The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-06 00:00:00

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THE " DIAL" AND THE " STAR."

Has not the public mind been somewhat uneasy
of late ? There has been much to disturb it, but
the feeling to which we allude is not one caused by
the present critical state of affairs on the Continent,
by failures and troubles at home, or by fears of an
insufficient harvest. It is that peculiar restlessness
which comes over a man when he knows he has
some commission to execute before he goes home
and yet cannot remember for the life of him what it
is. The sensation that something—which we can•
not name—is wanting for our comfort. What is it
that is worrying us—for we are worried ? Have we
lost something that once we had, or is it that we
have not got something that we expected ? We
incline to the latter theory. What is it, then, the
want of which is rendering life unendurable P A
grand opportunity would have been presented for
testing the power of Mr. Home or some other noted.
" medium," by requiring him to solve this impor-
tant question, if the chance perusal of an obscure
newspaper had not revealed it to us. The cause of
our anguish is this, " we have no daily Dial." The
journal which was to regenerate mankind has not
appeared. The Great National Newspaper League
Company ((Limited), has failed in its troth.
Where is our Dial? It would be an insult to the
intelligence of the times to anticipate the ques-
tion, " What is our Dial?" Nevertheless, for the
information of some reader who may have lately
returned from a lengthened sojourn in the interior
of Africa, or some equally remote region, we will
answer it.
The " Dial scheme"—as it was popularly called—
was to establish a daily newspaper to compete with
the Times. It was suggested that the Thunderer of
Printing-house-square was not the most conscien-
tious of thunderers—that he was sometimes very
irreverent in treating of Church matters, and ad-
mitted naughty subjects into his pages. Therefore
he was to fall, and a joint stock company was to
rule in his stead. The new paper was to be
founded upon highly moral and substantial prin-
ciples. Its shares were to be .£lO each, and not a
paper was to be issued until 20,000 names had been
enrolled upon its books. After an active canvass of
about six years' duration in every town of any con-
sideration in the kingdom, 9,000 shareholders were
obtained, and a capital of £2 a share has been paid
up. It must be confessed that the scheme hung
fire, although no pains and expense were spared in
lecturing upon it in athenaeums, mechanics' insti-
tutes, and schoolrooms all over the country, and
advertising it in the newspapers. At last the endu-
rance of the shareholders came to an end. They
implored their directors to expunge the stern reso-
lution which denied them their Dial till the num-
ber of its patrons had been more than doubled, and
the directors melted. There were not funds enough
fora daily paper, so a weekly was started, and the
Dial appeared bearing under its title the announce-
ment that it was " once a week for the present."
We live in a wonderful age !—an age of untiring
enterprise, of brilliant successes, and disastrous
failures. We must not lightly declare any scheme
to be impossible, however extravagant it may at
first sight appear. We must not be discouraged
should disaster overtake the project which we had
considered the most certain to be crowned with
success. Alas !is not this world, with all its splen-
dours, but a vale of uncertainty and of tears ? Our
readers will, in all probability, have readsomething
very much like this before. The experienced amongst
them will guess what is coming. It is, we believe,
the correct form of heralding a great calamity. It
corresponds to the slow and mournful music which
is heard on the stage to prepare the minds of the
audience for the discovery of the dying hero, or the
entry of the demented heroine in book muslin and
straws, with her back hair down. A heavy blow
and sore discouragement has fallen upon us. A
bright ray of hope that we have watched from afar,
and fondly hoped was soon about to dilate into a
glorious orb to brighten our path in life has sud-
denly been quenched. Is the reader quite ready
for the heartrending announcement ? Well, then,
here goes. Hung be the heavens with black. Gentle-
men of the orchestra play up your most solemn
dirge. •Silence pit and gallery ! The Dial is done
up ! Society was on the point of being entirely
regenerated, but now it must go on in its old
wicked ways. The Great National Newspaper
League Company (Limited) is in a bad way, and
the Thames is as far off ignition as ever. What is
to be done ? Out upon it that the want of a few
pounds of ithat miserable yellow clay which men
lavish every hour upon frivolity and vice, should
cripple so great a work ! But it is so. We were
promised a Dial daily, but inexorable Fate denies
it to us ; and the weekly Dial that we had—the
dear gazette which, had we ever known it, we might
have learned to love so well—has been driven off
into the office of the Morning Star.
Yes ! the Dial is to be incorporated with the
Morning Star. It is purely a marriage de conve-
nance, we are afraid. The Morning AStar, we are
assured at the extraordinary meeting of the share-
holders in the National Newspaper League Com-
pany, at 'which they decreed the amalgamation,
did not seek the Dial. It was the coy and blush-
ing bride, selected for its many virtues by that
ardent wooer, out of the whole daily press of the
metropolis. The interesting couple are to begin
housekeeping upon a capital of £35,000, towards
which the happy bridegroom is to contribute half,
but upon conditions. The marriage settlements
are to be so framed that he is always to
have a finger in the household pie. The
bride is to assume her husband's name, and to
become in spirit one with him—" become," says the
Rev. David Thomas, the Chairman of the Directors
of the National Newspaper League Company, " all
that we would be if we started a journal indepen-
dently." The poor Star is to set for ever in the
Dikd. "We will not sell ourselves,!! continues the
reverend chairman, "to any man or to any party in
Church or State ;" therefore, they select the titar,
which everybody knows to be perhaps the most
" party" paper in circulation. What a change is in
prospect for her ! The bridegroom has been over
her premises, and has taken stock. He expresses
himself well satisfied with the machinery and plant,
but she is not to be allowed to work it as she
pleases after marriage. No! The Rev. David
Thomas does not—as he informed the meeting—
" believe in the irresponsible we." He supports
" the representative principle in journalism." This
is to him " one of the characteristics and one of the
charms of the enterprise." He must be guaranteed
before he joins any paper "that the shareholders
shall have a healthy control over it." Fancy a
newspaper edited by a board of directors ! Imagine
the indignation of rejected contributors at the
annual meeting ! The directors who followed their
chairman at the meeting before mentioned, spoke
like men who would not be dictated to. Some of
them threatened that they would write in the new
paper. We really are sorry for the Star.
Such a bride as the Dial would select was not
only to be free from party bias and obedient, but
also in a " healthy commercial condition." What
paper could fulfil all these conditious so well as the
Star—especially the last? Healthy commercial
condition ! Why there are a dozen daily and
weekly papers that lose hundreds per annum more
than the Star, and the dowry it will receive on its
union with the Dial will, if prudently expended,
keep it for at least four years independent of its
friends. Surely everyone ought to be satisfied. The
Rev. David Thomas can hang up his hat in the
office of a recognised newspaper, and the Morning
Star handles £17,500 hard cash, It may be that
the union has taken place on homeopathic prin-
ciples. Like cures like according to this practice.
If a man has a headache you give him a drug which
if he had not that disorder would give it to him ;
and so he is cured. The btar being a sufferer
from chronic failure, takes what would swamp any
successful journal. It swallows the Rev. David
Thomas and the Dial. We hope they will agree
with it.

All this is, of course, dictated by petty spite. We
are jealous of the Star. We are terribly afraid of
the Dial. Our conduct is so bad, that we darn not
offer one word of explanation upon it. This much,
however, we will say ; we know something of the
dangers and cares of newspaper proprietorship;
and we do not like to see people going about the
country getting poor people to invest their savings
in such chimerical schemes as that of the Dial.
We do not like to find so many clergymen mixed
up in this questionable speculation. The total'