Chapter III: Part 3

Besides the above, under Mr. Hullah’s personal direction, there are various other training institutions in London, in which his plans have been adopted, and are carried out by pupils of his own. The most important of these are, the Borough Road Schools and the Home and Colonial Infant School Society.

There are Normal Schools at York, Exeter, Oxford, Chester, Warrington, Durham, and other provincial towns, in all of which music is taught systematically, according to the methods which the masters have acquired in the Normal Schools of the metropolis. In Ireland, the National Board of Education some years ago formally adopted Mr. Hullah’s books, and have introduced his methods into a variety of seminaries. In Scotland less seems to have been done. But the authorities of the Free Church sent a young teacher to study under Mr. Hullah, who returned to Edinburgh about a year ago, and, we learn, is giving instructions with success. Mr. Hullah’s ‘Manual’ has been translated into Welsh, and introduced into some schools in the Principality. Many copies of his books have been sent to different parts of India, Australia, Van Diemen’s Land, and New Zealand, for the use of persons teaching in those remote regions.

It thus appears that Music is becoming a regular branch of popular education, and for the most part according to an uniform and well-tried method, in every part of the British empire. The system is of too recent growth to have brought its fruits to maturity. It may, indeed, be regarded as in its infancy when compared with the magnitude which it cannot fail to attain. But already its effects are striking and encouraging. Music—well, badly, or indifferently taught—forms a part of the business of the great majority of schools, national, public, and private, throughout the country. In hundreds of quiet, out-of-the-way country churches, an approximation is made to a choral service often purely vocal. Hundreds of country clergymen are now qualified, by musical attainment, to superintend the singing of their choirs and congregations, and exert themselves to render it consistent with taste, propriety, and devotion. And it is a certain fact, that whereas ten years ago, nobody, in the engagement of a schoolmaster, ever thought of inquiring about his musical capacity, men defective in this point, but otherwise of unexceptionable character and attainments, find it next to impossible to obtain employment.

A PARIS NEWSPAPER.

Within the precincts of that resort for foreigners and provincials in Paris the Palais Royal, is situate the Rue du 24 Fevrier. This revolutionary name, given after the last outbreak, is still pronounced with difficulty by those who, of old, were wont to call it the Rue de Valois. People are becoming accustomed to call the royally named street by its revolutionary title, although it is probable that no one will ever succeed in calling the Palais Royal, Palais National; the force of habit being in this instance too great to efface old recollections. Few foreigners have ever penetrated into the Rue du 24 Fevrier, though it forms one of the external galleries of the Palais Royal, and one may see there the smoky kitchens, dirty cooks,—the nightside, in fact, of the splendid restaurants whose gilt fronts attract attention inside. Rubicund apples, splendid game, truffles, and ortolans, deck the one side; smoke, dirty plates, rags, and smutty saucepans may be seen on the other.

It is from an office in the Rue du 24 Fevrier, almost opposite the dark side of a gorgeous Palais Royal restaurant, that issue 40,000 copies of a daily print, entitled the ‘Constitutionnel.’

Newspaper offices, be it remarked, are always to be found in odd holes and corners. To the mass in London, Printing-house Square, or Lombard Street, Whitefriars, are mystical localities; yet they are the daily birthplaces of that fourth estate which fulminates anathemas on all the follies and weaknesses of governments, and, without which, no one can feel free or independent. The ‘Constitutionnel’ office is about as little known to the mass of its subscribers as either Printing-house Square or Whitefriars.

There is always an old and respectable look about the interior of newspaper establishments, in whatever country you may find them. For rusty dinginess, perhaps there is nothing to equal a London office, with its floors strewed with newspapers from all parts of the world, parliamentary reports, and its shelves creaking under books of all sorts thumbed to the last extremity. Notwithstanding these appearances, however, there is discipline,—there is real order in the apparent disorder of things. Those newspapers that are lying in heaps have to be accurately filed; those books of reference can be pounced upon when wanted on the instant; and as to reports, the place of each is as well known as if all labelled and ticketed with the elaborate accuracy of a public library.

Not less rusty and not less disorderly is the appearance of a French newspaper office; but how different the aspect of things from what you see in England!

Over the office of the ‘Constitutionnel’ is a dingy tricolor flag. A few broken steps lead to a pair of folding-doors. Inside is the sanctuary of the office, guarded by that flag as if by the honour of the country; for the tricolor represents all Frenchmen, be he prince or proletarian.

