PARTY COLOURS. independently of the real and actual cost of things in a foreign country, the purchasing power of money is dependent, in a great measure, upon the possession of a thorough knowledge, not only of the language, but of the local habits and modes of To obtain life. But even this is not sufficient. from his money its full purchasing power, the foreigner must be above all prejudice, and possess power of adaptation to the customs of the country which is scarcely to be met with amongst the educated classes, and which it would be utopian to expect from the average working-man.' a We may note the difference in the value of money in England and America, as shewn by some tables prepared by Mr J. S. Moore of the United States Bureau of Statistics. A New Yorker will earn in twelve months by unskilled labour L.104 to an Englishman's L.62, 10s. ; as a boiler-maker, L.156 to his L.104; as a moulder, L.161 to his L.109, 4s.; as a machinist, L.166, 8s. to his L.117; But as a wool-sorter, L.124, 16s. to his L.91. then comes the question, What can these wages purchase? In an English manufacturing town, a single mechanic may find himself in all the necessaries of life for less than half what it would cost him in America; and, according to Mr Moore's calculations, after payment of these expenses, the American boiler-maker would have a balance of L.60, 10s. 2d. out of his year's income, against the Englishman's L.58, 2s. 4d.; the moulders would have respectively L.65, 14s. 2d. and L.64, 2s. 4d.; the machinists, L.78, 18s. 2d. and L.71, 2s. 4d.; the wool-sorters, L.29, 6s. 2d. and L.45, 2s. 4d.; and the unskilled labourers, L.9, 6s. 2d. and L.16, 12s. 4d. So, with a lower wage, the Englishman is actually twice as well off as the American. Evidently, a man who can get work at home had better think twice before he tempts fortune as an artisan in New York. PARTY COLOURS. THE abstract is never popular, because it cannot The Earl of Surrey, in his Complaint of a Dying By him I made his tomb, in token he was true, Oh, perfectly well: A truer blue Whig you have not in hell. During the Gordon Riots of 1780, blue ribbons were worn by all the rioters. Lord George Gordon on one occasion appeared in the House of Commons with a blue cockade in his hat, when Colonel Herbert sprang up and said he would not sit in the House while a member wore the badge of sedition in his hat. After this, Lord George put his cockade into his pocket. Blue, when associated with Buff, has long been Where the loveliest expression to feature is joined, but are referred to by the names of their respective The health was given in the following form: colours. Election colours vary all over the country, Buff and Blue, and they are sometimes (especially in the various The lady promptly responded: Blue is a very favourite colour, and considering its long association with truth, we need not be surprised that each party has attempted to mark it for its own. Chaucer refers to blue's characteristic in the Squiere's Tale, as follows: And by hire bedde's hed she made a mew, And again, in the Court of Love: Lo, yondir folke (quod she) that knele in blew, Buff and Blue, These famous colours still exist on the cover of the Edinburgh Review, as they did when Byron wrote in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: Ere the next Review Soars on its wings of saffron and of blue. It's guid to be merry and wise; · Orange and blue were William III.'s colours, and they are still borne by the Orange lodges of Ireland, by which means they have become strongly associated with an anti-catholic spirit. The late Lord Macaulay, when speaking on the state of Ireland in the House of Commons (February 19, 1844), said he was struck on his election for Leeds by observing the orange-coloured finery used by his adherents, who were zealous for Catholic emancipation. Orange ribbons and cockades were seen everywhere, and he was told that the friends of the Catholics had always rallied under the Orange banner, as the sign of toleration. In Cumberland and Westmoreland, Blue and Yellow are the local colours, but not associated, for the first is Liberal, and the last Conservative. Here the respective parties are known as Blues and Yellows, not as Liberals and Conservatives. Different shades of blue have occasionally been used in these counties, as when Sir James Graham and William Blamire were chaired, one in a dark-blue, and the other in a light-blue chair. Other colours have been Orange and Purple, and White and Blue. Pink or Crimson has been used by a Conservative county candidate, and a Chartist has 'sported' red or green banners. Blue has long been the Whig or Liberal colour in Lincolnshire. Sir William Talmash, afterwards Lord Huntingtower, an eccentric possessing much property in Grantham and its neighbourhood about the beginning of the present century, added the word Blue to the signs of all the public-houses he possessed, which accounts for the large number of Blue Lions, Blue Boars, &c. there to be found. True Blue is and has been for many years the Tory colour at Exeter, as Yellow is the Whig; and in Suffolk, the Tories fight under the Blue flag, one of their poets singing: True Blue will never stain; Yellow will with a drop of rain. The Rev. John Eagles, author of the Sketcher, wrote some lines on True Blue, beginning: There are fifty fine colours that flaunt and flare, But of all the fine colours that dance in the air, At Norwich, Blue and White are the Whig colours, and Orange and Purple the Tory; but, curiously enough, the colours for the county of Norfolk are not only not the same, but vary greatly. At one election, the Whigs were distinguished by Orange and Blue, at another by Orange and White; the Tories being Pink and Purple. At an election for one seat only the Whigs bore Green, and the Tories Purple colours. At Preston, dark Blue was the Tory colour, and the Whigs bore the Stanley