Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Your daily newspaper is the best bargain you will ever make, and you make it every day. Do you grasp the fact that your newspaper is the most splendid example of co-operation imaginable--that it enables you to obtain for a few pence each week that which, if only one copy were printed, would cost you, for telegraphy, for brain work, for machinery and building and land, a thousand pounds a day or more? The Duke of Westminster or Mr. Astor might buy a better horse, picture, or theatre seat than you can, but your newspaper is as good as theirs.

According to Mr. Labouchere and some other folk, the mystery of the press is the secret of its power. Yet I venture to think that if I lift the curtain a little--nay more, if I take the public behind the scenes for a short while--I shall be increasing rather than endangering the respect in which the newspaper press is very properly held in this country.

In the days when many newspapers were small sheets, produced in dark alleys, under the charge of disreputable ne'er-do-wells, who veiled a vast amount of vulgarity under the name of Bohemianism, it was doubtless a wise thing to surround the press with mystery. The less the public knew about a newspaper office the better for the newspaper. But to-day the public press is the concentration of all that is best in thought and all that is most modern in mechanism.

A three mile roll of paper.]

The internal construction of a newspaper office is almost as complicated as that of a battleship--the duties of a modern editor as onerous as those of the man in the conning tower.

Let us take a hasty glance at the inside life of a journal.

A newspaper office is one of the few business establishments in which the human machinery is at work the whole twenty-four hours round. The business department, which requires the same staff as is needed in an insurance office or bank, starts its operations, as a rule, at nine in the morning, when the heads and clerks of the advertising, circulation, and other departments assemble.

With them arrives the first of the editorial staff. He, in the case of one newspaper with which I am acquainted, relieves the colleague who has been on duty since the previous midnight. It is his duty to open the editorial letters, to watch the news of the day, to see whether the particular journal on which he is engaged has gained or lost by comparison with its competitors in the collection of news, and to arrange matters generally for the coming of his co-workers, the foreign editor, and others, who assemble at eleven o'clock.

By this hour many of the reporters are already engaged in their multifarious engagements in various parts of the metropolis. The preparation of the next day's paper goes on steadily until five o'clock, when there is usually a brief conference of the editorial powers that be on the policy to be adopted on any particular event, and the methods required for obtaining any particular news or other features, and then, at six o'clock, the hard work of the day commences.

The clerks, who have been receiving and checking advertisements all day, have sent them to the printing department, where advertisers' announcements are being put into print as rapidly as nimble fingers can operate quick machinery, and then, save for the presence of one or two clerks, the advertisement and commercial side of a newspaper "shuts down" for the day. The sub-editors appear, reporters come in with the results of their day's labours, news arrives by the tape and other news machines in a constantly increasing quantity for the next nine hours. First comes the news from China or India. The Indian correspondent puts his telegram on the wire at eight or nine o'clock in Bombay, which is equal to four o'clock in the afternoon in London; and this difference of time, even allowing a couple of hours for transmission, makes him always first in the field with his news. But, on the other hand, the American news will not arrive until very late indeed, for when it is seven o'clock in the evening at New York it is midnight here.

(Setting type by hand at 10 words per minute.)]

"How do you manage to find all the little pieces of news to put into your paper?" is a question that must have been asked of every journalist.

(Setting type by machinery at 40 words per minute.)]

That is not the difficulty. One's heaviest task is the keeping out of the items of news. On an average day it is safe to estimate that twice or thrice as much intelligence comes to a newspaper as it can possibly use. At times like, say, the last Jubilee, or at any moment of public excitement, news pours in in a manner appalling to contemplate.

The wonder is that there are so few mistakes in journals. When it is remembered that those who handle and pass the news have often but a second to decide as to its accuracy, that it often comes from parts of the world to which it is impossible to refer speedily by telegram, that it frequently consists of statements made by public men, who may disavow them when put to the test--when it is remembered that the sub-editor has to contend with the errors of shorthand, of the telegraph, the electric cable, and the telephone, I think that British newspapers, and London metropolitan newspapers in particular, are an object lesson to the world in accuracy. Laborious publications like the _Army List_, and the _London Gazette_, which are compiled by a leisurely Government staff, contain as many errors in proportion as the hastily produced modern newspaper.

Accuracy, indeed, may be considered to be the feature of English journalism. The stress of newspaper competition in New York induces the younger journals to rush anything into type that comes to hand, and the American public does not seem to mind it.

But I pity the English journal which should print one or two items of false news. The average Briton, who is a plodding, painstaking man, takes his newspaper as seriously as his breakfast, and one or two mistakes in his newspaper, or his eggs, would make him change his caterer. He has no sympathy for "enterprise" which leads him astray. And from this fact arises one of the differences between the English and the American newspaper. From the American aspect, ours is dull, slow, stupid, and behind the times. On the other hand our journals are typical of the painstaking, plodding nature of our people, and, like our public buildings, are often much better than they look.

To return to our visit to the newspaper office. All the evening long as news arrives it is cut down and measured as to its importance, corrected, given its proper heading, and sent upstairs by pneumatic or other lifts to the composing department. Towards eleven o'clock at night every brain is concentrated on its task. At one o'clock the worst is over. There is time for a cigar or a cigarette. One may be waiting for important news from a war correspondent, or merely keeping the paper open for any news that may arrive between one and three in the morning.