You enter through a narrow passage flanked with wire cages, in which are confined for the day the clerks who take account of advertisements and subscriptions. Melancholy objects seem these caged birds; whose hands alone emerge at intervals through the pigeon-holes made for the purpose of taking in money and advertisements. The universal beard and moustachios that ornament their chins, look, however, more unbusiness-like than are the men really. They are shrewd and knowing birds that are enclosed in these wire cages.

At publishing time, boys rushing in for papers, as in London offices, are not here to be seen. The reason of this is simple: French newspaper proprietors prefer doing their work themselves,—they will have no middlemen. They serve all their customers by quarterly, yearly, or half-yearly subscriptions. In every town in France there are subscription offices for this journal, as well, indeed, as for all great organs of the press generally. There are regular forms set up like registers at the Post-office, and all of these are gathered at the periodical renewal of subscriptions to the central office. The period of renewal is every fortnight.

Passing still further up the narrow and dim passage, one sees a pigeon-hole, over which is written the word ‘Advertisements.’ This superscription is now supererogatory, for there no advertisements are received; that branch of the journal having been farmed out to a Company at 350,000fr. a-year. This is a system which evidently saves a vast deal of trouble. The Advertising Company of Paris has secured almost a monopoly of announcements and puffs. It has bought up the last page of nearly every Paris journal which owns the patronage and confidence of the advertising public of the French Capital. At the end of the same dark passages, are the rooms specially used for the editors and writers. In France, journals are bought for their polemics, and not for their news: many of them have fallen considerably, however, from the high estate which they held in public opinion previous to the last revolution. There are men who wrote in them to advocate and enforce principles; but in the chopping and changing times that France lives in, it is not unusual to find the same men with different principles, interest or gain being the object of each change. This result of revolution might have been expected; and though it would be unfair to involve the whole press in a sweeping accusation, cases in point have been sufficiently numerous to cause a want of confidence in many quarters against the entire press.

The doings of newspaper editors are not catalogued in print at Paris, as in America; but their influence being more occult is not the less powerful, and it is this feeling that leads people to pay more attention to this or that leading article than to mere news. The announcement of a treaty having been concluded between certain powers of Europe, may not lower the funds; but if an influential journal expresses an opinion that certain dangers are to be apprehended from the treaty in question, the exchanges will be instantly affected. This is an instance amongst many that the French people are to be led in masses. Singly they have generally no ideas, either politically or commercially.

The importance of a journal being chiefly centered in that portion specially devoted to politics, the writers of which are supposed right or wrong to possess certain influences, it is not astonishing the editorial offices have few occupants. The editorial department of the ‘Constitutionnel’ wears a homely appearance, but borrows importance from the influence that is wielded in it—writers decorated with the red ribbon are not unfrequently seen at work in it. In others, and especially in the editorial offices of some journals, may be seen, besides the pen, more offensive weapons, such as swords and pistols. This is another result of the personal system of journalism. As in America, the editor may find himself in the necessity of defending his arguments by arms. He is too notorious to be able to resort to the stratagem of a well-known wit, who kept a noted boxer in his front office to represent the editor in hostile encounters. He goes out, therefore, to fight a duel, on which sometimes depends not only his own fate, but that of his journal.

With regard to the personal power of a newspaper name, it is only necessary in order to show how frequently it still exists, to state that the Provisional Government of February, 1848, was concocted in a newspaper office, and the revolution of 1830 was carried on by the editors of a popular journal—that amongst the lower orders in France, at the present time, the names that are looked up to as those of chiefs, belong to newspaper editors, whose leading articles are read and listened to in cheap newspaper clubs, and whose “orders” are followed as punctually and as certainly as those of a general by his troops. A certain class of French politicians may be likened to sheep:—they follow their “leaders.”

The smallness of the number of officials in a French newspaper office is to be accounted for from the fact that Parliamentary Debates are transcribed on the spot where the speeches are made; and the reporting staff never stirs from the legislative assembly. The divers corps of reporters for Paris journals form a corporation, with its aldermen or syndici, and other minor officers. Each reporter is relieved every two minutes; and whilst his colleagues are succeeding each other with the same rapidity, he transcribes the notes taken during his two minutes’ ‘turn.’ The result of this revolving system is collated and arranged by a gentleman selected for the purpose. This mode of proceeding ensures, if necessary, the most verbatim transmission of an important speech, and more equably divides the work, than does the English system, where each reporter takes notes for half or three-quarters of an hour, and spends two or three hours—and sometimes four or five—to transcribe his notes. The French Parliamentary reporter is not the dispassionate auditor, which the English one is. He applauds or condemns the orators, cheers or hoots with all the vehemence of an excited partizan.