colour, Orange, the Independent Liberal being Green. When Hunt was a candidate, he adopted Red; but now the regular Liberal colour is Green, and lately the chairman of a large political meeting called on the thousands present to rally round the Green flag of Liberalism, the colour which meant vitality. Unfortunately, Green also means inconstancy, and it is not, therefore, a popular hue. One of the oddest exemplifications of devotion to a party colour is the desire expressed at various times by different people to be buried in that one to which they had adhered through life. An old woman of Ipswich, by the directions of her will, was laid in a blue-lined coffin. She was a Tory. But a Liberal Blue in another part of the country was buried in the same way, and followed to the grave by mourners clad in Blue. A Cumberland patriot once denoted his political opinions by invariably wearing an enormous blue hat; at length, on the occasion of an election, he was disappointed at not receiving the usual honorarium, and thoroughly disgusted, he refused to vote either Yellow or Blue, and at the dead of night he solemnly buried his blue hat. Such are a few of the vagaries of human nature; outbreaks of popular feeling which the philosopher in his study may call madness, but which influences himself like other men when he goes out into the world. Election displays have of late years been much shorn of their grandeur, but it will probably be many a day before party colours are counted among things of the past. SONG OF THE SEASONS. GAUNT Winter flinging flakes of snow, Deep burdening field and wood and hill; Dim days, dark nights, slow trailing fogs, And bleakened air severe and chill. And swift the seasons circling runAnd still they change till all is done. Young Spring with promise in her eyes, And fragrant breath from dewy mouth, And magic touches for the nooks Of budding flowers when wind is south. And swift the seasons circling runAnd so they change till all is done. Then Summer stands erect and tall, With early sunrise for the lawn, Thick foliaged woods and glittering seas, And loud bird chirpings in the dawn. And swift the seasons circling runAnd so they change till all is done. Brown Autumn, quiet with ripe fruits, And haggards stacked with harvest gold, And fiery flushes for the leaves, And silent cloud-skies soft outrolled. And so the seasons circling runAnd still they change till all is done. Swift speeds our Life from less to more. The child, the man, the work, the rest, The sobering mind, the ripening soul, Till yonder all is bright and blest. For so the seasons circling run-- And steadfast, come the balm or blight. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS. 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also soid by all Booksellers. CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL No. 478. OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1873. THE PENNY-A-LINER. THE penny-a-liner and 'the special commissioner' occupy two literary extremes in connection with the daily newspaper press of London. The special commissioner has usually a prolonged duty to fulfil; possibly to follow the fortunes of an army in the field or in a beleaguered fortress, prepared to incur no small hazard, to bear no small amount of privation, for the one object of sending home news to the paper which he represents. The special correspondent is the next in degree; his duties are less exceptional than those of the special commissioner, but are more frequently and extensively brought into requisition. Then there are the local correspondents, the regular reporters, and the occasional correspondents, all engaged in their several ways in providing the sustenance which the editor deals out to the public day by day. But the penny-a-liner is distinct from all these. It is to him we mainly owe our knowledge of the facts that a crazy old man in the back-slums fell down last night; that Mrs Mahony bit off the nose of Biddy Sullivan; that the devouring element at the oilman's shop was not extinguished till long after midnight; that seven men and three boys would inevitably have been drowned but for the gallant exertions of the Royal Humane Society's icemen; that a railway van ran over a child this morning in the Poultry; that a labourer's wife in Lambeth had four children at a birth, all alive; that the convict ate heartily and slept uncommonly well, on the night before his execution; that there was such a glut of herrings at market yesterday, that the costermongers went to Billingsgate instead of to Covent Garden-or, in coster lingo, to the 'Gate' instead of the 'Garden;' that the Claimant was cheered by a crowd when coming out of his solicitor's office; that a butcher in Clare Market killed a sow weighing an unprecedented number of stones; and that the rushing flood, after the heavy rain, entered the living-rooms in Deepdown Street, and washed away the scanty furniture of the affrighted inmates. PRICE 14d. The penny-a-liner is the hurry-scurry gatherer of such items of news, which he dresses up with as much eloquence and sensationalism as he can. He is out at all hours, day and night, searching for information in ways that would baffle the ingenuity of any one else. His professional designation is due to the fact that he and his brethren were originally paid at the rate of one penny per printed line; but it does not follow that his present remuneration is at the same small rate. His work is very precarious. He is not employed by the editor of any newspaper to collect news or write articles; he speculates on his own account, does the work first, and seeks for a customer afterwards-just as a working cabinet-maker, having finished an article of furniture, takes it to a dealer's shop in the hope of selling it. Sometimes, having attended two or more coroners' inquests on one day, and written an account of each, he fails to obtain publication for even