Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885

on-The Capital in 1

he Bradfield Reservoi

gings-Assuming the Edi

nd Literary Influenc

Bright's Contempt for

rother-Death of Abraham

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rt at five o'clock in the morning in order that I might reach London in the evening. I can still recall some of the emotions of that journey. London was to me the city of all cities-the one great goal of the journalist's ambition. I took short views of life even then, but my secret hope, ever present to my mind, was that I mig

eets which had seemed no longer than those with which I was familiar at Newcastle stretched to a length that was apparently interminable; whilst instead of one unbroken thoroughfare I was rattled in my cab through squares and streets innumerable, the names of none of which had I been able to read upon my plan. My next impression was one of delight at the fidelity with

better-class of thoroughfares. Hyde Park was untidy and neglected, flower-beds being practically unknown. The fine open space at Hyde Park Corner did not exist, and Piccadilly Circus was a circus really, and one of very narrow extent. But though far from possessing the magnificence of which it can now boast, London forty years ago had certain advantages over the city of to-day. There were no enormous piles of flats shutting out air an

leading part in the ceremony, and he had as his supporters Prince Frederick of Prussia, afterwards the Emperor Frederick, and the Prince of Hesse. We were not so clever in those days at arranging spectacles as we have since become, and, shortly before the hour fixed for the opening ceremony, a good deal of confusion still reigned upon the da?s set apart for the official notabilities. I was amused to see Lord Granvi

's acquaintance. No actor ever made a single character so famous as this part of Dundreary was made by Sothern. When he came to Newcastle on his first provincial tour I met him, and spent some pleasant evenings with him after the play. He was a man of refined speech and good social gifts. His besetting weakness, as I learned even then, was that addiction to practical jokes which, on more than one occasion in his subsequent career, involved him in unpleasant situations. One

y different kind: "Can you wag your left ear?" I asked him one day what had made him invent so ridiculous a question as this. "Because I can wag my left ear," was his prompt response, and straightway I saw the organ in question flapping about like a sail in a breeze. The Theatre Royal at Newcastle in those days was under the management of Mr. E. D. Davis, a well-known figure in the provincial theatrical world. It was before the days of touring companies, and Mr. Davis was supported by an excellent body of artists, including his brother and his son Alfred, as well as his niece Emily Cross. I went to the theatre in the dignified capacity of dramatic critic; but neither then, no

the hydraulic crane, was the president of the meeting. This added to the pride which the people of Newcastle felt in the fact that their town had been chosen for the scene of so distinguished a gathering. In those days local patriotism ran very high in the old town. We were intensely provincial, and our favourite belief was that Newcastle stood unrivalled among the cities of the earth. When any distinguished stranger came amongst us-as, for example, Mr. Gladstone, on the occasion to which I have already referred-we washed our face, and put on our best clothes in order to impress the visitor. We had something of the perfervid nature of the Scot in our characters, and rose to extraordinary heights of enthusiasm on very indifferent pretexts. It followed that when we had so distinguished a body as the British Association to receive as our guests, and when we had furnished in one of our own citizens the president of the meet

s Place." Reade was not an eye-witness of the scene that was presented after the flood had spent its force, but I can bear testimony to the fact that he described it accurately. Certainly it was a wonderful and terrible sight that was presented when I visited the place a few hours after the bursting of the dam. The streets of Sheffield were ploughed up to the depth of many feet; lamp-posts were twisted like wire, and many houses either stood tottering with one of their sides clean swept away, or la

upon the journalist, and I feel a profound pity for those officials who are compelled by an imperative duty to be present at the private strangling of their fellow-creatures. It is true, however, that use hardens the heart and deadens the nerves. I remember how, on the first occasion of witnessing an execution, as I stood trembling at the foot of the scaffold on which the victim was about to appear, I noticed an old reporter, for whom I entertained a great personal respect, pacing up and down beside me, reading the New Testament. In the passion of horror and pity that filled my young h

e course of my ordinary duty. I confess that they did not affect me as they seemed to affect most of my colleagues. An execution, with the violent thrusting of a human soul into the unknown, moved me deeply; but the physical punishment of a ruffian who had himself inflicted atrocious suffering u

l complimentary dinner, and was made the recipient of a very handsome testimonial. I felt most unfeignedly that I had not deserved it, yet the possession of the gold watch and collection of standard books subscribed for out of the scanty earnings of my colleagues was a real comfort to me when, with a sad heart, I left the sacred shelter of my home and quitted the town in which the whole of my life up

he board. I do not think I was ever more miserable or more frightened in my life than when, under her imperious direction, I took my seat and met the gaze of a dozen hungry men: on the sideboard stood the soup tureens, the waiting-maids beside them, but not a cover was lifted or a motion made, and dead silence filled the room. I sat in blushing bewilderment, waiting for the dinner to be served. Suddenly, from the other end of the table, a harsh voice issued from the lips of a burly, red-faced man. "Mr. President, if you are a Christian, you'll perhaps be good enough to say grace, and let us get to our dinner, which we want very badly." I managed to stammer forth the formula of my childhood, and thought the worst was over. Not a bit of it. No sooner had the soup been audibly consumed than the hated voice from the foot of the table again assailed me. "Mr. President, I really don't know what you mean by neglecting your duties in this way, but let me tell you that this is not a company of teetotallers." "Ask them what wine they would like," whispered the waitress behind me, who saw my plight, and who evidently

nfined to the sub-editing of the news and the writing of a few editorial paragraphs. Suddenly Mr. Toulmin entered my room, and, without uttering a word, placed a telegram on the desk before me. It consisted of these words, still imprinted on my memory: "Washington Wilkes died suddenly last night while addressing a public meeting." I knew Mr. Wilkes by name as a Radical journalist of considerable ability, who wrote regularly for the Morning Star.

