THE ENGLISH PRESS GENERALLY.—THE “TIMES” AND THE OTHER JOURNALS.—THE EVENING PAPERS.—THE PUBLICATION OF THE MORNING PAPERS.—ANTICIPATION OF NEWS.—SPECIAL TRAINS.—PUBLICATION OF WEEKLY PAPERS.—THE READING PUBLIC.—ADVANTAGES OF WEEKLY PAPERS.—THE PROVINCIAL PRESS.—WHY IT CANNOT FLOURISH.—TRANSMISSION OF NEWSPAPERS.—THE NEWSVENDERS.—A SCENE IN THE “GLOBE” OFFICE.—YOUNG HOPEFUL, THE NEWSBOY.—MR. SMIRKINS, THE PARTY-MAN.—THE NEWSVENDER’S EXCHANGE.
THE Germans have, at all times, professed great respect for the English press; and justly, too, considering the excellence of its political articles, its miraculous versatility, the conscientiousness of its reports, the general usefulness of its contents, the enormous geographical sphere into which it finds its way, the grave and manly tone of its language, and especially its thoroughly independent position, and with it, its stupendous moral power. The English press is more concentrated in its means than the German; it is more sober, versatile, and honorable than the French; and it can be more relied upon, and is more decent in its tone, than the American press. It surpasses all three by the grand solidity of its deportment. It may well be said, that no nation on earth, old or new, could ever boast of such a political press as that of which the English nation can boast.
In one point only, the English political press is over-estimated. Its issues and its profits are generally considered to be much larger than they really are. It is not difficult to discover the grounds of this erroneous view. People think mostly of the Times, because it is best known and most frequently quoted. The condition of the English journalistic press is estimated after this, its most important representative. The premises are false, and so is the conclusion. We do not here propose to open the ledgers of the English newspaper offices, and to take down the number of copies sold. A great deal of falsehood, and a great deal of truth, has been published in Germany on this subject. We will here only say, that the Times prints daily from 40,000 to 50,000 copies, and that the other journals together have an issue of the same amount. This is enough to show, that no conclusions can be drawn from the statistics of the Times to the statistics of the other great morning papers. These numbers prove also, that English journalism has fewer readers than journals in Germany or France, though certainly its geographical diffusion is by far greater. But it were equally wrong to draw conclusions from the number of copies sold to the number of readers. The position of the periodical press to the public is so peculiar in this country, that a detailed account is necessary for its proper understanding. We propose to give that account in the following pages, and begin by stating the well-known fact, that the English political papers are divided into morning, evening, and weekly papers, into monthlies and quarterlies, and into metropolitan and provincial journals. The essential difference between the morning and evening papers, is to be found in the time of publication. The first edition of the latter is published at four, or half-past four, in the afternoon; a second edition is published at six o’clock; and, on important occasions, a third edition, containing the parliamentary intelligence of the evening, badly reported, and in execrable style, is published at seven o’clock. Some of the evening papers, too, are cheaper than the morning papers, and they are all half a sheet in size; but they have the advantage of giving the contents of the day-mails, and the accounts of the money-market. The evening papers generally contain much less matter than the morning papers. Their sale too is small, and with the exception of the Globe and the Sun, they are none of them independent, but form part of the property of certain morning papers. The Standard, for instance, is but a later edition of the Morning Herald; the same is the case with the Express, which belongs to the Daily News; with the Evening Mail, which belongs to the Times; and the Evening Journal, which is a satellite of the Morning Chronicle. The sale of these papers is limited, and their expense is not generally thought to be very large.
The morning papers are published in time for the early railway trains. The first few thousands of the copies printed, are at once despatched into the provinces, and the copies which are destined for metropolitan circulation, reach the readers generally about nine o’clock, when a great many Londoners are at breakfast. The Morning Post alone is in the habit, as it appears, of receiving very important intelligence, such as “Elopements in High Life,” or “the last odds against Black Doctor,” between the hours of six and eight in the morning, for this fashionable journal appears frequently at the break of day, with the exciting heading, “Second Edition!” The first edition, it seems, was sold in the course of the night; perhaps between one and three, A.M. The less important papers publish their second edition at twelve o’clock, and in it their foreign correspondence, which has arrived with the morning mails. In the case of any extraordinary event, they publish a third edition at three o’clock.