The type is first set into columns by machinery, corrected and re-corrected; these columns are then made up into pages, which are again corrected, each page being tightly screwed into an iron frame (I am purposely using no technicalities). A papier maché or other mould is then taken of each page, and into this mask (or matrix) hot metal is poured, and the pages come out in the form of curved plates ready for fixing on the machines. It is a difficult process to explain without ocular demonstration, and I have been so long accustomed to the work that I have lost all sense of its beauty and ingenuity.

Towards three o'clock in the morning all the curved plates have been fixed on the machines; final proof copies--that is to say, first impressions of the paper--have been passed; the machines start, and up come complete copies of the paper as you see it at the breakfast table, the club, or in the railway train.

The first complete copies are carefully scanned by dozens of eager eyes in the hope of finding some tiny blunder which it is not too late to remove.

Each of these modern printing presses depicted here has a nominal capacity of 48,000, or 96,000 copies per hour, according to the size of the paper.

It is a speed truly terrific. The carts that are waiting outside the newspaper office in the night seem to be filled almost by magic. One hears the machinery start; a few minutes later the race for the distributing agents and the railway trains begins. Upstairs such of the editorial staff as have not gone home are enjoying the same kind of chat at the conclusion of their labours as other men do at their clubs. Nor are we newspaper men clubless even at that hour. The Press Club, hard by Fleet Street, keeps its doors open for journalists until five a.m.; and for the printers and others there are special hostelries open to them, and to them only, by legal enactment. Railway companies, too, provide trains for us, though not so many as they should, thus enabling us to get away from the city to the pure air of the suburbs at a time when all the world is sleeping.

Newspapers are commercial concerns, and their proprietors are as anxious to attractively stock their columns as tradesmen their shop windows. We do not say so in our journals, but privately we are entirely aware that we are racing each other for attractive news. As to what does or does not sell in a newspaper, always an important question, opinions differ greatly. I doubt whether any two editors of metropolitan daily journals would agree on that point, the fact being that what pleases one audience does not necessarily interest another. Sometimes a newspaper will adopt a feature that has proved successful in a contemporary with most disappointing results in its own case. Now and then a particular feature will spread throughout the whole press. At one time the public is bent upon foreign news, at another time upon matters purely domestic, but I think all are agreed that the average metropolitan reader nowadays turns to his foreign news before he reads anything else. Two or three years ago there appeared to be a positive craze for sporting intelligence. To-day mere sporting news seems to have lost much of its attraction. The year before last the amount of cricket in the evening journals was a source of amazement. This year I venture to think cricket will reach its proper level.

But that every section of the public values the quick and accurate publication of news is obvious. The desire for speed increases each year, and it is now recognised that the main object of a modern newspaper organisation is the collection of news and the accurate and speedy publication thereof. Incidentally it may be mentioned that of the quickness with which this is performed by the press, the evening journals in particular, few of the public have the least appreciation. I have known the verdict of a trial, the result of a cricket match, or a boat race, published to the world within _ten seconds_ of the arrival of the news in the newspaper office. The statement seems incredible, but the thing can be done in more than one newspaper office in London and the provinces.

(Deciding the policy of the paper.)]

I have asked for and obtained an item of news from New York in seven minutes. In this space of time was comprised the writing of my question in London, its transmission to New York, the writing of the news there, and the telegraphing of it back to London.

The British evening journals, and more especially those of the provinces, and Scotland, are, in my opinion, ahead of the world in the rapidity with which they publish accurate information.

We newspaper men love to chat among ourselves of great examples of the publication of exclusive news, "beats" and "scoops," we call them. One of the most successful was that achieved by the _Pall Mall Gazette_ when it announced, in the teeth of press and official denials innumerable, the resignation of Mr. Gladstone. I was in the United States at the time, and can truly say that for well-nigh a month the _Pall Mall Gazette_ was advertised day after day by a contradictory telegram in every paper in the United States. It is said that £500 was paid for that item of intelligence. It would have been cheap at £5,000.

Another great achievement was the publication by the _New York World_ of news of the sinking of H.M.S. _Victoria_. It is not pleasant for the British journalist to remember that the full account first appeared in a journal published on the other side of the Atlantic, and that that account was retransmitted to England. Then among other sensational news victories were those of the _Times_ correspondent at Pekin, in the recent Far Eastern imbroglio, and of Mr. Archibald Forbes at the time of the Franco-Prussian war.

The present generation has almost forgotten a great newspaper development of a generation back. Nearly thirty years ago the whole world was wondering what had become of Dr. Livingstone. Many attempts were made to find him; there were private and semi-official hunts for the missing missionary, but without avail. Then the _Daily Telegraph_ and the _New York Herald_ despatched Mr. Stanley, who found him at Ujiji. Next to the splendid war work of Sir W. H. Russell during the Crimea, Stanley's work was the best expeditionary journey of the century. More recently we have seen great feats of newspaper enterprise, both in this country and the United States, grow out of the Hispano-American war. War news will probably always be a newspaper's greatest luxury.