tor of the Guardian, and as it was my first editorship, it need hardly be said that I valued my position highly. Mr. Toulmin, I subsequently found, had a reputation for getting all he could out of the members of his staff without much regard to the customs of journalism. Thus, I had scarcely finished the article which would have been written by Washington Wilkes but for his sudden death, when Mr. Toulmin, coming into my room, expressed his warm satisfaction at the quickness with which I had turned out my work; then, with an almost paternal smile upon his face, he laid before me some pages of manuscript, and in an insinuating voice sa

arisen to open the door of the workman's prison-house and set the children free, this poor child had been shut up from six in the morning till six at night in the fetid atmosphere of a cotton-mill. God knows what the economic value of such a weakling's labour may have been! One would think that a South Carolina planter would have been wiser than to work his "stock" at such an age. Be this as it may, my friend had passed through this terrible a

made them abate their opposition to the slave-holding South. But in Lancashire, as elsewhere, the upper classes-with the exception of the few who followed the noble leadership of John Bright-were enthusiasts on the side of the South, and, if they had dared, would have urged English intervention on behalf of the Confederate States. There was thus a strong and marked difference of opinion between the upper and the lower classes in Lancashire, as elsewhere. The great question in domestic politics was that of Parliamentary reform. Advanced Liberals believed that if only the franchise was enlarged, and the working-man admitted within the pale, Liberal p

Mr. Toulmin. It was not only that he could speak of the dark days at the beginning of the century, and of the inequality and injustice which then prevailed under Tory rule in England; he was able also to point out the contrast between the unselfish and heroic conduct of the Lancashire operatives with regard to the American Civil War, and that of their superiors, in whose hands the political destinies of the country rested. He was in the habit of enforcing his broad and sensible arguments on the subject of Parliamentary reform by means of a quaint little diagram, which he was continually p

of the Browning Society-Thackeray, and most of our great historians, were always by my side, and my mind gradually expanded as it absorbed their words and thoughts. In one respect Preston has always seemed to me to be unique among English towns. The centre of the town, if I may commit a bull, lay at a point on its circumference. The Town Hall, the parish church, the leading business thoroughfare, the railway station, and the Guardian office were all close to the river Ribble, separated from it only by the beautiful Avenham Park, where the residences of the local aristocracy were to be found. All the industrial part of the town, and the houses of the operatives, lay farther away fro

ly expect that his own time could be much further prolonged. No one who heard him could have imagined that thirty years of public service still lay before the speaker. The other speech was still more notable, for it introduced me for the first time to the greatest of all the orators of the nineteenth century, John Bright. Mr. Bright's speech, which was delivered at Blackburn, promised to be of peculiar interest, inasmuch as he made it only a few days after the death of Lord Palmerston, in October, 1865. Everybody was curious to know what the great Liberal would say of the man whose policy he had so often opposed, and with whom

eard him for the first time. They went expecting to hear an orator full of sound and fury. They were amazed by the reserve-one might almost say the repose-of his style. Of gesture he made absolutely no use. He never let his magnificent voice rise above a certain pitch;

dstone fell in for the hottest measure of abuse. When some resolution was about to be put a man seated in the body of the hall got up and asked if he might say a few words. He was a tall, thick-set person, and his dress was so plain that most of us took him for a farmer, if not a farm-labourer. The meeting, which was enjoying the eloquence of earls and aristocrats of every degree, turned with anger upon the unknown intruder, and shouted "Name, name!" with all its might. "My name is Gladstone," said the stranger, in a clear and powerful voice. Everybody burst into a roar of laughter. It seemed so curious that immediately after listening to unmeasured vituperation of the Gladstone, this h

h did more to hasten the return of peace and goodwill, not only in the United States, but all over the world, after the close of the war, than anything else could have done. It is certain that it produced a remarkable effect in England. The "classes" in England were, as I have said, almost unanimously opposed to the North, and there was no single person engaged in the great struggle whom they more persistently misunderstood and misrepresented than Abraham Lincoln. Even now I feel

for their lack of appreciation of Lincoln. It is doubtful if even now he is appreciated at his true worth by Americans themselves. Some years ago I had the privilege of taking in to dinner a charming young lady who was Lincoln's direct descendant. I said to her, "You can hardly understand how pleased I am to have met you. There is scarcely any man whose name is fam

p of a newspaper published only twice a week. My wishes were realised when I received an offer from the proprietors of the Leeds Mercury of a position on that journal, which had long been one