It is impossible to speak too highly of the despatch and correctness of the printing in the English newspaper offices. Where so much praise is due, there has, as a matter of course, been some exaggeration likewise; and the newspaper offices are the subjects of many a popular myth, which it is worth while to reduce to simple truth. Both Englishmen, and the foreigners that are within their gates, will now and then, at eight o’clock in the morning, read “our own correspondent’s” letter in the Times, and be struck with some remarkable piece of intelligence it contains. An hour or so afterwards, perhaps, the postman brings them a letter from some continental friend, and lo! that letter contains the very news which they have read, printed in large type, in the morning paper. Now, however expeditious compositors, printers, and newsmen may be, the setting up of matter, the striking it off, and distributing it through the various channels of trade, to the farthest ends of the town, require a certain amount of time. How, then, is it possible, since my private letter and the Times correspondence came by the same mail—how, in the name of all that is strange, does it happen, that the paper prints the news so much sooner than I receive it through the Post Office? Why it looks “nae cannie,” as a Scotchman would say!
Still the result is brought about by the most natural and simple means. The morning papers have their continental correspondence sent by mail, but the letters are not directed to London, but to an agent in Dover. That agent, who is generally connected with the railroad or the Post Office, receives his parcels immediately after the arrival of the steamers from Calais and Ostend. He directs them to his principals in London, and sends them off with the express train. Of course the mail letter-bags reach London by the same train; but the mail-bags have to go to the Post Office, where the letters are taken out and sorted, and distributed among the various district offices, which, in their turn, distribute them among the letter-carriers. The letters cannot, therefore, reach their various destinations before eight o’clock, though it frequently happens that they come at a much later hour. But the parcels sent direct from Dover are emancipated from the necessary delays of the Post Office. A messenger receives them as the train dashes into London Bridge Station; they are at once hurried away to the printing offices, set up, printed, and despatched to all the news-shops of London. And while this is going on in the printing office, the Post Office clerks are opening the mail-bags, and sorting and stamping the letters for the regular delivery. A certain portion of time, say a few hours, are necessarily lost at the Post Office; and this loss of time to the public, and the advantage to which the newspapers turn it, has puzzled many persons, particularly strangers. All the popular tales of special trains and steamers are mere fables. The Times, with all its power of capital, cannot have faster vessels than the mail steamers that run between Calais and Dover; and if at Dover it were to engage a special train, that train could not go faster than the express. But even if greater speed were attainable, the experiment would be too costly for daily use.
On important occasions, indeed, in the case of unexpected arrivals of interesting continental news, or when large and important meetings are being held in the provinces, and the intelligence to be conveyed to town is too heavy for the telegraph, the great London journals do not shrink from the expense of special trains, which convey to them the reports of the proceedings, as taken down by their correspondents. But in the transmission of mere news—of those “facts,” to which Mr. Cobden would confine the newspapers—the telegraph is at once cheaper and more expeditious.
A few years ago, when there were no railroads, and when the steamers were neither frequent in their passages nor punctual in their arrivals, the Times had organised its own system of couriers, and for a long time it competed with the Morning Herald as to the greatest expedition in the conveyance of the Overland Mail from Marseilles to London. At one time the Times had the best of it; on another occasion the couriers of the Times were beaten by the couriers of the Herald; the agents of the papers sowed their money broad-cast on the route between Marseilles and Calais; they outwitted one another in retaining all the post-horses, until these expensive manœuvres were finally rendered unnecessary by the railway service and the submarine telegraph. In this respect, too, the most fabulous stories have long been current in Germany, where, it is generally believed, that the Times has its score or so of special trains steaming away on all the railroads of England from year’s-end to year’s-end. The English newspaper service is by this time established on a firm, expeditious, and economical basis; and extraordinary means are resorted to only on extraordinary occasions.
The weekly political papers are published on Saturday, and some of them on Sunday morning, while a few publish a second edition on Monday morning. They live on the news of the daily papers; the better class among them have a single correspondence, a weekly Paris letter, but they have not the telegraphic despatches, nor do they maintain a staff of correspondents and reporters. They simply condense the news as given by the morning journals, while some of them spice the abstract with an original remark or two for the convenience of a peculiar class of readers. Besides these they have a few leading articles, and “Letters to the Editor.” These letters are, in many instances, more interesting than any other part of the paper, and under an able editor their moral effect is greater even than that of the leading articles. This department has been utterly neglected by German journalism, though there can be no doubt of its being eminently suited to the capabilities and necessities of the German public.
