ME. W. T. STEAD'S CAREER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14972, 20 April 1912, Page 7

ME. W. T. STEAD'S CAREER.

JOURNALIST AND MYSTIC.

A PROLIFIC PAMPHLETEER.

• :V " S ' y " There can now be no longer, any reasonable doubt that Mr. W. T. Stead is among the dead. " The inventor ot the new journalism," as Matthew Arnold once called William Thomas Stead, was at v least . one of the most remarkable newspaper men of recent times. However much people differed from his methods and ideals, they, could not but recognise his great ability and indomitable energy. His very crankiness, as some considered it, compelled attention because of the sincerity of the man, and to few' journalists; has it been given :to converse with so many of the great rulers of the earth. ; ■ * j , He was the son of ;the Rev. William Stead, a Congregational: minister. Born on July •5, 1849, in Northumberland, William Thomas Stead was brought ■ up in the religious atmosphere of his ; father's at Silcoatea school, Wakefield. Throughout, his life he was! a great champion of social purity and of the , rights of women. 1 :He - warmly applauded the efforts of Mrs. Butler, of whom ho wrote in April, 1876—■" Mrs. Butler's is not a thunder ; trump, but her still small voice has roused the conscience of slumbering Europe to recognition of its duty to morality and to women." And he took up the cry for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act, which then commanded public attention. , " r • : : . . - Articles on Eastern Question. His articles in the Northern Echo on ; the Eastern question in" 1876 brought .him into considerable prominence. : Mr. , Gladstone said of those articles " I have read them with much admiration of the public, spirit, as- well as the ability, with which they are written," and he wrote to the editor himself, " 1 wish that our whole press ' was distinguished equally- for its justice, heartiness, and • ability." The rugged sage of Chelsea even broke silence : —"Tell that good man Stead to get on with his work." And get on he did, until in September, 1880, Mr. John Morley, then editor' of the Pall Mall Gazette, brought him to London as assistant editor of' that quondam Liberal organ, Mr. Stead's brilliant series of articles, "The Truth about the Navy and its Coaling Stations," which appeared in 1884, admittedly influenced the policy of , the Admiralty. In July, 1885, a: great sensation was created m London by the famous " Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon " revelations. ' The . Pall Mall Gazette was banned' from bookstall : and club, yet every read, it. Mr. Stead's action in regard to the matter aroused the keenest criticism, but he lived to see his altruistic motives : vindicated, and what was more to his purpose, he induced Sir R Cross, then Home Secretary, to ' carry through the Criminal Law Amendment Act of that year. - , The Bill was in danger of being dropped as similar Bills ' had been ia ' several -previous sessions, and Mr. Stead resolved, if possible, to force the Government's hand. > He was tried in September, at Bow-street, along with General Bramw«ll Booth, Mr. Sampson Jacques, Mrs." Coombes, and Mrs. Jarrett, on a charge of abdacting a girl, aged 13, from the custody of her parents,:' and after a second , trial Mr. Stead was; sentenced to three months' imprisonment.| I The other defendants named abgrttf. ©x- • ;' : 'v V'.' : ' V-v ■. \■:

oepUng Generai Booth, were also convicted. } ' -■ 'M r.' ; ; Stead wrote that ho went to |f SSpl|® with "joy unspeakable." His Russophlle Policy. Always a Russophile, 'he journeyed to Russia in 1888, . when J lie published "The Wmm Truth about. Russia." and he subsequently ' * ' aid other visits to St. Petersburg,- where 1 * he was received Cbv Tsar Nicholas 11., i;>'ss>lS whom he championed as a friend of peace r, and freedom in spite of contrary appear- '" f ances. In 1889 he went off, to Rome »to C % "<j see another great potentate^ publishing'in •' *! "The Pope and the New Era," his experi- ' 1 ences. _ Sir. Stead separated his connect tion with the Pall Mail Gazette in December, 1889, ; and started tho Review of Re- ; | views in the new year. Tho = venture proved successful, and in 1891 an American edition was established, ' and an 1 Aus-1 ! jf tralian edition in 1894. !' Other $ publishing Vy m ventures of his were " Borderland," a paper devoted to occult science and spiritualistic matters, which appeared from 1893. till 1897, and in 1904 the abortive "Daily Paper," which lived but a few days.. His "Books for the Bairns" and cheap editions of masterpieces may also be" mentioned. Mr. Stead* laboured hard' in the cause of - peace, , and . incurred much enmity ,as a pro-Boer. ~He endeavoured, among other things, to ex- . plain Chicago and Mr. Carnegie to the world at large. Psychical research (in which figured " Julia ') was a leading fea- - ture of the later portion of his'-life.. A " great blow to him was the death, some years ago, of a promising son.