‘Penny-a-liners’ are unknown in Paris; the foreign and home intelligence being elaborated in general news’ offices, independent of the newspapers. It is there that all the provincial journals are received, the news of the day gathered up, digested, and multiplied by means of lithography; which is found more efficacious than the stylet and oiled ‘flimsy’ paper of our Penny-a-liners. It is from these latter places too, that the country journals, as well as many of the foreign press, the German, the Belgium, and the Spanish, are supplied with Paris news. England is a good market, as most of our newspapers are wealthy enough to have correspondents of their own.

My first visit to the ‘Constitutionnel’ was in the day-time, and I caught the editor as he was looking over some of his proofs. Their curious appearance led me to ask how they were struck off, and, in order to satisfy me, he led the way up a dark stair, from which we entered upon the composing-rooms of the premises. These, in appearance, were like all other composing-rooms that I had seen; the forms, and cases for the type, were similar to those in London; the men themselves had that worn and pale look which characterises the class to which they belong, and their pallor was not diminished by their wearing of the long beard and moustache. Their unbuttoned shirts and bare breasts, the short clay pipe, reminded me of the heroes of the barricades; indeed, I have every reason to know that these very compositors are generally foremost in revolutions; and though they often print ministerial articles, they are not sharers in the opinions which they help to spread. The head printer contracts for the printing, and chooses his men where he can find them best. As a body, these men were provident, I was told, and all subscribed to a fund for their poor, their orphans and widows; they form a sort of trade union, and have very strict regulations.

I found a most remarkable want of convenience in the working of the types. For instance, there were no galleys, or longitudinal trays, on which to place the type when it was set up; but when a small quantity had been put together in column on a broad copper table, a string was passed round it to keep it together. Nor was there any hand-press for taking proofs; and here I found the explanation of the extraordinary appearance of the proofs I had seen below. For when I asked to have one struck off, the head printer placed a sheet of paper over the type, and with a great brush beat it in, giving the proof a sunken and embossed appearance, which it seemed to me would render correction exceedingly difficult. The French, it seems, care not for improvement in this respect, any more than the Chinese, whom the brush has served in place of a printing-press for some three thousand years.

This Journal has, as I have said, from 40,000 to 50,000 subscribers, in order to serve whom it was necessary that the presses should be at work as early as eleven o’clock at night. But there is no difficulty in doing this, where news not being the _sine quâ non_ of journalism, provincial and foreign intelligence is given as fresh, which in England would be considered much behind in time. But even when commencing business at the early hour above mentioned, I found that it had been necessary for the paper to be composed twice over, in order to save time; and thus two printers’ establishments were required to bring out each number of the journal in sufficient time for the country circulation by early morning trains. The necessity for this double composition is still existing in most of the French newspaper offices, but had been obviated here lately, by the erection of a new printing-machine, which sufficed by the speed of its working to print the given number of copies necessary for satisfying the wants of each day.

Having seen through the premises, and witnessed all that was interesting in the day-time, I was politely requested to return in the evening, and see the remaining process of printing the paper and getting it ready to send out from the office.

Punctually at eleven o’clock I was in the Rue du 24 Fevrier. Passing through the offices which I had seen in the morning, I was led by a sort of guide down some passages dimly lighted with lamps. To the right and to the left we turned, descending stone steps into the bowels of the earth as it seemed to me; the walls oozing with slimy damp in some parts; dry and saltpetry in others. A bundle of keys, which were jingling in my guide’s hand, made noises which reminded me of the description of prisoners going down into the Bastille or Tower. At another moment a sound of voices in the distance, reminded me of a scene of desperate coiners in a cellar.

These sounds grew louder, as we soon entered a vast stone cellar, in which rudely dressed men, half-naked as to their breasts and arms, were to be seen flitting to and fro at the command of a superior; their long beards and grimy faces, their short pipes and dirty appearance, made them look more like devils than men, and I bethought me that here, at last, I had found that real animal—the printer’s devil. There were two or three printing-presses in the room, only one of which was going. Its rolling sound was like thunder in the cave in which we stood. As paper after paper flew out from the sides of this creaking press, they were carried to a long table and piled up in heaps.

Presently some of the stoutest men shouldered a mass of these, and my conductor and myself following them, we entered a passage which led to another cellar, contiguous to that in which the papers were printed. There, sitting round a number of tables, were several young women. These women seized upon a portion of the papers brought in, and with an amazing rapidity folded them into a small compass. In a few minutes all the papers I had seen printed were folded and numbered off by dozens. Then comes another operation: a man came round and deposited before each woman a bundle of little paper slips, which I found to be the addresses of the subscribers. The women placed the labels and the paste on one side, and commenced operations. A bundle of papers, folded, was placed before each; the forefinger, dipped in the paste, immediately touched the paper and the label simultaneously, and the ‘Constitutionnel’ flew out with a speed perfectly astonishing from the hands of these women, ready to be distributed in town or country. They were then finishing the labelling of the papers for Paris circulation; 20,000 copies scarcely sufficing for the supply.