The _Sheffield Daily Telegraph_ did a very big thing in 1867. I extract an account of the accomplishment from a recent publication:

"At that time, although few outsiders suspected it, there existed in Sheffield a British Vehmgericht--of which a man named Broadhead, secretary of the Sawgrinders' Union, was president--for the secret trial and punishment of non-unionist workmen. The _Telegraph_, acting on private and dearly-bought information, attacked this organisation, Sir William Leng, of course, finding the money, and often personally conducting the necessary investigations. It was a delicate as well as a dangerous task, as he soon found to his cost.

"One of his reporters was bludgeoned and left for dead in one of the principal streets of the town, and in broad daylight. The house in which another lodged was blown up with gunpowder. His own life was threatened day by day, and often many times a day. His leaders were written with a revolver on his desk and another strapped to his hip, and for nearly a year he never went abroad unarmed. At length the famous Royal Commission of 1867 was appointed, with the result that the secret horrors Sir William had so fearlessly denounced were dragged into the light of day. All England stood aghast, and the arch-villain Broadhead, together with Crookes, Hallam, and others of his tools, made full confession in order to save their own miserable necks. The power of the terrible tribunal was broken for ever; but the exposure cost the _Telegraph_, from first to last, some eighteen thousand pounds."

Sir William Leng's daring calls to mind that of Mr. Ross, of _Black and White_, who as a young man went through an experience that, while it proved a stepping-stone to his fortune (for he made nearly £1,000 by his exclusive telegrams to the press), thrilled the world for a very long time. The following is an account of the matter given me by a friend of his:--

In the memorable winter of 1880, when the snow lay so deep along the lines of the North that trains passed through tunnels of ice, and towns were isolated for days, a gruesome incident happened.

The Earl of Balcarres died at Florence, and the body, having been embalmed, was conveyed by tedious stages to Aberdeen, thence to be consigned to the mausoleum which formed part of the magnificent mansion at Dunecht, upon which the deceased Earl had spent twenty years of thought and "tons of money."

A hearse, of the lugubrious type one is accustomed to see in country towns, had been sent to await the belated train at Aberdeen, and the body was duly transferred, not without difficulty, for the bulk of the suite of coffins was a little greater than village hearses are made to meet. The weary ten mile journey was undertaken in the dark, amid a downfall of snow, over the bleak road that leads from the granite city to the village of Skene. Progress was slow, the night grew darker and stormier; the snow drifted in wreaths across the road; the horses became exhausted; the men in charge did their utmost for a time, but it seemed as if, in the words of the national poet, "the De'il had business on his hand." Hearse and horses became embedded in a bank of snow, and further effort was futile; the body had to be abandoned for the night.

On the following day the storm abated, assistance arrived, the vehicle was extricated, and the body was conveyed to Dunecht. There the funeral service was conducted in the chapel which is built over the family vault, and with little ceremony and few attendants the body was deposited on one of the shelves of the underground structure which was intended to be the tomb of the family to which its first tenant, the noble Earl, belonged.

The weird circumstances attending the Lord Balcarres' death and funeral were almost fittingly followed by events of unparalleled mystery. Twelve months almost to a day had transpired when a heavy odour of spices attracted the attention of the servants moving about the mansion. On examination it was found that the huge slab of stone which covered the doorway leading into the vault had been disturbed. The stone--seemingly heavy enough to require the strength of a dozen men to move it--had been lifted, the vault had been entered, the coffin "pinched" forward till it rested on the floor, the lid had been torn off, the two inner cases had been rent, the body removed, and the floor of the vault was strewn with the red sawdust by which the embalming fluid had been absorbed. Here was a mystery indeed.

The first hint of what had happened appeared in the papers on Saturday. The young Earl was telegraphed for, and outposts of police were established round the house, with instructions that no one was to be admitted, and no information was to be vouchsafed. One enterprising young journalist--Mr. W. D. Ross--who at that time was editing the principal evening paper in Aberdeen, resolved to break the silence by which his contemporaries were baffled. He secured the co-operation of one of the servants on the estate to whom he was known, and, deeming boldness best, found his way to the house, and demanded an audience of the Earl. The housekeeper, after some demur, consented. Plain-spoken tact was necessary in dealing with so delicate a matter; so when the Earl appeared, the young man explained that he was there as the representative of the _Times_ (of which he was then the correspondent) to consult the young peer's wishes as to what should be said about this mysterious matter, with a view to obviate malicious and mistaken versions.

Lord Balcarres wisely accepted this considerate method, and, despite the orders that had been issued, gave special facilities to the pressman to examine the vault and obtain the facts so far as they could be obtained at the time. The first result was that Mr. Ross secured the monopoly of information, and also the monopoly of the telegraph wires at Aberdeen, and on Monday morning all the papers throughout the country published columns on the Dunecht mystery. It was this publicity that eventuall resulted in the partial elucidation of the mystery.

For days and weeks the telegraph officials at Aberdeen were kept busy transmitting the reams of "copy" which, in his capacity of half detective and half reporter, this young man had prepared. Mr. Ross probed the matter minutely, and, apart from his important police work, so thoroughly was his newspaper task accomplished, that over thirty leading daily papers passed their correspondence into his hands. Through the various phases of the mystery, ample orders and handsome revenue poured into him, since sub-editors put no stint on the quantities of matter of vital interest furnished for the public under the heading of "The Dunecht Outrage." The sensation was kept up by speculation, searches by bloodhounds, police investigations, arrests, body-snatching theories, suggestions of black-mail, of malice, and every kind of motive, for twelve months.