one, and his whole labour falls to the ground. The editor may have his columns quite full, or may deem these particular inquests of small public interest, or may not like the style in which the reports are written: be the reason what it may, his decision is final, and the penny-a-liner finds that his time has been wasted, his pocket left unprovided. He is not bound to any one paper; he sends to two or more, preparing as many copies as may be needed. If he sends the same 'Inquest,' or the same 'Terrible Accident,' to four or five morning papers, he hopes that one or other, even if no more than one, will turn up trumps. He has a chance of being paid four or five times over; for as no editor knows what the others will insert, each decides without reference to the others, and all may happen to take the same favourable view at the same time. These are the prizes in the penny-a-liner's lottery; the blanks turn up when, owing to a pressure of parliamentary or political news, all kinds of scraps, odds and ends, and unimportant paragraphs are ruthlessly swept away at the last moment; they may have been set up in type or not, but, unlike the work of the staff-writers, unless they appear they are not paid for. sheets of a peculiar kind of paper, known to the If he is accurate in his statements of facts, the penny-a-liner may have a fair chance with Mr Editor; but if otherwise, his subsequent contributions stand a poor chance of insertion. As to style of writing, irrespective of truth of narrative, that is an affair which each 'liner' decides for himself. If he thinks he can do a little in the forcible or the elegant manner, he tries it on; if he is well up in phrases of sympathy with suffering humanity, he believes that he could produce a very moving account of any distressing calamity;' if he can induce his soul to rise to lofty indignation at the oppression of the helpless, he could produce half a column of agony relating to the barbarous way in which a father has deserted his poor children. He soon finds out whether any particular editor likes those varieties of fine writing, and he shapes his course accordingly. Sometimes a 'liner' has a run of luck. There is on record a case of a murder and inquest in London which excited an extraordinary amount of interest. The inquiry was prolonged for ten days; the report of each day's proceedings occupied from two to three columns; and the same 'liner' had the good fortune to see his own particular reports used in six morning papers, though doctored or curtailed in any way that the respective editors thought proper. Mr Grant, in his recent history of the newspaper press, mentions a case in which, as editor of the Morning Some liners bend their energies so resolutely Advertiser, he inserted ten articles of three columns to the literature of dreadful fires, that their each relating to the inquest on the bodies of persons contributions are looked forward to as a matter of killed by an accident on the Brighton Railway. course. One of the fraternity hired a room over a They were prepared by three liners,' who agreed to the firemen that they should wake him when any fire-engine station, and made an arrangement with act in partnership; the reports were accepted by, fire broke out. He would hurry on a few clothes, and inserted in, six morning papers; and the pay-mount the engine by the side of the driver, and get ment netted by the triumviri was really very hand- to the scene of conflagration long before any other some. It is more than hinted that some of the 'liners' liner. The editors of the morning papers, hearing accept gratuities occasionally, as an inducement to of his assiduity, tacitly agreed to give him the prefthe suppression of reports which would be painfulerence, and he became the acknowledged king of or discreditable to individuals and families. The editors of different papers are quite aware that the same report of the same occurrence is sent to many or all of them. In fact it is only through the aid of the liners' that they can obtain speedy news of unforeseen minor events. No writer of higher standing would consent to tramp about the town at all hours, looking, like Mr Micawber, for something or other to turn up.' The editor cannot afford to disregard small local occurrences; they are much in favour with insatiable newspaper readers, and he must obtain accounts of them from the 'liners,' if at all. News spoils sooner than the most delicate fish; it must be ready at once, or it is valueless in the eyes of the editor. Hence, if the information be both prompt and reliable, he does not reject it merely because other editors have been supplied with the same narrative from the same 'liner;' he uses just as much of it as suits him, and pays for what he uses. The 'liner' does not take the trouble to write out as many copies as there are newspapers to which he intends to send his communication; he makes use of a cheap and convenient 'manifold.' He interleaves (say) six Mr Grant tells us that, although the editors wish for promptness and accuracy rather than fine writing, they nevertheless require a certain artistic mode of beginning an article; something that will Thus, it might be true enough that 'Last evening catch the eye and whet the curiosity of the reader. a case of suicide occurred at No. 35 Blank Street, Islington,' &c. &c.; but the 'liner' is tempted, both by the hope of a few extra pence for a few extra lines, and by a wish to attract by liveliness, to commence somewhat as follows: Last evening the whole of the neighbourhood of Blank Street, Islington, was thrown into a state of the utmost consternation in consequence of its having transuicide ever known had occurred in No. 35 of that spired that one of the most desperate cases of street. The particulars of this deplorable tragedy have been furnished to us, and are as follows;" &c. 