The Press. — London, England, 1855-02-24 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 24, 1855. are glanced at ; but we find no account of the old modes of conveyance, the waggons from the primitive inn-yards, the lumbering chariots, and the Flemish barbs. _ _ We might easily point out a variety of similar points upon which the volume is deficient; our object, however, is not to exhibit defects, but to indicate the kind of information we desiderate in a compilation otherwise trust worthy and useful. Regarded merely as a miscellaneous heap of facts, gathered from a multitude of scattered sources, and put to gether with more diligence than judgment, the publication may be consulted with advan tage for isolated details. It throws light into many neglected crannies, and collects in a portable form a mass of heterogeneous de scriptions which, taken separately, are curious and valuable. It is in the want of combination and design that Mr. Timbs has failed to make the most of his materials, and to give effect and purpose to his labours. The distinguish ing merit of the book consists in the Mum of its particulars respecting the last half-cen tury and the present atate of London ; and, under this limitation, we are not aware of any work that contains so much matter in so com pact a shape, or conveyed with so much clear ness and accuracy. Les Petits Paris —Le Journaliste. Taride. Pane: IN imitations of the " Characters" of the old Greek philosopher, Theophrastus, the French have always greatly excelled. That of La Bruyere, which Macaulay somewhere calls " the production of a small, fine mind, full of " delicate tact," has taken a permanent and distinguished place in European literature, and is universally read with nearly as much eager ness as when it first appeared some two cen turies ago, and certainly with more serious attention. In those of late years, which have been very numerous, the principal types of the different classes, trades, professions, and cha racters of the great French people are hit off with wonderful skill and vigour, and not un frequently with brilliant wit. This is particu larly true of " Les Francais Peints par Eux memes " and " Les Physiologies," saying no thing of the admirable sketches of character which are to be found in different novelists, and especially in the great Balza°. The thing, indeed, has been so well and completely done that it is not without surprise that we find that it is being done over again in a series of diminutive volumes bearing the above title. La Bruyere, to be sure, says "it n'y a point " d'annees que les folies des hommes ne puis " sent fouriiier un volume "; but really there is so little distinguishable difference between the types of the Frenchmen of 1854 and those of 1844—though in the interval two or three revolutions have passed over their heads—that they need not, it seems to us, have been called on to sit again for their portraits. The authors of " Les Petits Paris " have, however, thought differently ; and we hear that their work has met with a very large share of publio favour ; but we cannot, for our parte, praise it very highly. The actor, stockjobber, priest, mountebank, physi cian, gambler, and the forty or fifty other types of the good Parisians whom they have selected, are perfectly familiar in " the form " and habit as they live," with all their pecu liarities, eccentricities, and absurdities, to the existing French people, and, moreover, to all foreigners who have visited Paris, skimmed through French light literature, or gone to French plays—that is, to everybody one de gree removed from the manual-toiling classes. Nor do the style and quality of the work relieve the staleness of the subject. Written by the three editors of the Charivari, we find in every page a laborious attempt at fun; but the fun evolved—when any is evolved at all— is rather dismal, or is of that good old war ranted-to-last class which is to be found in all jest-books. And even that is disfigured by such gross vulgarities as, " As-tu finites " manieres? " "Affeux Bilboquet va!" To one of the subjects treated by our au thors—that of "Le 3ournaliste"--we turned with a certain degree of professional interest; aid, seeing that they began by a formal pro. wise to conduct the reader behind the scenes THE PRESS. of a Parisian newspaper, and to introduce him to all the personages whose united labours go to the composition of one, we expected that they would make some curious revelations. But we have been greatly disappointed. They tell nothing particularly new—make blun ders which are quite surprising in men who are journalists themselves—and throw no light whatever on the areana of the Parisian press. Still there are certain points in their little work which may be worth noticing, if only to show the difference in the way of getting up a Parisian and a London news paper. With the modus operandi in a London news paper-office the reader is of course tolerably acquainted. Here is the way in which the newspaper-men of Paris go to work : In the morning the editors assemble in the bureau de redaction. The first thing with which they occupy them • selves is the reading of other newspapers. These papers are spread on an immense table covered with a green cloth. They are English, German, Spanish, ltahan, Asiatic, African, American, &c. This is a mistake, to begin with. Newspaper editors in Paris do not read English, German, Spanish, or other foreign journals. Except the Dant., there is not a single newspaper office in Paris, we verily believe, which pos sesses an editor capable of reading any living language except his own. " Then where do " the papers get their foreign news from?" we shall be asked. Why, from an office in the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, kept by a gentle man named Eaves, which office makes a business of supplying every day a certain number of lithographic sheets, containing translations of news and leaders from the Spanish, Italian, German, and English news papers. From these sheets the editors cut such portions as may suit them, or take facts to work up into leading articles. They have no other means of making themselves ac quainted with foreign questions, and hence it is that Parisian newspapers generally are, in their foreign departments, scandalously in ferior to those of England and Germany. The editors, after reading their newspapers, indulge in the pleasures of the forniente. Some repose at full length on the sofa ; others lounge in easy-chairs ; others make jokes; others chatter; and others, in looking over the papers, cry out any fact which may happen to strike their attention. All smoke cigars. Happy