We have no intention of discussing the literary and political merits of the various “Weeklies.” Their importance and popularity, too, is not a theme for us. These things are, moreover, well known in Germany. But in our opinion, it is worth while to inquire into the circumstances to which the weekly press in England owes its circulation and popularity, while it never prospered either in France or in Germany. A combination of causes produces this result. The morning papers are too expensive and too voluminous for the middle classes, especially in the country. Their price is a high one, not only according to the German, but also to the English mode of reckoning. But in the present state of the law, it is impossible to produce a daily paper which can compete with the other journals at a lower price. It has been proved to the satisfaction of Parliamentary Committees, that what with the paper, stamp, and advertisement duty, a great journal can only pay if it has an immense circulation. Still more strikingly has this been shown in the struggles and sufferings of the Daily News. That paper was set up in opposition to the Times. The Manchester men advanced a large capital, à fonds perdu, and the competition commenced with an attempt at underselling. The “Daily News” was sold at threepence per number; and the consequence was, that the funds of the party were really and truly “perdu.” The price was raised to fourpence; still the concern was a losing speculation. Finally the Daily News condescended to take fivepence, as the other journals do, and it is now more prosperous.
But fivepence is a high price for a paper, even according to English ideas. It is very silly to say, that in England a sovereign is to the Englishman what a florin or a thaler is considered to be to the German. The remark may hold good in the case of the favoured few—the dukes, cotton-lords, and nabobs; but among the middle classes, the relative value of a sovereign and a thaler assumes a very different aspect. The middle class forms the bulk of newspaper readers; it is not so easy for that class to pay six pounds per annum for the “Times” or “Daily News,” as the payment of six thalers (the average price of a Zeitung) is to the middle classes in Germany.
Besides being too dear, the morning journals are too large for the majority of the public. Many persons cannot spare the time to read all the parliamentary intelligence, and the police and law reports, and the railway and mining articles; others are too lazy, while the majority of provincial readers combine the two objections with a third. They are too busy, lazy, and generally too indifferent. They would take a comfortable view of the events. They are not over curious, and will not be compelled to swallow a daily dose of news. They are not so hot-blooded as a French portier, who cannot think of going to sleep without a look at least at the evening papers; and in politics they enjoy a greater degree of phlegm than all the continental nations together. They say, and are justified in so saying, “We live in a quiet country, where everything and everybody has his place. Nothing whatever can happen that we are any the worse off for knowing a few days later. A dissolution perhaps? Why let them dissolve the parliament, there will be a general election—that’s all. Resignation of ministers? There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. A foreign war? Very well, we’ll pay for it, but they wont invade us, thanks to the sea and the wooden walls of England. All of which proves that a man need not be in a confounded hurry to know the last news!”
And as for the working classes they want money, time, and, indeed, they want the mind, for the daily press. Weeklies are cheaper and more palatable. Their news is more condensed; it is more popular; they contain a deal of demonstration and furnish useful reading all the week through.
It is therefore not at all astonishing that the weekly press should have experienced an enormous increase within the last few years, while the few daily papers that were started in that period, proved utter failures; while the majority of even the old established papers were far from being prosperous. Hence, too, the enormous sale of the weeklies, whose prices range from three-pence to nine-pence. First and foremost in prosperity is the Illustrated London News, whose sale is said to amount to 100,000 copies. The Weekly Dispatch, selling from 60,000 to 80,000 copies, comes next. It is a radical paper, though I doubt whether any German reader would ever discover its radicalism. The Weekly Dispatch is the favourite of the lower classes. The Examiner and the Spectator, though superior in point of style and political ability, are less read than the Germans generally believe; but Punch (for Punch too is essentially a political paper), is prosperous, easy, comfortable, and influential, as indeed it fully deserves to be.
The non-political papers, the monthlies and quarterlies, the clerical journals whose name is legion, the critical papers, the penny weekly papers which fatten on stolen property, the military and naval gazettes, the papers devoted to banking, architecture, gas-lighting, agriculture, mining, railways, colonial affairs, and all imaginable professions and branches of industry, these we mention only to say that we must leave them to scientific and professional travellers. But we add a few words on the provincial press of England.
It is insignificant. Any interest it may possess springs from local causes, as is the case with the Glasgow, Manchester, and Liverpool papers. This applies also to the Irish journals, whose tone, generally speaking, bears traces of more genius and less conscience than the tone of the English press.
