Ministers, leading men in the House, and the chief of the Opposition, are not only given, as a rule, verbatim, but are accorded the dignity of “the great I.” The orations of less influential members are reported in the third person, and not a few insignificant speakers are only mentioned as having spoken. It is on sufferance alone, however, that reporters are allowed in the Chambers of the Legislature, notwithstanding that a special gallery for their accommodation has been erected; any member can clear the House of strangers at any moment he pleases. But the “parliamentary reports” have become an institution of the country, and one of the “representatives of the people” would as soon think of interfering with the publication of these reports as he would of proposing to pay the National Debt out of his own purse. Occasionally, indeed, a member does feel irritated at some apparent neglect, becomes cantankerous, and makes a wild effort to punish the press by suspending this privilege. But it is the serpent biting the file; the only notice taken of his spite is to omit his name altogether from the debates. This touches the indignant member to the quick, but sooner or later he falls on his knees before the Gallery, as penitent and humble as a prisoner at the bar of the House.
In our Law and Police Courts may be seen, sitting in a privileged compartment, a busy penman taking down notes of the proceedings. This person is likewise preparing copy for the press. He is generally a barrister not overburthened with briefs, who is glad to eke out an uncertain income by “just doing a little reporting.” As a rule, he receives a weekly stipend, and, with one or two exceptions, is in the service of three or four journals, receiving a limited salary from each. He writes upon very thin prepared paper with a pencil also specially adapted to the paper, and is thus enabled to produce six or seven copies of his reports at once. This saves time, labour, and expense. Amongst the other members of the regular force may be enumerated the persons who watch the transactions of the city—the operations of the Bank and the Stock Exchange, Mining Matters, the Coal, Corn, Sugar, Tea, and Tallow Markets, &c., as well as that important and somewhat mysterious individual who peers into the private movements of royalty, and is known to the public as the “Court Newsman.”
During the session of Parliament, when space is valuable, the “Penny-a-liner” finds it difficult to subsist, though such is his art, that he seldom fails to “send in” something true and acceptable. But when Parliament rises and autumn commences, he gathers in a rich harvest. The “Sea Serpent,” a “shower of frogs,” “four-at-a-birth,” “people consumed by spontaneous combustion,” “marvellous escapes,” and no less “marvellous rescues,” “awfully sudden deaths,” “wonderful escapes,” “curious travels,” &c., form the stock-in-trade of these gentry, and vigorously they ply their pen, and this in additon to the legitimate business of real accidents and events which they can honestly record. Not the least active amongst them, however, is the Fire-reporter. This is not a chance individual, created on the spot by the catastrophe. He is as well known as the turncock of the parish, and is recognised by the engine-drivers as they rattle along the streets, and is taken up along with them to give a full, true, and particular account of each “terrible calamity.” This is his prerogative, and one would as soon think of an attempt to oust the sweep from his crossing, as the fire-reporter from his berth.
Next, as to the Foreign Correspondents, and “Our Special.” Where are they not to be found? In Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and that fifth quarter of the world, our Antipodes, there they are more than gleaners, plodding away to pick up information for the reader of the “Daily Argus” and his contemporaries. Cast an eye over the map, fix upon one great city, and it would be difficult to say that a correspondent is not there. In Paris and Berlin; at Athens and Alexandria; in India, China, Australia, and New Zealand; in New York and California, Chili and Peru; wherever the track of British commerce and British interests is to be followed, there this indefatigable “servitor of the public” may be found, noting down facts and opinions for the benefit and entertainment of his fellow-countrymen.
In most of the capitals of Europe he is as well known as the ambassador himself. In fact, the duties of the two are closely analogous. The object of the one is to keep his government au courant with the political aspect of affairs in that country to which he is accredited; of the other, to acquaint the public with precisely the same information. It not unfrequently happens, too, that the “journalist” is the better man, and can send home a more authentic and more reliable picture of the state of matters. Lord M., or Sir N. N., is raised too high, lives in too official an atmosphere, mixes too much with notables and politicians of one stamp, to obtain the best means of judging of the truth. His vision is too circumscribed by the gilt and velvet barriers of the court for him to be able to estimate justly the opinions of the nation. The views which a minister wishes him to receive are so strewed in his path, that he cannot resist the temptation of accepting them as gospel. “Our Correspondent,” on the other hand, takes a wider range, learns of the masses, and is thus in a position to correct the erroneous impressions of the ambassador. He has the entrée not unfrequently of the sanctum sanctorum of ministers, and moves in the highest society of the land. Where he is not on intimate terms with cabinet councillors themselves, he is generally acquainted with under-secretaries and officials who let him into the secrets of the Government, and enable him to warn the world while yet there is time. As one of the people, again, he dwells amongst and sympathises with them. They are not afraid to lay bare their hearts before him; they pour their grievances into his ears; they give him their opinions of the state of the country; they regard him as their friend; and whether it be on matters of politics or religion, of art or commerce, of government or of justice, they desire reform, they know that he will be their best advocate and coadjutor; they consequently look up to him as the Mer-