This was the concluding sight in my visit to a Paris Newspaper Office.

LINES BY ROBERT SOUTHEY.

[_From an Unpublished Autograph._]

The days of Infancy are all a dream,
How fair, but oh! how short they seem—
’Tis Life’s sweet opening SPRING!

The days of Youth advance:
The bounding limb, the ardent glance,
The kindling soul they bring—
It is Life’s burning SUMMER time.

Manhood—matured with wisdom’s fruit,
Reward of Learning’s deep pursuit—
Succeeds, as AUTUMN follows Summer’s prime.

And that, and that, alas! goes by;
And what ensues? The languid eye,
The failing frame, the soul o’ercast;
’Tis WINTER’S sickening, withering blast,
Life’s blessed season—for it is the last.

SHORT CUTS ACROSS THE GLOBE.

THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ.

That little neck of land which lies between the head of the Red Sea and the Gulph of Gaza, in the Mediterranean, is the cause of merchandise circumnavigating the two longest sides of the triangular continent of Africa on its way to the East; instead of making the short cut which is available for passengers by what is called the ‘overland route.’ If a water-way were opened across the Isthmus, the highway for the goods traffic as well as for the passenger traffic of Europe, India, China, and Australia, will be along the Mediterranean and Red Seas and the Indian Ocean. And that highway will be so thronged, that the expense of travelling by it will be reduced to a _minimum_, and the accommodations for travellers at intermediate stations raised to a _maximum_ of comfort.

This state of affairs—analogous to that which occurs in the intercourse of two towns where there is a round-about road for carts and carriages, and a footpath across the meadows for foot-passengers only—is attended by great inconveniences. Letters relating to mercantile transactions are forwarded by the short cut; the merchandise to which they relate follows tardily by the round-about road. The advantageous bargain concluded now may have a very different aspect when the goods come to be delivered three or four months hence. The seven-league-boot expedition of letters, and the tardy progress of goods, convert all transactions between England and India into a game of chance. This fosters that spirit of gambling speculation already too rife among us.

Again, so long as the route for passengers continues to be something different and apart from the route for merchandise, the travelling charges will be kept higher, and the accommodations for travellers less comfortable than they would otherwise be. Railways, in arranging their tariff of fares, venture to reduce the charge for passengers (in the hope of augmenting their number) when they can rely upon the returns from the goods traffic to make up deficiencies. If merchandise, as well as travellers and letters, could be carried by what is called the overland route (of which scarcely two hundred miles are travelled by land), the passengers’ fares would admit of great reduction; and as that route would thus become the great highway, frequented by greater crowds, the accommodation of travellers could be better cared for. Travellers in carriages rarely reflect how much the amount of charges at inns depends upon the landlords having a profitable run of business among less distinguished guests.

As we remarked, when descanting on the Panama route, physical obstacles to the opening of short cuts are of much less consequence than those which originate in financial difficulties. Almost any physical obstacles may be overcome, if money can be profitably invested in the undertaking, and if money can be got for such investment.

Were we projectors of companies, and engaged in preparing an attractive prospectus, we might boldly declare that the obstacles in the construction of a ship canal at Suez are trifling, and that the work would prove amply remunerative. But being only impartial spectators, we are obliged to confess that our information respecting the nature of the country is lamentably defective, and that what we do know does not warrant any sanguine expectation. Public attention has been industriously directed from the true line of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez. The late Mehemet Ali—peace to his ashes!—was a humbug of the first water, and he knew how to avail himself of the services of kindred spirits. He understood enough of European whims and sentiments to know what tone of language he must adopt in order to persuade Europeans he was subserving their views, while he was, in reality, promoting his own. He talked, therefore, of facilitating the intercourse between India and Europe, but he thought of making that intercourse pass through his dominions by the longest route, and in the way which would oblige travellers to leave the greatest possible amount of money behind them; and to attain his ends he retained in his service a motley group of Europeans—the vain, the ignorant, and the jobbing, who did his spiriting after a fashion that bears conclusive testimony to his judgment and tact in selecting them.