'Awful Conflagrations.' He kept plenty of 'mani- Sometimes penny-a-liners, by union and prompt- reporter. Triumph in one, vexation in all the others, existing politics of the day, and resolved to attempt led to inquiry, which elicited the following explana- a neat thing in the way of business. Laying aside tion. First the failure of the reporters. Lord honour and delicacy as troublesome companions, he John began his speech at so late an hour in the followed the two peers at a cautious distance, and evening that it was only half finished when the picked up the loud words as they fell upon his ear. last train started from Colchester to London; the The night was dark, the tread of his steps was reporters all agreed that the fragment which they made soft for the occasion, and he escaped detection could send would be hardly worth the trouble; during a long portion of the Duke's walk to Apsley they waited to hear and report the entire speech, House. Returning to his lodgings, the liner got and brought or sent their well-written reports to up an account of the momentous policy intended London the following day. Secondly the success by the noble Duke at the head of His Majesty's of the 'liners.' Two of them agreed to go down to government, written in the proper newspaper Colchester on spec.' with a hope that the lateness of style. Knowing that none of the papers would the speech-making would baffle the regular report-place trust in any flimsy from a 'liner' if sent ers. They obtained free press railway passes; and in the usual way, on a subject so peculiarly they had only forty minutes available at Colchester special and momentous as this, he adopted before the starting of the last train. One of them another plan. Mr Black, editor of the Morning went in search of, and obtained, a copy of an Ad- Chronicle, had that day given a leader' of his dress to the Electors, just then issued by Lord own, in which the Duke was severely handled for John's Committee; while the other went to the refusing to make known his plans in the House of town-hall, got the names of some of the notabili- Lords. The 'liner' went to Mr Black, handed him ties present, scanned the general state of matters in the article he had prepared, and, on being pressed, the hall, and heard the beginning of Lord John's candidly avowed the manoeuvre he had adopted. speech. The two met at the station at the proper The temptation was too great to be resisted; Mr time, got into the guard's van (by previous arrange- Black accepted the 'liner's' article, paid for it ment), and then set to work by lamplight. One, handsomely, and inserted it next morning as a assuming that Lord John would do little more double-leaded leading article. The effect was than repeat the substance of his address in his immense. The conductors of the other papers speech, made up a speech accordingly, using many were surprised and vexed at being thus forestalled vague but high-sounding phrases, without ventur- by the Morning Chronicle; the Whigs were elated ing on precise facts or statements. The other was at the disclosures thus made; the Tories were able to introduce the speech with the usual mode mortified at having been thus kept in the dark by of treatment about the hall, the meeting, the the ministers of their choice; the Duke's colleagues persons present, the enthusiastic cheers, and so in the cabinet were something more than mortified forth. It was finished in the van, taken to the at having been deemed equally unworthy of his editor of the one paper, and by him eagerly trust; and the clubs discussed the affair day after inserted. The report was much shorter than those day. Many influential members of parliament which appeared in the other papers on the follow- called upon Mr William Clements, principal proing day; but it was admitted to be a very clever prietor of the Morning Chronicle, and asked him affair, far above the usual level of penny-a-lining. to tell them 'in confidence' how the information was obtained; but, until the article had produced its full effect, in relation to the party politics of the day, Mr Black would not tell even his own employer the history of the secret. As the Duke had not committed his plan to paper, and had communicated it orally only to his friend the peer, his suspicions lighted in that quarter; and much unpleasantness resulted, until the real truth oozed out. Another instance was still more remarkable, as illustrative at once of the ingenuity and the audacity sometimes displayed by individual members of the body. When the Duke of Wellington was prime-minister, one of the morning newspapers gave the programme of a very important government proceeding about to be adopted. It startled all parties, and created an immense sensation among the Tories; for that political party had received no information that the cabinet intended any such move; nay, the majority of the cabinet ministers themselves were equally in the dark; and yet the announcement was true. The Duke was full of wrath at the premature display of his plans, and equally full of surprise, seeing that those plans had not been committed to paper. The clue to the mystery was after a time obtained. The Duke of Wellington was rather deaf during the second half of his life, and (as is usually the case under such circumstances) adopted a somewhat loud tone in conversation. One evening, after a stirring debate in the House of Lords, the Duke walked home arm in arm with another peer, a trusted member of his party, but not a member of the government. In the course of conversation he gave the outline of a scheme which he had determined to put into effect, but of which he had said nothing to his colleagues in the cabinet. A penny-a-liner happened to be outside the House of Lords. He caught some words from the lips of the loud-talking Duke, saw at once that they bore an important relation to the Mr Grant states that it has come within his But making allowance for occasional queer modes |