JOURNALISTS OF A PAST DAY

New Zealand Tablet, 16 January 1913, Page 24

JOURNALISTS OF A PAST DAY

Standing in the lobby of the House of Commons, and generally chatting with a Member or Minister nearly twice as tall as himself, may frequently be seen one of the smallest men in the world, with great shocks of white hair ' tumbling all over his head (writes Mr. J. P. Hogan in the Melbourne Advocate). That is Sir Henry Lucy, the oldest of Parliamentary journalists, sometime editor of the Daily News, and longtime the sprightly ‘Toby, M.P.,' who writes the entertaining ‘ Essence of Parliament ’ for Punch. Under the title of Sixty Years in the Wilderness, he has just published a second volume of his personal recollections. His memory goes back to the late sixties, when he first came up to London to try to make a living with his pen. At that time the journalistic atmosphere was decidedly beery and bohemian. There was no Press Club or Savage Club, or any such superior resort for journalists in those days. They met or foregathered in one or other of the. numerous taverns in the lanes and alleys off Pleet street. It was that old Melbourne firm, Spiers and Pond, who gave the London journalists their first comfortable and clubable resort. S. and P. had started in a small restaurant at the top of Bourke street, afterwards moving down to extensive premises in front of the Theatre Royal, which they converted into the Cafe de Paris, and made the most famous eating-house in Australia. While there they brought out the first English team of cricketers, and it proved a most profitable speculation for them. They netted £30,000, and with this capital they migrated from Melbourne to London, and started a new up-to-date restaurant on Ludgate Hill, just at the city end of Fleet street. It opened the eyes of the Londoners, inaugurated a new era

In the Art and Science of Catering, O J and was the beginning of the vast business, as universal providers, that Spiers and Pond, Limited, has been conducting for many years. Pond was a very cute man. He knew the power of the press, and he saw, on arriving here, that the journalists were very poorly provided for. So he:sagaciously set apart a corner of the restaurant solely for their use, and personally saw that they got the best of all the good things going. It was here that young Lucy made his first acquaintance with the journalists of London. George Augustus Sala was the recognised chief, and was always accorded the chair at the head of the table. And seated around him were some young fellows destined to the highest distinction in later life. One of them was Charles Russell, then acting as London correspondent of a Dublin paper, and supplementing his small income by free-lance contributions to various London .papers. He became the most brilliant advocate at the English Bar, and died

The Catholic Chief Justice of England, with the title of Lord Russell of Killowen. At this early p,eriod Russell seemed to have very little ready cash at command. A certain weekly journal was apparently on its last legs. An enterprising speculator bought it and offered Russell a half-share for £SO. He could not conveniently find the money at the time, and so lost the opportunity of making a rapid fortune, for in a few years the friend who made him the offer was drawing a profit of £BOOO a year from the paper. Lucy has many interesting stories of an old Parliamentary colleague and acquaintance of mine, the late Henry Labouchere, who was always called ‘ Labby.' He was one of the proprietors of the Daily News, and acted as special correspondent of that paper during the siege of Paris. Then and there Labby learned that fine fat rats were very good for breakfast when there was nothing else available to eat. Labby founded a London weekly paper— Truth — on bold and original lines, and although it had to fight many libel actions, it became, and still is, a very valuable property. But the paper was injurious to him in one respect, for it blocked his politifcal promotion. Queen Victoria was annoyed at certain paragraphs in it concerning her Court, and when Gladstone, in forming a new Government, included Labby, the Queen, with an angry gesture, promptly ran her pen through his name. So Labby’

in : spite of the valuable services he rendered to th® Liberal Party, was never rewarded with a Ministerial office. He had a very cynical and outspoken way of putting things.' For instance, in ridiculing the claim of the Anglican High Churchmen to be called Catholics, he said the word Catholic had always been the * trade mark ' of the Church that recognised the Pope as its head. He himself professed no religion, but he believed that

Every Girl Should be Brought up Religiously. So when his only daughter, Dora, was born, he called upon Cardinal Manning and expressed his wish that she should be baptised and brought up as a Catholic. He told the Cardinal that his reading and judgment had led him to the conclusion that the Catholic Church was the ‘ most likely to be the right one, if there is a right one at all on earth.' The Cardinal was somewhat astonished at this audaciously-cynical confession, but after a little hesitation he decided that the child should not suffer on account of the eccentricities of the parent. So little Dora Labouchere was duly baptised, and received a Catholic education. She is now a member of the Italian nobility, the Marchioness Rudini. Sir Henry Lucy draws this thoroughly accurate and sympathetic pen-portrait of the vivacious and versatile Labby :—Ac a Parliamentary power— his influence was considerable—he was more in his element about the ante-rooms of the House than when under the full view of the Speaker's eye. He had a passion for intrigue. If there was any undercurrent of feeling hostile to the Government of the day, to the Leader of the Opposition, or to any individual member of personal distinction,- be sure Labby knew all about it and played a considerable part in its direction. This habit did not rise from envy, hatred, or malice. From these weaknesses he was absolutely free. He was animated solely by desire to be behind the scenes of everything that was going on an impulse, perhaps, born of tendency to sheer mischief. A cynic in speech, he was at heart one of the kindest, most genial men in the world, preserving to the last his personal popularity with both sides and all sections of party in the House of Commons.