The English provincial press in particular can advance no claims to Irish genius. It wants originality, unless it be original deliberately and with speculation aforethought to say the thing which is not true; to bring news of ministerial changes, which is news indeed to the officials of Downing-street, and to perpetuate the fiction of a highly distinguished omnipresent and omniscient “London Correspondent,” who is a member of all the clubs; who passes every one of his evenings in all the theatres and at all the fashionable parties, and who is on terms of the most bewildering intimacy with all the great men of the day. A great many of these papers drag out a weary and unprofitable existence, while others make much money. The expenditure of most of them is confined to the cost of the paper and printing; the taxes due to the state and the outlay of a modest capital on scissors and paste.
There is no possibility of improvement in this respect, since in England a political paper cannot thrive unless it be established in London. The owners of the provincial newspapers cannot help it; they have no control over the political and geographical circumstances which determine the fortune of the English press.
Not only does it stand to reason that a metropolitan journal is in a more favourable position than a provincial journal, since the national life and action radiates and is concentrated in the mighty heart of the country; but London, with its population of two millions and a half, is not merely the capital of a vast empire, it is also an imperium in imperio, a kingdom in itself. Many kingdoms have a less population than London has, and many countries furnish not half the amount of matter for journalism which London supplies. And though they had the matter it would be divided over a vast area, and its instant collection and publication would be impossible. Concentration has incalculable advantages for the daily press, as is plainly shown by the great journals of Paris and London.
In another respect, too, the London papers are favoured by circumstances. The geographical extent of England is so small compared to its political power, the country is so completely covered with a network of railroads and telegraphs, that space is lessened in a marvellous degree. Thus is the London press enabled to collect intelligence in all parts of the country in less than no time, as the English say, to gather it by centripetal attraction and send it forth by centrifugal radiation. Sitting on the banks of the Thames, a short railway journey from the narrowest portion of the channel and thus, of all the large towns, most near to the Continent, London is the most efficient mediatrix and exchanger of news between the Continent and England and the Continent and America. As capital of England, of a country which has always carried the mails of all the nations and parts of the world to all the nations and parts of the world, London is the great political, mercantile, and scientific storehouse of the world. No other periodical press can boast of such favourable circumstances; and the London press is safe from the competition of the periodical journals of the seaport-towns, because distance in England is of very little moment in the communication of intelligence, and, because favoured as it is, it can afford to pay, and occasionally to pay largely too for extra means of speed and priority of information.
Let us now turn to the mechanical means and contrivances by which the London papers are distributed among the public.
The transmission of newspapers in Germany is a government monopoly: it belongs to the post. The post-offices in Germany accept subscriptions to the various newspapers and forward them to the subscribers. The English post-office has nothing whatever to do with newspaper subscriptions. It forwards newspapers exactly as it forwards other parcels, whenever they are posted, but it does not undertake to obtain them from the publishing-office. The newspaper-offices, too, know nothing of the continental system of abonnement; they sell their papers over the counter, and for cash, exactly as all other wholesale dealers do. Under these circumstances, the public want retail shops, and such retailers are to be found in the newsvenders.
Generally speaking, the newsvenders occupy small shops in or near some of the principal streets, where they frequently carry on the business of stationers as well. They supply their London customers with papers; they send papers to their customers in the provinces, and they lend papers by the hour or day. For success in the various branches of his business, the newsvender wants a good connexion and a small capital. His connexion once established, he can make a guess at the numbers of each paper he is likely to want, and for these he sends to the various publishing-offices. The news-boys are the chief “helps” and props of his trade.
In the dawn of morning, even before the publication of the great journals has commenced, the newsvender, represented by his boy, is at his post in the outer room of the publishing-office. These plenipotentiaries of the various newsvending firms sit and gape and rub their eyes, or warm their hands by the fire, until the first batch of papers is hurried into the room. A thin, sleepy man, who has hitherto been hid in a kind of cage, gets up from his office chair and takes charge of the bulky parcel. The boys at once make a rush towards the cage, and the taller ones elbow their way up to it, while the small boys must be content to wait until their turn comes. “Fifty copies!” “One hundred copies!” “Two hundred copies!” Each bawls out the number he wants, puts down his money, and runs off through the moist, cold, morning air to another newspaper-office, or back to the shop, where the various numbers are put into wrappers as fast as it is possible for human hands to perform that operation, and despatched by rail to the various country customers. All this is done at express speed; and the newsvender’s boy, though gifted with a leaning to politics, can hardly find the time to stop by a street lamp and read the last “Submarine from Paris.”
