The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-06-19 00:00:00

NEWSPAPER PRESS FUND.

The twelfth annual banquet of this institution was
given in London, on Saturday evening, at Willis's
Rooms, St. James's. Covers were laid for about 250,
and, as usual the gathering was one of the most in-
teresting and enjoyable of the season. The ch•tir was
taken by the Dean of WestminQter, and amongst the
guests were Lord Houghton (President of the Fund),
Count Beust, Lords Colchester and Crewe, Monsignor
Capel, the Rev. F. Graham, Rev. C. Darby Reade,
Rev. G. C. Bell, Rev. J. H. Lupton, Rev. Allen
Edwards Rev. R. Whiston (Rochester), the Mayors
of Arundel and Bury St. Edmunds, Mr. Scourfield,
M.P., Mr. Palmer, M.P., Mr. Balfour, M.P., Mr.
John Corbett, M.P. Mr. Collins, M.P., Mr. Newde-
gate, M.P., Mr.
Moore,
M.P., Mr. Dunbar, M.P.,
Mr. Birley, M.P., Mr. Beresford-Hope, M.P., Cap-
tain Stacpoole, M.P., Mr. P. Maclagan, M.P., Mr.
Downing, M.P., Mr. Gregory, M.P., Mr. Brogden,
M.P., Mr. Allsopp, M.P., &c.

The Very Rev. Chairman (who was received with
enthusiastic applause) in proposing the toast of the
evening, said :—Some of those who have occupied this
honourable position on former occasions have in-
geniously likened the English press to this or that
ancient institution. I confess that, even if this ground
were not already occupied, I should find it difficult to
follow their example, because it seems to me the
English press is an institution altogether too new,
too mysterious, too capricious, too beneficent to be
compared to any other institution past or present.
If I am to look for some kind of comparison to
the influences—the mysterious influences—of the
English press, I find myself driven to the poetry of
the last century, where, in the background of every
drama or epic, there was .what was called the machi-
nery of fairies, hobgoblins and the like, who appeared
at strange intervals, and brought their influence to
bear on the direction of human affairs. This meeting
in this respect might be likened to a kind of Allhallo-
ween, in which we come face to face for the first,
and probably for the last time, with those unknown,
unseen, and curious agencies of the press. (Laughter.)
The English press is an institution peculiar among the
like institutions on the face of Europe. In its wide
ramifications—in its far-reaching influences—there is
nothing like the English press in any other part of the
world; at least, on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
(Cheers.) I sometimes think, when we hear of the
various troubles and convulsions or even of peaceful
movements in other countries, that there are hardly
any of our English institutions the transplantation of
which would cause BO great a change as the transplan-
tation of one of our great English journals, with all
its staff of leader writers, reporters, and corres-
pondents, to one of the centinental cities. (Cheers.)
Although peculiarly English, yet it is unques-
tionably cosmopolitan in its influence. It is
certainly true that to whatever part of the world
we go, we find our own countrymen still eager,
at whatever table d'hote they sit, to catch some glimpse
of their own familiar newspapers; and often, too, we
find distinguished foreigners turning to the correspon-
dence of English journals for that authentic informa-
tion about their own country which they seek for in
vain in the columns of their own journals. But of this
Feat institution it may be said that as property has
its duties as well as its rights, so the press has its
responsibilities as well as its powers. The other day
a member of the House of Commons said the re-
porters, owing to their laborious and self-denying
efforts in reproducing the unintelligible speeches to
which they were obliged to listen, were worthy of
the name of the "noble army of martyrs" (hear, hear,
and laughter). That phrase suggests other and more
ancient associations than those extreme novelties of
which I have just been speaking; but in point
of fact, if I may so far contradict what I said
at the beginning of my speech, the history of
this "noble army of martyrs, ' does extend far back
into the mists of antiquity. If I have not been greatly
deceived they do actually count among their number
in former times men who were distinguished martyrs
in the ancient Church. There is said to have been
a reporter under the Roman Empire in primitive
ages who was martyred by being exposed to the
fury of his pupils, who tore him to pieces with
their shorthand pencils. Another martyr who is
enrolled in the list of the earlier reporters is no less a
person than Cyprian Bishop of Carthage, who is said
to have added to the system of shorthand writing no
fewer than 8,000 new notations. (Laughter). These
great shorthand writers of early times flourished with
unabated vigour until the fall of the Roman Empire.
When that great institution fell the art of stenography
fell with it. The art was crushed unders the ruins
of ancient civilization. It did, however, again
struggle with the first dawn of the new civilization
to make itself felt again; but then, also, it added
new martyrs to the list, for the first reporters who
appeared in France in the eleventh century were burnt
as necromancers. But from that time their course
has been smoother and more easy, until they have
come to that more gentle kind of martyrdom which
their eulogist in the House of Commons lately des-
cribed. I would not for a moment underrate the
difficulties they encounter. All speakers can imagine
what must be the labour of putting together our un-
grammatical sentences, and filling up from conjecture
the unknown name of some unheard of author, who
has unfortunately been quoted in the midst of a speech
on modern topics. (Laughter). It is hardly too much to
speak of this as a minor martyrdom, and this is AU 1