New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-01-22
GEORGE ". STEVENS

In Saturdays dispatches the death was re-
ported of George w. Stevens. the English war
correspondent Fever at Ladysmith had claimed
him for its victim. His career despite its
swift untimely close, was as crowded, as sue
cessful and as distinguished as any in the later
annals of journalism. He was one of Mr.
Jowett's young men," which is to say that when
in his twenties, he entered journalism as an edi-
torial writer for The Pail Mall Gazette" ne
possessed the equipment which BalliOl better
than any other college, could give him for his
work. 1t has been said of Oxford that she
taught all her sons TO be good leader writer's.
Jowett saw to it that the graduates of his col
lege were prepared not only for leader writing
but for fighting the battle Of life at many
points. Thus Mr.. Stevens was a competent
editorial writer, good classical scholar, an all
round man of letters, a traveller capable of see
ing clearly and of wildly describing what he
saw, and finally, brilliant war correspondent.
He became a Journalist only six or seven
years ago, but in that time he achieved a solid
reputation He followed the late war in Greece
from the Turkish side; with the Conquering
Turk, a most spirited record, was the result
Of his two volumes on Egypt, the second, COM
memoratng the Soudanese campaign, estab-
lished a record in book making. The last chap
tiers of with Kitchener to Khartoum" were set
up from cable dispatches. These publications,
his collection of American impressions-"Ih he
Land of the DOllar'-and his more recent let
tiers devoted to India and to the trial of Captain
Dreyfus at Rennes were all the fruit of his
Identification with the staff of 1.-The London
Daily Mail" 1t was as the representative of
that journal that he found himself in be-
leaguered Ladysmith. He died from the insid-
iOus effects Of disease but died none the less a
martyr to his duty than If he had fallen on the
fighting line with his countrymen bearing arms.
One of Jowett's unwrtten laws was that any
Balliol man who turned author should write like
a gentleman. Mr.. Stevens fulfilled the law.
Even in his American notes. where so many
Englishmen would have ''got on the nerves. of
their hosts, he wrote with a tact that left his
book blameless, interesting and delightful If
he wrote thus admirably it was because he had
the root Of the matter in him, a taste, a sym
pathy and a dignity which lent to his studies of
his Turkish volume of the motherless foals
perishing ON the highway, of which, in its
manly pathos, he might have felt prouder than
of any battle picture he ever drew Also he
wrote on a higher plane because he never lost
his interest in liberal studies In the midst of
his busy newspaper life he found time to write
From the New Gibbon, t0t4' de force of
purely literary art which deserved more ac-
claim than it received when it appeared in the
pages of magazine. His death takes from the
ranks of writers for the press a man who could
Ill be spared writer of force, character and re-
markabe literary gifts. England mourns many
serious losses as the result of the war in the
Transvaal. High up among them Will be placed
the name of the war correspondent dying at his
post