During this time, the newspaper man, whose detective work was considered of the greatest value by the police, became an important medium between the parties supposed to be concerned and the detective staff of the city, a position of very considerable personal danger.

Then the interest died away, till in July of 1882, eighteen months after the rifling of the tomb, the body was found buried in the leaf mould that lay in the dry bed of a little rivulet that at one time had run through the grounds at Dunecht.

Public interest was again kept at high tension by the curiosity of the people to account for the motive of the outrage. Then came the apprehension of suspected persons, afterwards liberated, and finally of one named Souter, who was convicted in the High Court at Edinburgh and sentenced to penal servitude. The conviction hardly met the justice of the case, for it was obvious that there must have been a group of grave-robbers at work.

One of the most curious things about the case was that the police informed Mr. Ross that they believed it was the intention of the guilty parties to make a confession, and that they had elected to make him the medium of it. It was actually arranged that the parties were to travel to Aberdeen by a certain train to reveal the whole mystery, but for reasons that have never transpired this plan was subject to sudden eclipse, and to this day the mystery remains as much a mystery as ever. The unfortunate man Souter, whose actual guilt was greatly doubted, called upon Mr. Ross the moment he was set at liberty, and through him communicated to the Press a circumstantial repudiation of his own responsibility, and promised that what he knew about the crime and the criminals would ultimately be revealed when considerations of honour which had kept him silent could be removed.

This is the story of the famous mystery which formed one of the most thrilling newspaper sensations of modern times, and which created for the present manager of _Black and White_ a reputation for enterprise which has lasted till to-day.

Of a hundred interesting sides of newspaper life I have been unable to say anything. The dangers of war correspondents--the humours of the society column, and the people who want to get into it--the financial editor--the lady journalist--the parliamentary staff--the descriptive reporter--the newspaper artist--the _£ s. d._ of journalism--each and all of these, and many more, would make a paper of considerable interest; and Mr. Joseph Hatton should write his "Journalistic London" anew, for the whole newspaper position has changed since his last edition.

The sub-editor and the descriptive reporter appear to me to be the men upon whom the chief work of the journalism of the future will fall. In France, where they do many things well, such masters as Zola have raised descriptive newspaper writing to the level of an art. Here, save in the case of war correspondence and parliamentary work, we have not specialised much as yet. A descriptive reporter, as one of the artists who has illustrated this little chat of mine suggests, may be sent out to describe a murder trial, a fire, an execution, or interview a great novelist!

We shall improve by-and-by. The old verbatim reporter will always remain, but he must give way to the descriptive writer in many matters.

Touching the question of the publishing of great secrets--such as that of Mr. Gladstone's retirement already referred to--I claim for the newspaper press of Britain that it refrains from publishing news calculated to needlessly injure or offend. How well do we know the fair visitant who comes to us with some great scandal to sell, and who becomes almost indignant when she is politely shown out. Women, I fear, are more versed in this matter than men.

_Out with the River Police._
A murder trial.
A railway accident.
A political meeting.
An execution.
A colliery disaster.
Interviewing a distinguished novelist.
A fire.

]

THEIR MOTOR-CAR ELOPEMENT,

AND HOW IT ENDED.

BY EDGAR JEPSON.

_Illustrated by H. R. Millar._

The atmosphere of the room was charged almost with storm; there was a thrill upon its air, the thrill of pent emotion. Jack stood gazing out of the window; Kitty sat by the fire looking at his broad back almost hungrily, a craving for the clasp of his arms rending her, her hands clenched to the whitening of her finger-nails in the effort to keep control of her feelings.

"What's the use of having fifty thousand a year, if I can't marry the man I want!" she cried, fiercely.

At her words a sudden spasm of pain caught his breath, and twisted his averted face; but he made shift to say in his usual drawl--

"It does seem rather hard lines, little girl. Who is it?"

"Don't call me little girl! I believe you think I'm still a child!" said Kitty.

"Very well, very well--madam. Who is the man? Young Malmesford?"

"As if I should tell you!" cried Kitty.

"Well, you sent for me. I thought you wanted my advice or help, or something, don't you know!" said Jack.

"I want help badly enough," said Kitty; and he turned sharply at her tone to see that her face was very pale in the frame of her black hair. "But how could you help me in this? How could anyone help me? I oughtn't even to talk about it to you!"

"Oh, yes; you ought!" he said, quickly. "You've always talked about everything to me!" He paused awhile, then added, and he could not keep the sadness out of his voice, "So you want someone else to talk to about everything? Who is it? I'll deal with him all right." The last words came savagely.

"Oh!" cried Kitty, "I believe you'd order him to marry me, and thrash him if he refused!"

"I'd see that he did it!" said Jack, with the same savage earnestness.

A silence fell upon them; Kitty's thoughts seemed to grow more distressful, for now and again she sighed; Jack stared out of the window, and watched the deepening twilight blacken the park; it seemed to him that this confession of Kitty's was so blackening his life; the night was settling down upon it.