He is hard at work all the morning. When the parcels have been despatched into the provinces, he is at once compelled to devote himself to the other important section of his daily duties, and provide for his master’s town customers, of whom there are two classes, purchasers and hirers of newspapers. The former receive their papers about nine o’clock through the medium of the news-boy. The latter receive their papers at various times according to the terms of the contract. Some keep a paper two hours, some keep it three or four, and the terms are, for the short period, 6d., and for the longer, 1s. per week. It is the newsboy’s business to know all the various customers of this kind, and to call with the paper, and for it, at the exact time desired by each individual reader.
He is less occupied between the hours of eleven and three. If not compelled to “mind the shop,” the newsboy, if gifted with a correct estimation of his political position, will devote these leisure hours to the perusal of the various journals within his reach. If not of an intellectual turn, he indulges in a comfortable fight with some sympathetic printer’s devils, in some quiet square or court. Duty calls him again at three o’clock. He has to call for the newspapers which are “out,” and he has to secure the supply of evening papers at the moment of their publication—all for that evening’s country mail. The publishing-offices of almost all the London papers are to be found in the line of road and the parts that thereunto adjacent lie, from the Strand to St. Paul’s, where journals of diametrically opposite tendencies reside in dangerous proximity to one another. In this quarter of the town they are near to the Exchange, the post-office, and the chief railway-stations; and the chief newsvenders, too, live generally in the narrow lanes and alleys which run out of the principal streets.
Those who wish to study the natural history of the news-boy, should take their stand in the publishing office of an evening paper, at half-past three or four o’clock in the afternoon. A small apartment, divided into two smaller apartments by means of a wooden partition, and the outer half dusty and dirty to the last degree, and crowded with boys, who there wait for the paper, which is just going to press. It happens, now and then, that the publication is delayed for half an hour, or so; on such occasions, the youths in attendance display a remarkable amount of ingenuity in their praiseworthy efforts to kill the time. The innate street-boyism of these small creatures is tinged with a literary colouring. The little “devils” are evidently inspired with the devilries of the newspapers which they sell. Some are free-traders, others are protectionists; not from conviction, but from the urgent desire of their nature to have a good and sufficient reason for wrangling and fighting. We watched their proceedings on one occasion, at the time when Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli were “in,” as a very ragged boy said, in so sententious a manner, that it would have done honour to a very old member of the House of Commons.
“Eh, Jim!” cried a diminutive boy, with black eyes, red cheeks, and fuzzy brown hair. “Eh, Jim! sold no end of
THE NEWSPAPER BOYS. p. 215
THE NEWSPAPER BOYS.
p. 215.
Heralds, I dare say. You’re in, you know; clodhoppers that you are!” “Herald’s a ministerial paper; beats the Times hollow, don’t it? Kick’s it into the middle of next week, eh? Well, I hope it’ll do your master some good, but it don’t do you no good, Jim, my boy; you’re as lean as a bone, you are!”
To which, Jim, a light-haired, spare-made, freckled youth, replies:
“You’re the parties as gets fat, so you are. Them as is ’onest people, never gets fat! How’s the Globe? eh! Don’t you think one publication a week is more than enough? You’ve got no news, noways, now that we are in.”
Saying which, he takes off his cap—the beak of it went a long time ago, on the battle-field of Holywell-street—and flings the dirty missile into Tom’s face; and Tom, who would parry it, puts his fist into Dan’s face; whereupon, Dan, starting back, kick’s Jack’s shins; and Jack gives it to Dan, and Dan to Tom, and Tom to Jim, and there is a general melée. The quarrel is finally settled by the armed intervention of four tall boys, who for some length of time watched the chances of the fight from a bench in the furthest corner of the room. A few blows and kicks, the combatants are separated, and the publishing office is tranquil. At this juncture, the inner door is opened, and a man with spectacles, and a large parcel of wet Globes makes his appearance. The four tall youths rush up to the wooden partition, to the exclusion, the manifest disgust of the smaller fry of boys. All their movements betray the consciousness of their Flegeljahr dignity. Mr. Smirkins, the publishing clerk, who has just entered, treats them with marked distinction. He greets them with a smile; tells them it is “rather wet to-day;” and goes the length of inquiring after the state of their health. One of them, a genteel youth, with very stiff shirt collar, and a very new hat, is quite a favorite with Mr. Smirkins. That gentleman has, for the last years, devoted his time and talents to the Globe office, and has come to consider himself, not only as an integral part of that Whig paper, but also as an important link in the heavy chain of the Whig party. He mentions the Whigs, as “our party;” and in speaking of the Globe, he says, “we.” The advent of the Derbyites to power, has been a severe trial to Mr. Smirkins’ feelings; he is less fat and jovial now, than he was under Lord John Russell. He looks care-worn. A faithful servant of his party, he grieves to see the Globe neglected by those high in office.
