MEMOIRS OF A NEWSPAPER MAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 76

MEMOIRS OF A NEWSPAPER MAN.

FIFTY YEARS OF SERVICE

Mr J. M. Le Saige has completed 50 years of service with the Daily Telegraph. For quite a long time he has been managing editor. At a dinner in honour of his remarkable career Mr Le Sage responded to the hospitality of his colleagues in a speech that was full of things worth remembering.

A Considerate Statesman. —

“At the general election of 1865,” he said, “when speeches were still being delivered on the hustings and the figures of the poll were declared every half-hour, I was sent to Tiverton to report a speech of Lord Palmerston. I called on his Lordship the evening before he snoke, and he asked me what was the state of the poll in London when I left. Lord Palmerston asked me how I was going back to London when he had made his speech, and I told him the time of the train. Lie said: ‘ Well, have your luggage sent to the station, stand in front of the hustings, and tell me how many minutes I have left, and you will catch your train.’ I wrote the speech in the train, and it appeared the following morning.”

—An Amiable Murderer. —

Mr Le Sage, like all great newspaper men, has turned his brain and pen to strange and various uses. He was sent to Queenstown to board a steamer by which the notorious murderer Muller was being brought to England. He wished to interview Muller, and the police inspector said he could not introduce him as a newspaper man, but as a brother officer he could see the prisoner. Muller was an amiable person, and his talk with him enabled Mr Le Sage to write three columns on the journey to Liverpool. When he got to port he decided to forward his message, “at reckless expense,” by telegraph, and the Daily Telegraph brought out a second edition with it. It need hardly be said that the faculty of knowing when to launch out and when to lie Tow is the most important of all journalistic gift;?. The Stanley Journey.—

Lord Burnham, as a proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, naturally had to think fairly rapidly in thousands. When Stanley came home after finding Livingstone, the Daily Telegraph sent Mr Le Sage to meet him at Marseilles to “ write all I could about his mission.” Stanley and I became rather good friends. Some time afterwards he came into the office. I asked him—l do not know why—what was the next big thing he would like to undertake. He gave me the idea' of a great expedition of exploration and discovery in Central Africa- At that time, remember. Central Africa was the Dark Continent. Lord Burnham decided to send Stanley on that famous expedition in three minutes. He asked Stanley if he would do it, and what it would cost roughly, and Stanley told him so many thousands—£ls,ooo to £20,000 short of what it did ecst.” A Memory of 1870.

The Daily Telegraph was the first London paper to get hold of the story' of the German entry into Paris:

There was only one, train a day, running out of Paris at noon and getting to Calais about midnight. “ I was directed.’’ he said, “to see the chairman of the Northern Railways, Baron Alphonse de Rothschild. He was very polite, but told me he had just arranged with William Russell that the Times should have a special train to Calais, leaving at 3 o’clock. Then they were having a special boat across and a special train to London. But that was not what was wanted. ‘ I asked Baron de Rothschild if he would give me at 4 o’clock a special train to Lille. That had not occurred to him. He said, ‘Yes.’ I advised London what I was doing, and if you turn to the files you will see there was a special edition, and that in the leader on the following morning credit is taken for the fact that the Daily Telegraph was the first paper that had that very important news of the day.” The Open Eye and Ear.— The journalist should be able to feel things in the air. The next best quality to that is to act quickly on information. “ I was the first to tell Lord Derby that Lord Beaconsfield had ordered the British fleet to enter the Dardanelles,” Mr Lo Sage told his audience. “ I was at the office and a telegram came in about it. I saw its importance and at once drove to the Foreign Secretary’s house. Ho was out of town, but I nroceeded after him, and Lord Derby received me. I told him of the telegram which had been received, and asked him if he would kindly say whether it was correct or not. He took the, telegram and walked up and down tlie room. Then he turned to mo and said: ‘I know nothing whatever about it. I have not heard of such a thing. I really cannot say any more.’ The order had been given by the Earl of Beaconsfield, and the telegram from Constantinople was the first intimation Lord Derby had. Upon that he resigned.” A Brave Deed.— The closing passage of Mr Le Sago’s speech was the story of an eye-witness of the bravery of a woman in Paris during the Commune. The speaker learned that there was fighting outside the fortifications beyond the Porte Maillot. He went there and saw in the midst of the firing a woman moving about attending to the wounded. She showed the utmost unconcern for the turmoil around. Calmly, as though she were in the quiet and safety of a hospital miles away, sho went about the work of lending aid to the wounded. “ It was,” said Mr Le

Sage, “ the bravest thing I ever saw.” He himself had a narrow escape, a commandant being shot dead by his side in a garden., “ I assisted in carrying the body from the place. .Some people seemed to think it was heroic. To tell the truth, the body was a protection for myself.” Personally, 1 am disposed to regard this act as on a par with the great editor’s bold initiative and sense of dutv.