"Jack--do you--do you remember--about two years ago--you stopped kissing me. Why--why did you do it?" said Kitty, softly; she seemed to have wandered from the point. He turned to her; the glow of the fire alone lit the room now; and she was sitting full in it. Her face was still pale.

"Oh," he said, in discomfort, "you weren't a child any more. And you were a great heiress--and I was your friend and guardian--and all that sort of thing, don't you know!"

"Poor Jack! You're very poor, aren't you, Jack?"

"No, I'm not! I'm rolling in riches! I've four hundred a year!" said Jack, bitterly. "Besides, there's the Colonial Land Agency; I made twenty pounds out of that last year."

"What's four hundred a year with your tastes?" queried Kitty.

"Look here! don't let's talk about me. What about this fellow?" said Jack, clenching his fist and banging it on the table.

"You should never have left Westralia. You kept your horses, you got your sport; you were on the way to becoming the big man of the district," said Kitty, not to be diverted from her theme. "Do you remember what a swell you were when you first found me, six--no, seven--I'm always forgetting that I'm nineteen--years ago, and how poor father and I were? Do you know I should never have been anything but a wild bush-girl if you hadn't taken me in hand and looked after me? Really you taught me everything! I believe that but for that I might have worn the wrong clothes!"

"Oh, nonsense! You were _born_ all right," said Jack.

"Oh, yes, you did," said Kitty. "And when three years ago the gold was found, and father made his million, and died, appointing you my guardian, and you thought I ought to come to England and have some schooling, I believe you left Westralia just for my sake, to look after me."

"One always comes back to England," said Jack, quickly.

"You wouldn't have come but for that," said Kitty.

"Oh, yes, I should. Of course I should."

"I always thought it strange that father didn't leave you a few thousands a year for your trouble in looking after me and my fortune," said Kitty.

"He knew jolly well I shouldn't have taken it," said Jack, hotly.

There was a pause; and then she said thoughtfully--

"Do you know I believe father thought you would fall in love with me and marry me? Wasn't it a funny idea?" said Kitty.

"Oh, v--v--very funny! Very funny!" said Jack, grinding his teeth softly.

"Yes; just think of your age. Why, you'll be twenty-eight on the tenth of March," said Kitty.

"Oh! So it's that young fool Malmesford, is it?" said Jack, viciously.

"What's that young fool Malmesford?" asked the innocent Kitty.

"Look here," said Jack, in a quiet, strained voice, "we're getting away from the point. You want to marry a man; and I'm to make him marry you. Who is he?"

"Ah," said Kitty, plaintively, with a long-drawn breath, "now I see why you're so keen about it. You want to get rid of me. You are tired of the trouble of looking after my stupid investments. Well, I'm sure I don't wonder at it. You want to marry me off, and have done with it. I wouldn't have sent for you if I'd known; I've only added to your trouble."

"Well," said the goaded Jack, "thank goodness you'll be of age in two years; and then I sha'n't be plagued like this."

"Plagued," said Kitty, "how plagued? I'm so sorry. How was I to know you wanted to be rid of the trouble of me and my fortune? You never grumbled before."

"Oh, your fortune! I tell you I've wished a thousand times that every investment of yours went to smash, and you lost every penny of it! So there! I'll just leave you for awhile to make up your mind whether you're going to tell me who the man is, or not!" He flung out of the room in a heat, and banged the door.

Kitty laughed a little low laugh of extreme relief; but her eyes were all shining; and she said with a little shiver, "He loves me--he does--he does--he does!!!"

Presently she rose, with a very resolute face, took a hat and coat from a peg in the hall, went out of the back-door, and down to the stables. She went into a coach-house, switched on the electric light above her motor-car, and considered it thoughtfully. It was a big car, with something of the air of a trap, built to hold two. Then she went to the box of tools used for its machinery, and selecting a fine file stepped into the car, and set deliberately to work to file through the handle of the lever which started and stopped it. Her Australian life had made her a capital work-woman, and she did it neatly; but it was a long piece of work, and now and again she stopped to test it. She wished to file through it, so that she could break it with a jerk. All the while she worked she whistled softly. Something about her task seemed to amuse her.

At last she completed it to her liking, and then sat back in the car, weighing, with a face that grew very serious, the risks of the dangerous game she had resolved to play. After a long while she rose and said between her teeth, "I don't care if we are smashed, Jack and I, together."

She came back to the house, went to him in the billiard-room, and said, "We're going to dine at the Hall to-night. Aunt will go in the brougham, and you and I in the motor-car."

"I hate the beastly thing. I know there will be a smash some day," he said. His temper was still ruffled.

"Very well," said Kitty, gently. "You go with aunt, and I will go in the car by myself."

"I'll be shot if I do!" said Jack; then he said, "I suppose Malmesford will be there?"

"I suppose he will," said Kitty, very demurely. "But why do you speak so contemptuously of your cousin?"

"I didn't choose my cousins, did I?" said Jack.

"You're very irritable to-day," said Kitty, severely, and she left him.

Later, as they were settling themselves in the motor-car, Jack, still captious, said, "How many more rugs? are we going to the North Pole?"

Kitty's heart jumped: they might be going a good deal further: she only said, "There are ten degrees of frost already; and it isn't like a closed carriage."