“How many copies?” says he to the youth with the shirt-collars. “Ten? Here they are. I dare say you take a good many Standards since we——”
No! the truth is too harsh for Mr. Smirkins. He cannot conclude the sentence, so tries another mode of expression.
“The Standard’s looking up, I dare say?”
But the youthful newsvender has all the discretion of a London man of business. He replies to Mr. Smirkins’ question with a few “Hem’s and Hah’s”; and Mr. Smirkins, foiled in his attempts to obtain intelligence of the prosperity of the other party, goes on distributing his papers among the boys; and the boys, rushing out to distribute them all over the town, make great haste, that they may be in time at the newsvenders Exchange.
These boys, strange though it may appear, have their own exchange where they meet at five o’clock. Not indeed in colonnade and marble halls, not even in a tavern parlour, but in the open air, at the corner of Catherine-street, Strand. There they meet, shouting, squabbling and fighting in hot haste, for they have not much time to lose. All the papers must be posted by six o’clock. Here spare copies of the Herald are exchanged for spare copies of the Daily News, the Times is bartered against the Post, according to the superfluities and necessities of the various traders. The exchanges, of course, are made on the spot, the papers are posted, and the newsvender’s business is over for the day. On Saturdays, however, many of their shops are kept open till long after midnight, for the accommodation of the working classes and the sale of the Sunday papers. Tom and Jim and Dan and Jack have received their week’s wages, and take a stroll in Clare Market or join their friends, the baker’s and fishmonger’s boys, in some bold expedition to distant Whitechapel.
APPEARANCE OF THE BANK.—WANT OF RESPECT IN THE PRESENCE OF PUBLIC FUNCTIONARIES.—THE PUBLIC AT THE BANK.—MYSTERIOUS COMFORTS.—ENGLISH TASTE.—THE WONDERS OF MACHINERY.—A STRANGE LIBRARY.—PRINTING THE NOTES.—HIDDEN PALACES.—THE TREASURY.—BAD SOVEREIGNS.—DR. KEIF; AND WHY THE ENGLISH KNOW NOTHING WHATEVER OF THE AFFAIRS OF GERMANY.
WE have already, on a former occasion, looked at two of the city temples—the Mansion-house and the Exchange. We now return to the Capitoline mart of the city, to inspect the third of its temples—the Bank of England.
Its outward appearance is mysterious. Half wall and half house, it is neither the one nor the other; and yet either at one and the same time. For a wall there are too many niches, blind windows, columns, and finery; for a building it wants presence; it is too low, and has not even window openings. But it appears from the architect’s plan that this strange façade is meant for a wall, and, having the artist’s word for it, we believe, though see we do not, and sit down satisfied.
Standing free on all sides as the Exchange, the Bank is divided from the latter by a thoroughfare called Threadneedle-street. Its western limit is Princes-street; in the north intervenes Lothbury, and in the south Bartholomew-lane, between the Bank and the neighbouring houses. It forms a square; and yet people say it demonstrates the squaring of the circle, the grand problem of modern philosophy.
We enter. The gate does not strike one as solemn and imposing as might be expected in a gate leading to the laboratory of a great wizard. No Druid’s foot on the threshold; no spectral bats such as abound in nursery tales of treasure-seeking. No! not even a couple of grenadiers, who, in our dear fatherland are a necessary appendage to every public building; really everything looks worldly, business-like, and civil. A red-coated porter answers our questions, and tells us which way to go. He is an elderly man, and certainly not strong enough to arrest a mere lad of a communist, if such a one would attempt to divide the property of the British nation. A shocking idea, that!
