CHAPTER VIII.
��'THE LEISURE HOUR' w. AND R. CHAMBERS
CASSELL AND CO.
THE JUBILEE OF 'THE LEISURE HOUR. 1
FRIENDS of pure literature for the people must hail with delight the success which has attended the publication of The Leisure Hour. Its record of fifty years shows uninterrupted progress from the date of its first number, January 1st, 1852, to its Jubilee Part, January, 1902. Its influence for good in encouraging a taste for wholesome reading among the masses has been immense. Refer- ence is made to this by my father in an article on ' The Literature of the People ' in The Athenceum of the 1st of January, 1870, in which he stated that " The Leisure Hour has run the highwayman's horse into a fence, and left him with his head inextricably fixed in it." The earliest projectors of The Leisure Hour at first thought of naming the new venture The Friend of the People, but the former title found the most favour.
The Jubilee number contains portraits of a hundred of its contributors. These include those of its first three editors, W. Haig Miller, Dr. James Macaulay, and William Stevens, with bio- graphical notices. A record is given of the chief subjects treated of during the fifty years, and it forms almost a history of the nation's progress. To travel and discovery a prominent place has always been accorded, and in 1852 Dr. John Kennedy contributed papers on Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition ; there were also articles on Australia and its then recently discovered gold diggings, and a description of M. Dupont's proposal to span the Atlantic by sus- pending a cable by means of buoys placed at certain determinate distances. In 1853 we have an account of Layard's explorations at Nineveh, and of Commander M'Clure's voyage during the same year, when he proved the circumnavigation of North America possible by the North-West Passage. For this he received the honour of knighthood and also a gift of 5.000Z.
It was not until 1854 that fiction began to assume the longer serial form. During this year and 1855 considerable space was devoted to Russia and the war. Mention is made, among other things, of the great kindness shown to the Russian prisoners of war, of whom there were 400 at Lewes, and who were much surprised at their treatment. On first receiving intimation that they were to be taken out for a walk they wept and wrung their hands, sup-
��1901, Dec. 28.
The Jubilee of
The Leitv.ro
Hour.
��John Francis
on The Literature of the People.'
��Portraits of Contributors.
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