She handled the lever very gingerly, and brought them to the Hall safely. Jack did not enjoy the dinner. Kitty and the Marquis of Malmesford were plainly great friends: she had never, indeed, been so nice to him before. Jack tried to regard their friendship with the eye of an indulgent guardian, hardened, as he believed himself, to the thought of her marrying; he made a very poor hand at it. He had accustomed himself, indeed, to looking at her across the great gulf of her wealth; but the sight of another man making fortunate love to her awoke in him a desperate jealousy.

They were late leaving the Hall; and it was a bitter black frost. Aunt Anne started first in her brougham, and then Kitty, in a long sealskin jacket and sealskin cape, walked down between Jack and Malmesford to the stables, where the motor-car awaited them. Jack wrapped the rugs round her very carefully, and took his seat at her side; she cried a careless "Good-night!" to Malmesford, and started the car gently. As they turned into the road at the end of the drive, she moved the lever nearly to full speed, and with a sharp jerk of her strong little wrist snapped off the handle.

"What's that?" said Jack.

"Oh, Jack!" she cried, with an odd, excited thrill in her voice, "I've smashed the handle, and we can't stop!"

"Good Heavens!" cried Jack, and threw his arm around her.

The speed began to quicken.

"The lever's nearly at full speed," said Kitty, quietly. "What are we to do?"

His arm tightened round her, and the alternatives raced through his mind. "We must strike the Great North Road at Anderfield, and heaven forgive any one who gets in our way!" he said.

"Six miles and two turns," said Kitty; "but it's our only chance."

The hedges were flying past. The first turn was two miles away, and they were very soon on it. Kitty put on all the brake she could; and they came round it safely. They came down hill to the second turn: fortunately it was not sharp: a long hill fairly steep, and, for all the brake, the machine went quicker and quicker until it seemed almost to fly, scarcely touching the ground. The hedge of the other side of the Great North Road sprang suddenly up before them: they seemed almost on it; Jack, with his heart in his mouth, lifted Kitty half out of her seat as they whizzed round the corner on two wheels: the car settled with a jerk that proved the strength of its springs, and they ripped down the Great North Road.

Kitty laughed a short hysterical laugh.

"I thought we'd gone to glory together!" she said: and they both lay back panting.

"How far are we going?" said Jack.

"It won't stop for fifty miles," said Kitty.

"Good Lord!" said Jack. "Can't I do anything? Let me get at the machinery."

"You can do nothing!" said Kitty, sharply.

For a long while neither said a word. The car sped along with a querulous, eerie whirr that rose to a clattering snarl as it hurtled down hill. The cold air stung their faces; the hedges were level, black walls on either side; now and again they flew through a sleeping village; and the dogs who ran out to bark, turned and fled yelping from this sinister, rushing monster. Kitty's firm hand steered them steadily, save when the car jerked snarling down hill, out of control; now and again she set the whistle hooting. Jack sat with his mind in a whirl of fears of what might befall her. Little by little the oppression of a nightmare began to weigh upon them as a binding spell.

Jack broke it by withdrawing his arm from around her, and lighting a cigar; he did not slip his arm back.

Presently she said softly, "Hold me again, Jack, I feel safer"--his arm slipped round her--"I feel--I feel--as if some dreadful beast were carrying us away."

She looked infinitely childlike; and he gripped her closer.

"Poor aunt Anne, she'll think we've had a smash, as indeed we may," she said presently.

"By Jove, yes; they'll be hunting the neighbourhood for us!" said Jack.

"As for Lord Malmesford, he'll think you've run away with me," said Kitty.

"Oh, nonsense!" said Jack, uneasily.

"He will though. Juliette Halliwell will tell him so. I saw her get very angry at the affectionate way you were looking at me at dinner," said Kitty.

"I wasn't!" said Jack.

"Oh, yes, you were; ever so affectionately. What kind of affection was it, Jack--paternal?"

"Talk of something else!" said Jack, in a thick voice; and nestling against him, she felt him quiver and his heart shake him at each thumping beat.

Some miles further on the lights of a town rose suddenly a little way ahead. Kitty set the whistle hooting, and slowed the car as much as she could, but even then they dashed down the long silent street at a very dangerous pace. It was fortunate that it was empty. They were a mile beyond it before they breathed easily again, and Kitty said, "What town was that?"

"I don't know," said Jack. "We're five-and-twenty miles from home."

The road stretched far away ahead, very white in the moonlight; and the feeling that the car was a malignant living creature came upon them more oppressively than ever, wearing their nerves.

Kitty nestled closer to him--a fear that her desperate freak would have a tragic end invading and filling her heart. They rushed up a long hill--the car seemed to breast it like a strong demon--and at the top saw before them a long steep descent.

"Now the brute's going to have all its own way," said Kitty, between her clenched teeth.

"Never mind, little girl," said Jack, cheerily, "sit tight." If she had not been there, he felt that he would have enjoyed the danger; as it was, he sat in torture.

"It is out of control!" cried Kitty; and, peering ahead: "There's--there's a waggon at the bottom of the hill!"

