THE FOURTH ESTATE.

INTRODUCTORY.

CHAPTER I.

WHAT IS THE FOURTH ESTATE?

"The press is mistress of intelligence, and intelligence is mistress of the world."-B. CONSTANT.

Newspapers a necessity of modern civilized life.-The World brought by them to the breakfast-table, to amuse and to teach the reader.What Newspapers contain. Their History hitherto unwritten.The Journalist has no leisure.-The interest and importance of the subject. Dr. Johnson.-Lords Mansfield and Lyndhurst.-Canning. Thiers.— Macaulay.—Southey.—Bulwer.-Captain Marryatt.The English Opium-Eater.-The power and value of the Press have made it a Fourth Estate.

A

LL men, now-a-days, who read at all, read Newspapers. Go where you will, you see the broad sheet that tells the Passing History of the World We Live In, and that reflects the real life-the feelings, the actions, the aspirations and the prejudices-the glory and the shame of the Men of To-Day. It shows us the only world we can see, and walk over, and move mongst; the only world we can test by our personal xperience and our outward senses. What wonder, then, that Newspapers have grown upon us until they have become a positive necessity of civilized existence-a portion, indeed, of modern civilization. If History be experience teaching by the example of

VOL. I.

B

past times, the Newspaper is a teacher offering much better evidence. The journal gives us, day by day, the experience of the world as it exists round about us, ready to avouch the truth of the journalist—gives, day by day, and week by week, the experience of the whole world's doings for the amusement and the guidance of each individual living man. It is a great mental camera, which throws a picture of the whole world upon a single sheet of paper.

But though a great teacher, and an all-powerful instrument of modern civilization, there is no affectation of greatness about it. The Newspaper is the familiar of all men, of all degrees, of all occupations. If it teaches, it teaches imperceptibly. It has no pompous gown, or scholastic rod, to abash or to control, but prepares itself, and is admitted freely and at once to a world-wide intimacy with all kinds and conditions of people. For the idle, it is a friendly gossip; to the busy, it shows what business is on hand; for the politician, it reflects the feelings of party; for the holiday-maker, it talks about new plays, new music, and the last exhibition. Its ample page is full of the romance of real life, equally with the facts of real life. The types that to-day tell how a king abdicated, or a good man died, tell to-morrow the price of logwood or of tallow. As they stand side by side, those tall columns of words show us the hopes of the sanguine, and the sufferings of the unfortunate; they hang out the lure of the trader who would sell his wares, and of the manager who would fill his theatre; shoulder by shoulder are the reports of regal and noble festivities, and lists of bankrupts and insolvents, and

THE NEWSPAPER.

in as many paragraphs we find linked the three great steps of a generation-the births, the marriages, and the deaths. No wonder, then, that whilst the world grows tired of orators, and weary of the mimic stage, it should be more and more faithful in its reference to the intellectual familiar that drops, as De Tocqueville says, the same thought into the ten thousand minds at the same minute; or more attached to the friendly broadsheet that reflects truly and promptly the everchanging, but ever-exciting, scenes of the great drama of real life.

Yet of the thousands who take up their favourite journal with as much punctuality as they take their breakfast, how many have ever asked themselves in what way this punctual friend of theirs-this matutinal source of information and excitement-became a necessity of modern life? They look to their Newspaper to amuse their leisure; to advance their trade; to seek how best they may satisfy their wants; to watch how their favourite opinions are progressing; how their friends are praised, and their foes are denounced. Nor are they disappointed, for the same varied page shows how the world goes on its way, now rejoicing and now grieving; how war kills its thousands in one place, whilst commerce and industry are winning nobler victories in another. Nothing seems too trivial for the vigilance of the journalist. Nothing beyond the reach of his capacity. The last great battle, and the latest fashion-the most important and the most trivial of human affairs-find place in the columns of the Newspaper. And how are these thousand great and small things concentrated, day by day, in these compact

columns of facts and opinions, rumours and occurrences? How come these voices from all quarters of the globe to teach and to amuse? What hidden influences, what strange machinery, what ever-active, nevertiring elements, what active brains are at work to achieve this continuous result?

It is somewhat curious that, whilst so many pens have now for generations been busy in labouring for the Newspaper Press, no one of them ever found time to attempt its history. Various writers have expatiated on the importance of the subject, but no one has hitherto ventured on its treatment as a distinct topic, except in meagre articles for cyclopædias, or discursive papers in a magazine. The reason of this, perhaps, has existed in the feeling that none but a journalist could obtain the materials for completing the task, and that those who had power over the materials had not time to use them for such a purpose. And, in truth, the man who once becomes a journalist must almost bid farewell to mental rest or mental leisure. If he fulfils his duties truthfully, his attention must be ever awake to what is passing in the world, and his whole mind must be devoted to the instant examination, and discussion, and record of current events. He has little time for literary idleness with such literary labour on his shoulders. He has no days to spend on catalogues, or in dreamy discursive searches in the stores of public libraries. He has no months to devote to the exhaustion of any one theme. What he has to deal with must be taken up at a moment's notice, be examined, tested, and dismissed at once, and thus his mind is kept ever occupied with the mental necessity

OPINIONS ON THE NEWSPAPER.

5

of the world's passing hour. Else, most assuredly, some Newspaper writer would long since have written a history of the Newspaper Press, for the public have been reminded often enough how important, how curious, and how interesting the subject must be.

Thinkers of all classes have borne testimony in favour of the Newspaper Press. Scholars, statesmen, essayists, jurists, reviewers, novelists, and poets, have been ready to bear witness to the importance of Journalism, and of the Liberty of the Press. In the ripe autumn of his years and knowledge, Dr. Johnson said, "I never take up a Newspaper without finding something I should have deemed it a loss not to have seen; never without deriving from it instruction and amusement." There is an anecdote on record of Lord Mansfield and the press -A foreigner who had visited our courts of justice, remarked to Lord Mansfield that he was surprised to find them attended by so few of the public. "No matter, sir," replied the Chief Justice, "we sit every day in the Newspapers." It is the Newspaper that secures that publicity to the administration of the laws which is the main source of its purity and wisdom. "To say, then, an English Judge is incorrupt," observed Dr. Parr, "is scarcely to praise him." This is one triumph of the Newspapers. Another high legal authority, Lord Lyndhurst, declares-"I am sure, that every person will be willing as I am to acknowledge, in the most ample terms, the information, the instruction, and amusement derived from the public press." To pass from legal to ministerial authority, we find Canning declaring, that "he who, speculating on the British Constitution, should omit from his enumeration the mighty power of public