THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1910. SIR GEORGE NEWNES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14857, 11 June 1910, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1910. SIR GEORGE NEWNES.

Fulia thirty, years ago a man in his prime, who had spent a score of summers ip the employ of-one of the great railways in the North of England, began to meditate upon the fact that the Editcation Act of 1870, with its provision for compulsory elementary, education for the children of the United Kingdom,- was creating a vast multitude of new readers for whom no adequate provision had hitherto been made.' He pondered the matter long and deeply, and, tired of the monotonous routine of a railway clerkship, he scented fame and fortune. In 1881 with much fear and trembling George, Newnes, whose death is i'ectHvied this morning, launched the pioneer popular penny journal of the "snippet" order, under .the now well-known title of Tit-Bite. With considerable acumen he offered the prize of a furnished villa to

the winner of the special Tit-Bits competition. Such an offer had never been made before. The news spread like wildfire, and the circulation of the paper went up. by leaps and bounds, until, the, adven-, ture speedily became an assured financial success. A young man named Alfred Harmsworth, at' the time studying for tho law, was- so struck' .with the possibilities of Tit-Bits that lie launched a rival paper under the name of Answers, and thus it was that Lord Northcliffe laid tho foundation, of the huge journalistic enterprise now known as tho Amalgamated Press, of which the Daily Mail is the forefront. And cro tho nineties were well under way the three presses owned by.. Newnes, Harmsworth, and • C. Arthur Pearson wero _ pouring out millions of periodicals to meet the needs of that read - ing public which they had practically discovered. Sir George Newnes followed up his first success in Tit-Bits with; an equally fortunate venture in the starting of, the Strand Magazine, Owing largely to the fact that through its pages ■ Sir A. Conan Doyle introduced his inimitable creation of Sherlock Holmes to the British public, the Strand ,at once came to the front in modem magazine literature. Sir Weorge Newnes was quick to perceive that the best way to secure good "copy" for his papers was to pay the best prices. The usual remuneration offered to' contributors to Tit-Bits . was a . guinea a | column, with double rates/for special articles. One popular novelist describes : with great zest an interview with Sir , George. The founder of Tit-Bits wanted a serial fov his paper, and wanted it in a fortnight. When, the novelist mentioned a high figure as his fee for the work Sir George promptly replied, "Right, t, never haggle about the price of literature.. Good-bye." Outside of his enterprise in. journalism, which, besides the ramifica-. tions of a large and flourishing publishing . business, included, the starting .in 1893'0f the \\ eatminster Gazette, the career of - Sir George Nownea presents no . 'striking features. ' He entered Parliament in 1885, and was rewarded with a baronetcy in lelurn for his consistent support of the Liberal Government. He fitted out the Borchgrevink expedition in the Southern Cross to the South Pole in 1898, and on February 19, 1900, the Norwegian exploier leached latitude 78.15. South, forty miles beyond Ross's farthest and 670 iniles from tho Pole—tho record achievement in the Antarctic up to that time. l Sir George' Newnes, had lie lived' fifty years earlier, might well have sat for one of the characters in Smiles's "Self-Help," since he was in every Tespect a self-made man, who carved liis way to fame and fortune by persistent industry combined with the faculty to foresee the needs o£ the public and to supply those needs promptly and adequately. In years to come he will chiefly be remembered at the man who set the fashion in " snippet" literature. '