We cross a small court-yard, and mount a few steps (why should’nt we?) and, all of a sudden, we are in a large saloon. This saloon is an office—it matters very little what particular office it is—but it makes not a disagreeable impression as our German offices do where everything is official and officious, oppressive, and calculated to put people down. On the contrary, there’s a vast deal of good society in this office: at least a hundred officials and members of the public. The officials have no official appearance whatever; they are simple mortals, and do their business and serve their customers as if they were mere shopboys in a grocery shop. There is in them not a trace of dignity! not an atom of bureaucratic pride! It is exactly as if to serve the public were the sole business of their lives. And the public too! Was such a thing ever heard of in a public office? Men, women, and boys, with their hats on! walking arm in arm as if they were in the park. They change money, or bring it or fetch it, as if they had looked into a neighbour’s shop for the purpose. Some of them have no business at all to transact. They actually talk to one another—stand by the fire in the centre of the room, and warm their backs! The impertinent fellows! Why, they have no respect whatever! They forget that they are in a public office. How dare you stand there you dolt? How dare you scratch your head, and hold your pipe in your hand? I should’nt wonder if it was lighted—it would be like your impertinence! Get out as fast as you can; if you dont the police will make you! Really not a trace of respect! It’s no wonder they say we are near doomsday.[F]
[F] The readers of passages like the above will not be astonished to learn that Dr. Schlesinger’s book has the honour of being prohibited in some of the best-governed states of Germany, but more especially in Austria.—[Ed].
Ranged in long rows along the walls, the Bank clerks sit writing, casting-up accounts, weighing gold, and paying it away over the counter. In front of each is a bar of dark mahogany, a little table, a pair of scales, and a small fraction of the public; each waiting for his fare. The business is well-conducted, and none of them are kept waiting for any length of time.
The saloon just by is more crowded. We are in the middle of the year, and the interest on the three per cents. is being paid. What crowding and sweeping to and fro. At least fifty clerks are sitting in a circle in a high vaulted saloon, well provided with a cupola and lanterns. They do nothing whatever but pay and weigh, and weigh and pay. On all sides, the rattling of gold, as they push it with little brass shovels across the tables. People elbowing and pushing in order to get a locus standi near the clerks; the doors are continually opening and shutting. What crowds of people there must be in this country who have their money in the three per cent. Consols!
Strange figures may be seen in this place. An old man with a wooden-leg sits in a corner waiting, and Heaven knows how long he has been waiting already. Of course, a wooden leg is rather an encumbrance than otherwise in a crowd. The old man seems to be fully aware of the fact. He looks at his large silver watch—it is just twelve—puts his hand to the pocket of his coat, and pulls out a large parcel, something wrapped up in a stale copy of the Herald. What can the parcel contain? Sandwiches! He spreads them out, and begins to eat. He likes them too. He takes his ease, and makes himself perfectly at home. I dare say it is not the first time he has waited for his dividends.
That young lady on our left is getting impatient. She has made several attempts to fight her way to one of the clerks; she tried to push in first on the right, and then on the left, but all in vain. John Bull is by no means gallant in business, or at the theatre, or in the streets: he pushes, and kicks, and elbows in all directions. Poor pretty young lady, you’ll have a long time to wait! It’s no use standing on your toes, and looking over people’s shoulders. You’d better come again to-morrow.
The little boy down there gets much better on. A pretty fair-haired fellow that, with a little basket in his hand. Perhaps he is the son of a widow, who cannot come herself to get her small allowance. The boy looks as if about to cry, for he is on all sides surrounded by tall men. But one of them seizes him, lifts him up, and presents him to one of the clerks. “Pray pay this little creditor of the public; he’ll be pressed to death in the crowd!” And they all laugh, and everybody makes room for the boy; for it ought to be said to John Bull’s credit, he is kind and gentle with children at all times. “Well done, my little fellow! Now be careful that they dont rob you of your money on the way. How can they ever think of sending such a baby for their dividends!”
In this wing of the house, office follows after office; they are all on the ground-floor, and receive their light through the ceiling; they are all constructed in a grand style, and many of them are fit for a king’s banqueting-room. In them money is exchanged for notes, and notes for money; the interest on the public debt is paid; the names of the creditors are booked and transferred. It is here that the banking business is carried on in its relations with the bulk of the public.
These offices are, consequently open to every one; they are the central hall of the English money market, the great exchange office of London. Every Englishman is here sentinel and constable, for every Englishman has, or at least he wishes to have, some share in the Bank. But those who would enter the more secret recesses of the sanctuary, must have an order from one of the Bank Directors. We are fortunate enough to have such an order, which we show to one of the servants. He takes us, shows us into a little room, and asks us to wait a few moments.
