jlf a fine were imposed the editor or proprietor, of course, paid it. But I often the printer or publisher was sent to gaol and endured vicarious imprisonment, and during his sequestration the''name of another i "dummy" was substituted for his in the newspaper.—" Weekly Telegraph."