(1874.) :: “Ich hab’ mein Sach auf Nichts gestellt,
Juchhe! Drum ist’s so wohl mir in der Welt; Juchhe!”—G?the.
“He got so subtle that to be Nothing was all his glory.” Shelley, “Peter Bell the Third”
It is now some time since the Daily News, which, perhaps with more honor than profit, and not seldom at great risk of its life, had been for many years a really leading Liberal journal, fighting gallantly always in the van, often in forlorn hopes, took to heart a certain very-obvious truth. It awoke fully to the fact that while a captain in the forlorn hope or vanguard is constantly in great peril, and has but few supporters, one with the main body is much less exposed and has many more to help him. Weary and discouraged, it resolved to fall back from the front and join the mass of the army, the myriads of the commonplace and the timorous, the legions of the rich and respectable, the countless hosts of the snobbery of Bumbledom. But in making this “strategic movement,” it is well aware that honor equal to the danger is attached to the forlorn hope and the vanguard, and it clung to the honor while renouncing the danger, and continued to call itself a leading Liberal journal when it had quite given up the lead—nay, continues thus to vaunt itself still. This is how some malicious people explain the altered position of the Daily News and its growing number of supporters, or, in the language of periodicals, its increasing circulation. Now, say these impatient and intemperate persons, a paper is free to serve Bumble (as nearly all papers do), or to serve Progress, the enemy of Bumble; but it has no right, while serving the one, to claim the merit of serving the other. This Daily News, they go on, which still dares to call itself Liberal, is now just as liberal as the jester’s Garrick, who used to set out with generous intentions, and was scared back at the corner of the street by the ghost of a ha’penny. In its case it is the ghost of a penny, the ghost of the representative penny of all the pennies ready to buy vapid twaddle, but not earnest thought.
For my own part, however, I find the Daily News still really liberal, and, in fact, extremely liberal. It is liberal in long special telegrams and interminable Jenkins letters about the most insignificant movements and actions of royal personages. It is equally liberal in reticence, slightly tempered by sneers, as to all advanced movements, all unpopular principles and their champions. It is liberal in the space it gives to all fashionable frivolities, sports and pastimes, to all the bagatelles of life. If it has not a paragraph to spare for a Radical meeting, it has always columns at the command of boat races, yacht races, horse races, cricket and polo matches, and the like important events, as well as other columns for the gossip of clubs and the babble of society. It is liberal in hopefulness that wrong may be right, falsehood truth, evil good. It is very liberal in soft phrases, and in “passages that lead to nothing.” Nothing, indeed, is the great end of its endeavor; for what alteration can be needed by a world in which the circulation of the Daily News is continually increasing? Unless, perchance, as the circulation is already “world-wide,” the world will have to be extended in order to accommodate it. But this concerns Father God or Mother Nature, not mere mortals. All these liberalities I could amply illustrate did space permit; as it is, I can give but an instance each to the first two. The Prince of Wales being in France, amusing himself like any other man who has money and leisure, “The Prince of Wales in France—Special,” heads its placards in the largest letters. On the other hand, I heard one of our three or four greatest writers, Garth Wilkinson, declare at a public meeting that he had written several letters to it on a subject then agitating the public mind, but that he could as easily get a letter into the moon as into the Daily News. Yet the subject was medical; and Garth Wilkinson is not only one of our greatest writers and thinkers, but also an M.D. and F.R.S., who has practised for I know not how much more than a quarter of a century. To refuse his letters on that matter was like refusing to hear Carlyle on Cromwell or Darwin on Natural Selection. Why, then, did the Daily News reject them? For the simply sufficient reason that they advocated the unpopular side of the question.
Yes, it is still liberal and beyond measure liberal in these and many other respects. It has still great care of the people—to keep aloof from them; it loves them more than ever—at a distance. It still belongs to the Left—in the rear. It is still of the Mountain, only it has descended to provision itself; as the sage rhyme runs,
“The mountain sheep were sweeter,
But the valley sheep were fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.”
It is still Radical, having a rooted love of ease and hatred of disturbance. It is still revolutionary, but has resolved that henceforth revolutions shall be made with rose-water, and omelettes without breaking of....
While thus freely acknowledging that in many things the Daily News is now more liberal than ever it was, I must also record my admiration for its strenuous endeavors to assume an air of aristocratic refinement and repose. From its serene indifference to the troubles of vulgar humanity, from the languid lisp and drawl of its voice, from its perpetual allusions to the luxuries and enjoyments of the wealthy and noble, one readily divines that its staff, like the staff of my Lord Chamberlain or other court lackey, can move only in the highest circles; but whether its members are admitted into these as gentlemen or as gentlemen’s gentlemen, I must leave for those familiar with such circles to declare. This is certain, that they flit about amidst a lordly festival in the gay and careless fashion of men who have no thought save of enjoying themselves; not like poor devils who have duties which, though better paid, are as onerous and strictly subservient to the gathering as those of the waiters or the footmen. It must surely be by a mere afterthought, and purely for their own amusement, that they throw off a description of the scene and an account of what occurred there. By the bye, it is rumored that the staff has been thoroughly changed of late years. The old members were able enough, but they were too coarse, too loud, too violent, too opiniative, too much given to discussing important questions as if they really cared for the same. Their manners especially could not be endured One entered the Editor’s sanctum (which had then just been refurnished under the supervision of the Count of Monte Cristo) in his wet boots, although embroidered slippers were provided at the foot of the stairs. Another exploded with a “Damned old idiot!” on reading the charge of one of our Right Reverend Fathers in God. Another was caught smoking a clay pipe over a pint of beer, although narghilés and hookahs and the choicest cigarettes, with unlimited supplies of the most costly wines and liqueurs, are always set out for the staff and such visitors as are............