fellows! At London they would have to work—work—work! One of them, however, armed with a pair of gigantic scissors, cuts out paragraphs from the Paris and provincial newspapers, and sticks them on to bits of paper. He is called the cutler. If he cannot find matter enough, he invents some terrible suicide, or horrible murder. The principal editor of a newspaper is thus described : The redacteur en chef is generally a man of large pro perty. lie has a room to himself, which is more orna mented than that of the ordinary writers. It has even a clock on the chimneyplece, and rats and mice do not visit it so frequently. You see in it an infinite number of books, pamphlets, shares in canals, railways, and bitumen com panies—almanacs, engravings, and lettere from the four parts of the world. A principal editor is prodigiously influential—he is a giant, a colossus. The beat way of worming yourself into his good graces is to pay great atten tion to his wife when he gives a party. Always take care to ask her to dance. Amongst newspaper-men she is called La Redaction; and they say to one another, " i will i nvite La Redaction to dance 1 " The leading-article writer : . _ He is necessarily possessed of a certain degree of gra vity, and is generally rather bald. It is his business to know everything, and especially political economy. He is, no doubt, a perfectly good fellow in private life; but at the newspaper he is an awful humbug. The tartinier* After the writer of leading articles comes the tartinier properly so called—that is, he who writes on any subject whatever, and at any length whatever—who supplies a certain quantity of copy. regularly, punctually, in the same period, just as the omnibus goes from the Madeleine to the Bastille. The writers then describe briefly the theatrical critic, the gentleman who supplies news at so much a line—penny-a-liner he would be called here—and the feuilletoniste. But they say nothing worth quoting. Of foreign correspondents they have not a word, for, with one exception, the Paris papers have no correspondents resident abroad ; nor of the parliamentary reporter, for there is no Parlia- • There is no word in the newspaper-slang vocabulary which pleases UN more than this. The (artist, the reader is aware, is a huge Flice of bread spread with Jam or butter, and is a favorite aliment of Schad-buys. Heavy, iusipid, and indigestnhh., It capitally symbolises certain newspaper articles—in the Eng lish press, those of the Globe, for example. 180 meat in France now a days ; nor of the law reporter, for the Paris papers content them selves with cutting reports of law cases from the Gazette des Tribunans, or the Droit ; nor of a number of other attaches who are con sidered indispensable in an English news paper-office. Except, too, a sneer at Emile do Girardin, of the Prone, forhis egregious vanity in allowing himself to be flattered by his own employes in his own newspaper, the work con tains no direct allusion to press notabilities, as it might and ought to have done ; neither does it glance at the politics or influence of the different Paris journals, or at the extraor dinary intrigues, political and pecuniary, which frequently take place in connection with them ; nor at the marvellous changes of political conviction which their writers have undergone ; nor at a thousand other things which were decidedly called for, and which would have been decidedly interesting. We could have wished, too, to have seen the authors lash with greater vigour than they have done that in credible vanity of French newspaper-folk which causes them to announce gravely when they leave town, and when they come back again, when they are sick, when they dine in la grand monde, and when their wives give them babies. The press of no country in the world has exercised such tremendous influence on public . affairs as that of Paris—and none has been so much looked up to by foreigners. Yet that press has never in our humble opinion been equal to the London newspapers. News is the grand thing for a newspaper ; but never has a Paris journal had correspondents resi dent in every foreign capital, and agents in every part, and reporters flying everywhere, as our English daily papers have always had, and have now more than ever. In political writing some of the Paris papers were at one time eminently distinguished—the Difbats, the Presse, and the National, for example; but all the others always displayed deplorable mediocrity—and even the three said excep tions never gave much proof of farseeing political sagacity. In literary criticism thiS . English press has always cast that of Plitis . completely into the shade ; indeed, unfit within the last three or four years the latter' did not make it a regular feature in its columns. In two things only could Paris journalism ever claim a real superiority— theatrical criticism and feuilletons ; and of those two, feuilletons must be struck out of the account, as they are not a regular and legiti mate department of the newspaper At the present moment it would be positively cruel to compare the Parisian with the English journals. A war is raging, and they have no correspondents to report it ; important events are passing or preparing in every part of the globe, and all they relate about them is con tained in paltry and badly-translated pilferings from local newspapers ; European questions of tremendous import arc on the tapis, and they dare not say a word about them, for they enjoy no liberty. History of Political Literature from the Earliest Times. By Robert Blakey. Vols. I. and 11. Loudon : Bentley. MR. BLAKEY has chosen a wide subject, and we must do him the justice of saying that he has displayed much talent and industry in its treatment. He has brought together a con siderable body of information respecting tho doctrines of political writers from "the earliest times." He commences with the political in stitutions of Moses ; and, reviewing rapidly the political literature of Greece ani Rome, and of the Christian Fathers, he brings his first volume to the end of the fourteenth century. The second volume is occupied with the political writings of the following three hundred years, terminating with the seven ' teenth century. Two more volumes are to come; one continuing the work through the eighteenth century, and the other carrying it on to our own time. Making every allowance for the difficulties which the author had to contend with. we can hardly admit that ho has chosen the best method of making the work in " its several " parts as popular as possible." We do not think he has succeeded in what . he says was his " chief aim "—viz., the getting at " the