The whistle hooted and hooted; she gave the car the brake; and at each leap it jarred every bone in her body. They rushed towards the waggon; if the waggon was not on its right side of the road, they were smashed: they were upon it; Kitty screamed out; there was a snapping crash; then they were rushing along the empty road with the left splash-board torn off. Kitty lay back in a dead faint. Jack caught the steering-gear in his right hand, raised Kitty with his left arm, and twisted into her place, holding her on his knees. The car began to slacken and go smoother up the opposite hill; in three minutes it was steady again. Kitty lay heavy and still in his arms, her face very white in the moonlight; her faint breathing scarce parted her lips.

Uphill and downhill, through villages, through another town the car fled on. Now and again Kitty murmured a word, now she seemed to sleep. The night was wearing on. At last it seemed to him that the beast was tiring; and he scarce dared believe it. But breasting the next long hill it slowed and slowed; its moan hushed; it came to a crawl. Thirty yards from the top it stopped a moment, moved on again, then stopped for good. For all its danger he sighed that their ride was at an end. Kitty never stirred; he gave her a little shake; and she sighed too, and raised herself. They looked down on a great stretch of country; here and there the dim twinkling showed the lights of a town.

"There are some biscuits and a flask of cherry brandy, if it isn't broken, in the box of your seat," said Kitty, slipping into the place at his side. He fished them out unharmed, and they munched the biscuits, and drank from the flask by turns.

He looked at his watch, and said, "Ten past three! By Jove, we've had a narrow squeak!"

"Three in the morning, and miles from anywhere. I'm hopelessly compromised," said Kitty.

Jack knitted his brows, thinking it out; he could not gainsay it. He said nothing. "Oh!" said Kitty, almost in a wail, "I thought you were a man of honour, Jack."

"Well?" said Jack.

"There is only one course open to you," said Kitty.

"Well, I suppose there is," said Jack, a little stiffly. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes: I will--I must--I must," said Kitty, with a deep sigh.

Presently she said in a very low voice, "Have you no sense of what is fitting?" As she spoke she looked into his eyes, swiftly and away.

He caught her to him, and kissed her; it seemed to him that her lips were responsive.

A sudden jealous pang wrung his heart. "But--but--the other man: the man you want to marry?" he said.

"Ah, yes," said Kitty, carelessly--"the other man. It's no use talking about him now. Let us forget him. I will tell you about him when--when--we are married."

She threw her arms round his neck and whispered, "Do you think you will learn to love me, Jack?"

He pressed her to him and cried passionately, "For four years I have loved you more and more every day. Every day I have cursed your money more!"

"Poor Jack!" said Kitty, and her eyes were full of tears. He lifted her out of the car, putting his arm round her, and supporting her; and they began to walk down the hill in search of a railway station, careless, in the glow of their happiness, of that bitter cold, and of the inevitable long wait for a train.

HOW WE GET OUR WEATHER.

BY GAVIN MACDONALD.

_With photographs illustrating the queer side of the matter._

In most of the morning papers we are accustomed to the luxury of a detailed weather report and forecast. The majority glance at it with a sceptical smile. They are of opinion that in order to be on the safe side they must invert its message. If fine weather and sunshine are predicted, they sagely nod and take down the homely gamp. The prediction of a hurricane or stormy showers is the signal for leaving umbrellas and overcoats at home.

However, those who know anything of the gigantic strides meteorology has made within the past few years are aware that in the main its prognostications are accurate. In fact, it is a matter for great surprise that its practical uses are not more generally recognised and taken advantage of.

If you meet your best friend in the street his first six words contain some reference to the weather. The merest stranger looks questioningly at the sky when he has made his bow. Two-thirds of the daily conversation of the British Isles has to do with this subject; nor is this surprising, for it is a matter of vital importance, affecting all classes alike.

A wet Bank Holiday may mean thousands of pounds out of a railway company's pocket, not to mention the disappointment and chagrin of countless thousands of prospective holiday makers. A severe frost may disorganise a whole trade. In 1881, for instance, the whole building trade was at a standstill for a period of nearly three weeks, owing to the severity of the frost. And to the farmers, horticulturists, and fruit-growers the weather is a matter of financial life or death.

Meteorology is of invaluable assistance in other ways: in warning our coasts of coming storms; in deciding the climate and consequent healthfulness of the different parts of the country.

You can't even build a new town successfully without it, for only by accurate meteorological observation can the two most important factors of water-supply and sewerage be dealt with. For example, in planning a new waterworks, the ground subject to the greatest rainfall, and having the utmost gathering capacity, must be selected; while in constructing the system of sewerage, it is essential for the surveyor to accurately gauge the force and volume of the heaviest thunder-shower. If this is miscalculated, pipes of insufficient capacity may be laid with disastrous results to the city and its inhabitants.

These things are only to be learned by a study of meteorology.

Few people have any knowledge of the science beyond that supplied them by the forecasts and charts in the daily papers. Consequently the charts, which are more or less abstruse, are only understood by the few, and the forecasts are indulgently tolerated as a description of useless fortune-telling, rendered respectable by scientific recognition.

The popular idea seems to be that certain scientific men who have given the subject considerable study, cast a knowing eye on the evening sky, and pass on written prognostications for use in the morning papers.

As a matter of fact the method by which we obtain our weather reports and forecasts is very different, and savours even more strongly of romance than the clairvoyant system usually identified with the seers of the weather office.

