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an opening on a reporting staff, I was ready to take any berth that would open the doors of a newspaper office to me. A corresponding clerk in the office of the Wolverhampton Chronicle would not be the rose. But he would be living near it, and I fruitlessly tried for that appointment. I also made formal application for the post of shorthand writer to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. The salary was 100l. a year, just twice what I was receiving after serving a seven years' apprenticeship to hides and valonia. The providence that shapes our ends would not follow up this particular rough-hewing, and someone sure to be much better qualified for the coveted post secured it.

One day in this month of August I came across an advertisement for a chief reporter on a leading county paper. Considering I had never been even a junior reporter and had absolutely no experience on the Press, this scarcely seemed addressed to me. Nevertheless I answered it, enclosing a copy of a letter Edward Russell had written to me for use as a reference. This audaciously kind letter settled the business. The leading county paper in search of a chief reporter turned out to be the 'Shrewsbury Chronicle,' and Mr. John Watton, the proprietor, was in such a hurry to secure at the modest wage of 30s. a week the paragon Russell's kindly fancy had painted that he telegraphed an engagement, and urged me to join with the least possible delay.

IV.

FIRST ENGAGEMENT ON THE PRESS.

On July 22, 1864, I arrived in Shrewsbury with all my worldly goods in a tin box, bought at a second-hand shop in Dale Street, Liverpool. They did not amount to much. In money I had but a trifle over the five pounds Mr. Smith, in an ungovernable fit of generosity, presented me with. I had no introductions, did not know a soul in the town. I left my luggage at the railwaystation and walked along High Street, asking my way to the Chronicle' office, which I found in a quaint old street that greatly charmed my young fancy. I walked up and down the opposite side once or twice, then, plunging in, announced myself and my engagement. The outer door opened on to a kind of shop that served for the publishing office. Behind the counter was a spectacled man with bushy whiskers, whom I subsequently knew

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as the publisher. I explained my business. He stared at me for a moment through his glasses; then he said, 'Oh!' After which he looked at me again and when the pause was growing embarrassing added, 'You'd better come and see Mr. Watton.'

He led the way to a room on the right-hand side of the passage, and presented me to the editor and proprietor of the leading county paper. It was an odd coincidence, and I felt it a little discouraging, that Mr. Watton, on my being announced, said 'Oh !' in almost the same tone the publisher had adopted, looking me over in the same incredulous and dissatisfied manner. There was no doubt I did not in any degree come up to their ideas of what the chief reporter of a leading county paper should look like. Though turned twenty, I did not look more than sixteen or seventeen. Had I happened to present myself in jacket and trousers I might have passed for a schoolboy.

Some time later, in a moment of confidence, the publisher told me that Mr. Watton was very angry at what he was inclined to regard as an imposition, and resolved forthwith to give me notice. He did not, and when in a surprisingly short time I, having mounted to the dizzy heights of editor and part-proprietor of another paper, gave him notice, he, not aware of my budding greatness, caused it to be intimated to me in diplomatic fashion that if I were leaving on account of salary the difficulty would be adjusted.

Watton was a curious little man, spare in figure and, I fancied, born old. He came into the property of the Chronicle' as the son of his father, and, being there, edited the paper. A shy, nervous, restless man, he shut himself up in his room and spoke seldom to anyone in the office. There was a sub-editor, a poor fellow dying of consumption, who used to cough terribly on publishing nights. There was a district reporter, stationed at Welshpool, who was wont to cast around Thursday nights, when the paper should go to press, a halo of romantic interest. He usually had the proceedings at a farmers' ordinary to report, a flower show, a cattle show, or a meeting of county Members with their constituents to describe. He was an honest, hard-working Welshman, with a large family and a positive passion for sherry. If he got within reach of a sherry decanter on any of these festive occasions, either his report did not turn up at all, or it arrived opening pretty fairly, gradually deepening into absolute incoherency. Many an hour have I spent trying to make a connected story out of this gentle

man's copy, having in the final folios no hints save a few hieroglyphs. When he was very bad indeed he used to drop into Welsh, which for all practical purposes was quite as useful to me as the English which marked the advancing stages of the dinner. He had, I learned, been many years on the paper, and he was there when I left it.

