Frank Frankfort Moore
A Journalist's Note-Book
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066153151
Table of Contents
CHAPTER III.—THE EDITOR OF THE PAST.
CHAPTER IV.—THE UNATTACHED EDITOR.
CHAPTER VI—THE SUB-EDITORS (continued) .
CHAPTER VII.—SOME EXTINCT TYPES.
CHAPTER VIII.—MEN, MENUS, AND MANNERS.
CHAPTER IX.—ON THE HUMAN IMAGINATION.
CHAPTER X—THE VEGETARIAN AND OTHERS.
CHAPTER XI.—ON SOME FORMS OF SPORT.
CHAPTER XIII—THE SUBJECT OF REPORTS.
CHAPTER XIV.—IRELAND AS A FIELD FOR REPORTERS.
CHAPTER XV.—IRISH TROTTINGS AND JOTTINGS.
CHAPTER XVI.—IRISH TOURISTS AND TRAINS.
CHAPTER XVII—HONORARY EDITORS AND OTHERS.
CHAPTER XVIII.—OUTSIDE THE LYCEUM BILL.
CHAPTER XIX.—SOME IMPERFECT STUDIES.
CHAPTER XX.—ON SOME FORMS OF CLEVERNESS.
CHAPTER XXI.—“SO CAREFUL OF THE TYPE.”
CHAPTER I.—PAST AND PRESENT.
Odd lots of journalism—Respectability and its relation to journalism—The abuse of the journal—The laudation of the journalist—Abuse the consequence of popularity—Popularity the consequence of abuse—Drain-work and grey hairs—“Don’t neglect your reading for the sake of reviewing”—Reading for pleasure or to criticise—Literature—Deterioration—The Civil List Pension—In exchange for a soul.
SOME years ago there was an auction of wine at a country-house in Scotland, the late owner of which had taken pains to gain a reputation for judgment in the matter of wine-selecting. He had all his life been nearly as intemperate as a temperance orator in his denunciation of whisky as a drink, hoping to inculcate a taste for vintage clarets upon the Scots; but he that tells the tale—it is not a new one—says that the man died without seriously jeopardizing the popularity of the native manufacture. The wines that he had laid down brought good prices, however; but, at the close of the sale, several odd lots were “put up,” and all were bought by a local publican. A gentleman who had been present called upon the publican a few days afterwards, and found him engaged in mixing into one huge cask all the “lots” that he had bought—Larose, Johannisberg, Château Coutet.
“Hallo,” said the visitor, “what’s this mixture going to be, Rabbie?”
“Weel, sir,” said the publican, looking with one eye into the cask and mechanically giving the contents a stir with a bottle of Sauterne which he had just uncorked—“Weel, sir, I think it should be port, but I’m no sure.”
These odd lots of journalistic experiences and recollections may be considered a book, “but I’m no sure.”
After all, “a book’s a book although”—it’s written by a journalist. Nearly every writer of books nowadays becomes a journalist when he has written a sufficient number. He is usually encouraged in this direction by his publishers.
“You’re a literary man, are you not?” a stranger said to a friend of mine.
“On the contrary, I’m a journalist,” was the reply.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, I’m sure,” said the inquirer, detecting a certain indignant note in the disclaimer. “I beg your pardon. What a fool I was to ask you such a question!”
“I hope he wasn’t hurt,” he added in an anxious voice when we were alone. “It was a foolish question; I might have known that he was a journalist, he looked so respectable.”
We are all respectable nowadays. We belong to a recognised profession. We may pronounce our opinions on all questions of art, taste, religion, morals, and even finance, with some degree of diffidence: we are at present merely practising our scales, so to speak, upon our various “organs,” but there is every reason to believe that confidence will come in due time. Are not our ranks being recruited from Oxford? Some years ago men drifted into journalism; now it is looked on as a vocation. Journalism is taken seriously. In a word, we are respectable. Have we not been entertained by the Lord Mayor of London? Have we not entertained Monsieur Emile Zola?
People have ceased to abuse us as they once did with great freedom: they merely abuse the journals which support us. This is a healthy sign; for it may be taken for granted that people will invariably abuse the paper for which they subscribe. They do not seem to feel that they get the worth of their subscription unless they do so. It is the same principle that causes people to sneer at a dinner at which they have been entertained. If we are not permitted to abuse our host, whom may we abuse? The one thing that a man abuses more than to-day’s paper is the negligence of the boy who omits to deliver it some morning. Only in one town where I lived did I find that a newspaper was popular. (It was not the one for which I wrote.) The fathers and mothers taught their children to pray, “God bless papa, mamma, and the editor of the Clackmannan Standard.”
I met that editor some