What is really wanted for the commerce of Europe and India, is a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez, by the shortest and least difficult route. What Mehemet Ali conceded was a land passage through his dominions by the longest possible route. The natural course of a ship canal is, in a straight line, from Suez to the eastern extremity of Lake Menzaleh: the line of transit conceded by Mehemet Ali is from Alexandria by Cairo to Suez, nearly three times as long. The former line passes across a low and well-watered region: the latter renders necessary an interchange of canal and river navigation, and dry land passage across the desert. The former might be passed in a day without halting: the latter occupies several days, and includes necessary stoppages in the inns of Alexandria and Cairo. But Mehemet Ali and his tools directed attention from the former, and gabbled about railways and other impracticabilities, and the European public was gulled. Egypt can be reached any day by a fortnight’s easy and luxurious travel, and yet the country between the eastern extremity of Lake Menzaleh and Suez is less accurately known than the Isthmus of Panama.

What we do know, with any degree of certainty about this transit, is briefly as follows:—The navigation of the Red Sea in the vicinity of Suez is rather intricate, abounding in shoals, but there is secure anchorage, and sufficient draft of water for merchant ships of considerable burden. The Mediterranean off the eastern extremity of Lake Menzaleh is rather shallow, tolerably sheltered from the west wind, which prevails for a part of the year, but exposed to the north wind. Between Suez and the site of the ruins of Pelusium at the eastern end of the lake, the land is low and level, apparently for a part of the way between the level of both seas. The low land receives in the wet season the drainings of the high land on the east, which is a northern continuation of the mountains between the gulfs of Suez and Akaba. In addition to this, the land to the westward (northward of the Mokattam mountains which terminate near Cairo) has a twofold slope,—the principal northward to the Mediterranean, the secondary eastward to the line of country we are now describing. Originally, there appears to have been a branch of the Nile entering the Mediterranean near where the ruins of Pelusium now are, and those intermediate branches between that and the Damietta branch.

The first mentioned is now closed, the other two very much obstructed; but their waters still find a way to the coast, though diminished by artificial works, and appear to be the cause of the collection of shallow water called Lake Menzaleh. Here, then, we have sixty geographical miles of a low country, with no considerable undulations, towards which the waters of Arabia Petræa flow in their season, and towards which a considerable portion of the waters of the Nile would flow if left to fall on the natural declivity of the country. There is an abundant supply of water for a ship canal. The surface of the ground is in some places covered with drift sand, but not uniformly nor even for the most part. The subsoil is hard, clayey or pebbley. The bent-grasses might be cultivated, as they have been in Holland, to give firmness to the drift sand where it occurs; and this superficial obstacle removed, the subsoil is favourable to the construction of a permanent water-channel. The great difficulty would be the construction of works by which access to the canal is to be obtained from the Mediterranean. Apparently they would require to be carried far out into the sea; and apparently it would be difficult to prevent their being sanded up by the waves which the north winds drive upon the coast for a great part of the year.

These difficulties, though great, are not insuperable. The advanced state of marine architecture and engineering ought surely to be able to cope with them. By re-opening the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, and throwing into it the waters which would naturally find their way into the Tanitic and Mendesian branches, a sufficient stream of water might be thrown into the Mediterranean at Pelusium to keep a passage open by its _scour_. We must speak with diffidence about a locality which has yet been so imperfectly surveyed; but so far as the present state of our knowledge respecting it enables us to judge, there are no serious impediments to the construction of a ship canal from Pelusium to Suez, which would be perfectly accessible and practicable for vessels of from 300 to 350 tons burden; and there is a growing impression among merchants and skippers that this class of vessels is the best for trading purposes.

But the great difficulty remains yet to be noticed; the condition of government and civil security in that country. The isthmus is close on the borders of civilised Europe, and ample supplies of effective labourers could be procured from Malta, and the Syrian and African coasts. But so long as the country is subject to a Turkish dynasty, could the undertakers count upon fair play and sufficient protection from the local authorities? And are the jealous powers of Europe likely to combine in good faith to afford them a guarantee that they should be enabled to prosecute their enterprise in security?

CURIOUS EPITAPH.

The following curious Inscription appears in the Churchyard, Pewsey, Dorsetshire:—

HERE LIES THE BODY
OF
LADY O’LOONEY,
GREAT NIECE OF BURKE,
COMMONLY CALLED THE SUBLIME.
SHE WAS
BLAND, PASSIONATE, AND DEEPLY RELIGIOUS;
ALSO, SHE PAINTED
IN WATER-COLOURS,
AND SENT SEVERAL PICTURES
TO THE EXHIBITION.
SHE WAS FIRST COUSIN
TO LADY JONES;
AND OF SUCH
IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand.
Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefrairs, London.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

146 bursting hose), balls of cord, bursting hose), balls of cord,
flat rose, escape-chain flat hose, escape-chain

● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Renumbered footnotes. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to individual characters (like 2^d) and even entire phrases (like 1^{st}).