Another person who much impressed me in this my earliest acquaintance with the Press was the overseer of the printing office. His name, when he first came to the office, was Smith. After a while he took to spelling it Smyth, and when I arrived he had come to be addressed as Mr. Smythe. In personal appearance he was singularly like an elderly Dick Swiveller. The paper coming out on Friday morning, on Saturday he made holiday. He always made a point of swaggering up and down High Street on fine Saturday afternoons, ogling the shop-girls and maid-servants. He wore a frock-coat tightly drawn in at the waist. I believe on Saturdays he secreted stays. His hands were covered with dirty gloves, often yellow, sometimes lavender, in hue. He had a glistening pin fastening a many-coloured scarf, displayed under a dirty linen collar. The crowning grace of his figure was a white hat with a deep black band. With this set rakishly over his right ear, and a tasselled cane swinging negligently in his gloved hand, Smythe was a credit to the paper. He was a cheery gentleman, with a loud somewhat stagey laugh, accompanied by well-considered flourishes of his right arm and easy bending of his knees. A remarkable character whose individuality remains vividly stamped on my memory.

My first work on the Chronicle' was a rather serious undertaking. There was an annual review of the Yeomanry, or Militia, at which all the county gathered. Except for the account of a meeting in Liverpool written at Mr. Russell's suggestion, I had never before attempted reporter's work. I got through somehow, as I did with whatever else fell to my share in the miscellaneous work of the office. There was a Tuesday paper, an offshoot of the 'Chronicle.' It had a single leading article, which Mr. Watton generally wrote himself. After I had been on the staff four or five weeks I wrote one, furtively dropped it in the letter-box, and was greatly elated at finding it in the next issue of the paper. Mr. Watton dissembled his joy, making no reference to the little incident, though he must have recognised the handwriting.

There was at this time in Shrewsbury a miserable little weekly

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sheet called The Observer,' published on Saturdays, at the price of a penny. It had no leading article, and its local news was 'conveyed' from the pages of its more prosperous neighbours. The proprietor was a stationer in High Street, of whose full style, boldly displayed over the window, it will be sufficient to mention the surname, which was Peter. I wrote a column of notes on news, sent it to Peter, and proposed to furnish a similar contribution weekly for a payment of ten shillings. Anxious to meet any particular views he might entertain, I offered to make the contribution either a leader, a column of notes, or a London letter, written, of course, from Shrewsbury. My communication was anonymous, and I asked Peter, if he thought anything of the project, to address me under certain initials in the correspondence column of his paper. I opened the 'Observer' on the following Saturday, and there were my notes on news in the dignity of leader type, and a couple of lines asking ‘L. H.' to call and see the proprietor. The result of this communication was that I became a regular contributor to the editorial columns of the Observer' at a salary of ten shillings a week.

There was nothing particular in the writing except that it dealt with local subjects in a fashion untrammelled by the personal considerations that weigh with the editors and proprietors of newspapers in small country towns. A new system of sewage was at the time greatly agitating the mind of the ratepayers. Simultaneously the Northern and Southern States of America were at each other's throats across the Atlantic. The secret designs of Napoleon III. were not above suspicion. The Chronicle,' having its principal leading article sent down by luggage train from London, was pointed and graphic in its commentary on the latest battle between the Federals and Confederates, and was deep in the mysteries of the mind of Napoleon III. But the people of Shrewsbury primarily wanted to know all about the new sewage system and the proposed Market Hall, and when they found these matters discussed in the columns of the Observer,' with occasional hard raps distributed among disputants on the Town Council, they rushed to buy the paper. Its sale went up in inspiriting fashion, and I had the satisfaction of hearing many ask who was the new writer? Peter kept the secret, and so did I. Finally gossip was divided between two well-known local personages, one a stockbroker with a literary turn, the other a militant Nonconformist minister.

Encouraged by this success, I opened in the same way com

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munications with the proprietor of a paper at Wellington, called the Shropshire News.' After some correspondence, I arranged with him to write a weekly article at the rate of 10s. 6d. a week. Peter, growing rash with the bounding prosperity of the 'Observer,' proposed that I should write two articles a week, throwing them in for 15s. The 'Shropshire News' was published on Thursday, the Chronicle' on Friday, the 'Observer' on Saturday. Thus by working hard-and I liked the work—I managed to keep things going. In addition I was the local correspondent of the principal daily papers in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Leeds. At the end of 1864 I find in the shorthand diary I then kept a triumphant note showing that I had more than doubled my income, my modest 30s. a week from the Chronicle' being supplemented by a larger sum made after I had done my office work.

honest man, was satisfied.

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The articles in the 'Shropshire News' did not attract so much attention as those in the Observer,' but the proprietor, a sterling, He, of course, did not know I was the Observer's' scribe, and once wrote me a kindly note to say that for his part he thought the leaders in the 'News' were as good as the Observer's,' indeed he liked them better.

'They are more solid,' he dubiously said.

(To be continued.)

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