Two institutions look after our weather--the Meteorological Office, a Government department with a grant of £15,000 per annum, and the Royal Meteorological Society, a scientific institution maintained by the subscriptions and donations of its members.

The Meteorological Office occupies a dull set of rooms in Victoria Street over a shop, and, other than the latest weather chart, hung up outside the street door, there is nothing to intimate that the presiding wizards of the weather sit upstairs, and that if you are particularly anxious to have the latest information in their possession you have only to walk up and pay the nominal sum of one shilling.

Likewise you may receive the latest information by letter for the same fee, or by wiring to "Weather," London, the shilling fee and the cost of a telegraphic reply.

Farmers and others to whom the question of weather is a vital one, especially at the hay and harvest seasons, are supplied with harvest forecasts for the nominal sum of 2_s._ 6_d._ per quarter, in addition to the cost of the telegrams.

In addition to this, a set of forecasts is daily supplied to the newspapers, and about twenty-eight well-known agriculturists, for public exhibition in their neighbourhoods.

The system employed in making up the weather is of more than usual interest, and is worthy of some description.

In connection with the office are some 140 observing stations, including 17 belonging to the Royal Meteorological Society and 19 to the Scottish Meteorological Society. These stations are divided into classes according to the value and quantity of the observations supplied by them. Excepting the cases of telegraphic stations, which are subsidised by the central office, the observers are mostly volunteers who are interested in meteorology, and who provide their own instruments.

The office receives sixty telegraphic weather reports each morning, eighteen every afternoon, and twenty-nine each evening, in addition to an enormous mass of data supplied by volunteer and casual observers.

The forecast we are accustomed to find in our morning paper is compiled from the telegraphic reports of the subsidised stations. There is something peculiarly fascinating in the idea of the clerk of the weather scenting out a big gale and issuing a warning hours before its arrival on our coasts. One associates him with a prophet or witch, and very naturally wonders how it is done.

As a matter of fact forecast work is far from romantic, entails very great mental labour, excellent judgment, and great scientific knowledge and experience.

The forecasts are made three times a day--at 11 a.m., 3.30 p.m., and 8.30 p.m. They are, of course, based on the telegraphic reports and observations. The 8.30 p.m. forecast is made for the morning newspapers.

Among the volunteer observers are representatives of all professions. In one case a deaf and dumb gentleman presides over a station of considerable importance.

The stations themselves are mostly situated in the observers' grounds, and the surroundings of some of them are very picturesque. The stations at Rousdon and Chapel Hill, Torquay, are both beautifully situated. Princetown station is particularly interesting, because of its situation in the yard of the great Dartmoor penal establishment! We may be quite sure that its presence in such surroundings has nothing to do with the well-being of the convicts themselves, the dreary routine of whose lives is little affected by considerations of weather. In another case, the meteorological observatory is found on the tower of a church--that of Boston, Lincolnshire. Among the instruments on the tower is an electrical thermometer connected with the ground by a wire so that it may be read without the necessity of ascending. It is impossible to over-estimate the usefulness of a station such as this, situated as it is in the midst of purely agricultural country. The farmers round Boston avail themselves, it need scarcely be said, of the valuable information furnished by the mysterious little instruments on their church tower.

More interesting, perhaps, than any of these is the observatory situated in a London churchyard.

Although every day a ceaseless throng of human beings crowd and jostle in the streets of the City of London, yet it has always been difficult to obtain observations there, for the very good reason that scarcely anybody lives within its precincts. The only station of the kind is to be found in the churchyard of St. Luke's, Old Street, one of the few restful spots in this busiest corner of the world.

The highest station in Great Britain is that on the summit of Ben Nevis, 4,407 feet above the sea. The northmost station is in the Shetland Isles.

Many gentlemen among the volunteer observers are leading meteorological experts, and spend much time and money on the equipment and maintenance of their stations.

A very fine private observatory is that belonging to Col. Knight, of Harestock, Winchester, of which an illustration appears on page 60.

The scaffolding in the foreground was erected for the purpose of lowering an earth thermometer into the ground. This instrument, which is constructed to register the temperature seventy feet below the surface, is contained in the wooden chamber standing at an angle to the scaffolding, and was photographed during the sinking process.

Besides the work of preparing weather reports and forecasts, the office fulfils many other functions, such as the study of ocean meteorology, climatology, and so forth. In connection with the former work, the office annually receives some hundreds of reports and observations from officers of ships of the Royal Navy and Mercantile Marine.

The fishermen and sailors round our coasts have much to thank the office for. Besides supplying all the ports with daily weather reports and forecasts, it has lent over 200 barometers to fishing villages and other places on the coast for the benefit of the seafaring population.

Fortunately in this country we suffer comparative immunity from tornados, sirrocos, cyclones, and other dangerous natural phenomena.

That we can produce something more ferocious than an April shower, however, is amply demonstrated by our illustration of two huge rents torn in a hillside at Langtoft, East Yorkshire, by the bursting of a waterspout.

Hailstorms are another great source of destruction. Most people will remember the damage caused by a hailstorm in Essex last year, when several farms and homesteads were utterly wrecked, and great numbers of cattle killed.