The Irish standard., 1895-06-01
Pen Picture of Henry Labosachere,
Editor of London Truth, by
T. p. O'con1or.
4 Clever Englishman Who has
No Love For Royalty and
ArjstOcracy.
kye Has Hunted Down More VIII.
lians and Cheats Than Amy
Man of His Time.

IHGTG are Sia ndlly Ai4lelSuI Pl|Lu4
aud estimates Of Mr.. Labouchere as OF
any living man. People arc still entire
ly undecided as to which is the reality
and which the fiction; and no assistance
ia to be got from the great humorist him
self. At times you are started i'll the
deshabille of smoke room conversation
by some appalling revelation Of Labby'5
cynical disregard OF all things sacred
and profane, and, above all Ihings, Of his
own reputation. There is no doubt that
some Of these things have been said by
y.abby himself, but there has grown
around his name a number of quite leg
endary and apocryphal sayings-a1s Is
the nature of things always IN the case
OF well-known and much quoted men.
All the same, Lahby's own wit, He cam
not resist saying a good thing, whether
at his own expense or that Of others.
and the world mainly consisting OF .dul-
lards or Pharisees, he has been taken
seriously in his widest and most un-
guarded things; pious men have lifted
their eyes to heaven; men who are not
pious sigh that Labby has such a small
respect for for the generally pyeya~
lent dullness and love OF decoTu1n which
chara acterizes the race of politicians, and
especially of liberal politicians The re-
suit of it all is that Labby lives in snirn-
bus of stories that tell against himself;
that he constantly figures as sayer of
]laartless things, and the doer Of ex-
traordlnary things. To get at the real
man is difficult amid all this cloud of
stories and absnrdities; and Labby has
come to act the part he has beer play
ing all his life so naturally as to defy the
ilcenest observer to know when he is the
real and when he is the legendary man.
And yet one must make the attempt.
And the very first thing to do is to get
rid Of most of the preconceived ideas
among the public as to the inner mean
ing Of this mystery. First, Labby is not
Il fribble, but a very serious man. He is,
perhaps good deal more serious than
he thinks himself. 1t is impossible else
to account for his career. All kinds Of
men get the credit OF being the most
hardworked members of the house Of
commons; it is probable that Labby, af-
ter all, is the person who deserves the
palm for he is incessant in work. With
most people Sunday is day OF rest;
Labby nearly always spends half Of 1t at
MS desk. He has a wondrous faculty
and wondrous power Of sticking to 1t
when he once gets to writing. He has
beside him huge bundle of stylographs
in all shapes and forms-~neW and old,
good and bad, dear and cheap. And you
see the stylograph quietly moving along
page after page of the small note books
in which he writes; there is no sign OF
eifort--there is no pause--a word is
rarely changed; it all comes out as freely
as il it were just the ink which flows
from the pen itself. People some
times attribute to Labby a great deal
that he doesn't write. He tells with much
amusement Of being many times cut by
ladies and gentlemen for some atrocity
which he has never seen or heard of,
although it had appeared in his own col
the legend, that there are few editors
who contribute so persistently and so
lengthily to the columns Of their own
newspaper as Mr.. Labouchere.
Even when he is on vacation, Wheth- I.
er it be in the depressing atmosphere Of
Carlsbad or under the sunny sky Of the
Italian lakes, while other men give them
selves unresistingly up to the absolute
laziness Of vacation, Labby is still busy;
and he is never satisfied till he has told
the world his impression OF; the cure he
is taking, Of the air he is breathing, or
of the latest movements in the political
world he has left behind him at home.
One can understand this amount Of hard
work in journalist who has to write for
bread, or who is paid by the line; Mr..
Labouchere is notoriOusly man Of very .
great wealth; he could buy all the talent
Of London for his journal II necessary:
ard he must, therefore, workfor the pure
delight of the thing. I have a theory that
no man who works hard can be really
without seriousness as the foundation Of
his character. Z 81
If you follow the editor from his Office z
to the house Of commons, you find the
same thing. It is true that there is lack
ing there that tenacity which he shows 5E
over his desk; but the explanation is not
that Labby's attention is not just as COM
centrated and sleepless in in the one case
as in the other; it is all due to the fact .
that Labby is the slave Of one tyrant
habit; he canot live without smoking. At s
his desk he need never let cigarette go ts
out; if the easy manners which once are
said to have prevailed in the Dutch leg
islature were to be allowed In the house
of commons, and Labby could there
smoke his cigarette, it is possible that |9i
is a. half an hour is just enough to ex-
haust his power Of remaining In his @
place. Whatever the subject, however aI3 Il
enhancing the orator, however big the Ss
fate Of the crisis, Labby slowly gets up
saunters out of the house with that quiet, S
indolent walk of his, and makes hts sWayS
to the smoke room. A few years ago he II
added to all these labors an immense
quantity Of platform speaking. Fey Sss ss
weeks passed away which did not see hi
on some platform up and down the cO1n sss
try. He would go Incredible distancea9slsS
pass from Glasgow to Brighton. add tTn9
Brighton TO Hull within a few days; Alss sssE
to do all this with q disregard for anysses s9s
the precautions or CONT forts ofs a tTaye
which were enough g INT kss
blanch.