The room in which we are is a waiting-room. There are many such in the house. A round table, a couple of chairs, and—and nothing else! that’s all the furniture. Really nothing else! And yet the room is so snug and comfortable. It is altogether mysterious, how the English manage to give their rooms an air of comfort, which with us is too frequently wanting, even in the houses of wealthy persons, who furnish, as the phrase goes, “regardless of expense.” Every German who comes to England must be struck with the fact. Whether the apartments he hires be splendid or humble—no matter, he is at once alive to the influence of this charmed something, and he will sadly miss it when he returns to Germany. Yes! it must be—the charm must be in the carpets and the fire-place. Surely witchery does not enter into the household arrangements of sober and orthodox Englishmen!
It’s a pity they did not make us wait a little longer, the room was so comfortable. Another servant has brought our order back, and told us that he is to be our guide. Passing through open yards and covered passages, we come to a clean and well-paved hall, in which the steam-engine of the house lives. Large cylinders, powerful wheels, rods shining as silver, the balls of the whirling governor heavy as four-and-twenty pounders, and the space under the boiler a hell en miniature. Everything powerful and gigantic, and yet clean, harmonious, and tasteful.
Yes! tasteful is the word. The English are frequently, and in many instances justly, taunted with their want of taste. They have an awkward manner of wearing their clothes; they are bad hands at designing and manufacturing those charming nippes, for which the French are so famous; their grand dinners and festivals, their fancy patterns and articles of luxury, their fashions and social habits, are frequently at war with the laws of refined taste. But there are also matters in which, in point of taste, they are superior to all other nations. Such, for instance, in the cultivation of the soil, the manufacture of iron and leather, etc., etc.
Give a French, German, Spanish, or Belgian artisan a piece of iron, and ask him to make a screw for a steam-engine. Give just such a piece of iron to an Englishman, with the same request. The odds are a thousand to one that the Englishman’s screw will be more neat, useful and handsome, than the screw produced by the artisans of the other nations. The Englishman gives his iron and steel goods a sort of characteristic expression, a sort of solid beauty, which cannot fail at once to strike every beholder. The Germans saw thus much in the Great Exhibition; and they may see it in every English house, if they will but take the trouble of examining the commonest kitchen utensils, or the tongs, shovel, and poker in the most ordinary English parlour. They are all massive, solid, weighty, and tasteful.
It’s a splendid sight, this steam-engine at the Bank! It is complete, and in keeping in all its details. It is the mind which moves all the wheels and machines in the house. Its power is exerted in the furthest parts of the establishment; it moves a thousand wheels, and rollers, and rods; it stands all lonely in its case, working on and on, without control or assistance from man. With us, too, the steam-engines have emancipated themselves, and do not want the support of their masters; but the furnace is still a mere infant, and wants stokers to put its food into its mouth. But here the furnace, too, is independent: it procures its victuals, and feeds itself according to its wants. The large round grate is moveable; it turns in a circle on its horizontal plane, and pushes each point of its circumference at regular intervals, under an opening from which the coals fall down upon it. The keeper of the engine has nothing whatever to do but to fill the coal-box and light the fire in the morning. Steam is generated, it enters the cylinders, moves the pistons and the wheels, and the grate commences its rotary movement. From that moment forward, the engine works on without assistance.
As we proceed we shall be able to judge of the multiplied usefulness of this remarkable engine. We have followed our guide up a narrow flight of stone steps, and are now in rooms which form a striking contrast to the saloons which we examined in the first instance. They are dark and dusky workshops, in which the materials for the use of the Bank are being prepared. Here, for instance, is a man in a small room preparing the steel-plates on which the notes are to be engraved. His is a difficult task, even though the engine moves the sharp hard wedge which scrapes and polishes the plates. It produces a shrill screaming noise, one which it is by no means agreeable to listen to for any length of time; and besides the labour is most wearisome and monotonous. But it is one of the dark sides of this age of machinery, perhaps it is the darkest, that the sameness of his mechanical labour tends to stupify the workman; that he ceases being an artizan or artist, and comes to be a mere help to his machine, which requires no talents or abilities in its servant, but merely exactitude and promptness. All he has to do is to put the plate or the spindle on the exact spot, where the machine can seize, handle it, and finish it.
Another room is devoted to the preparation of printer’s ink, for the printing of the notes. A quantity of black matter is being ground. A simple operation this; even dogs might be trained to perform it, and give satisfaction. But here, too, the machine does the work, and does it, too, with astonishing accuracy. All the workman has to do, is to put the black mixture between the rollers; they take it, crush it, grind it, and drop it ready for use. If a single grain of sand be found in the mixture, the machine has neglected its duty—that’s all. But you wont find a grain of sand even if you were to search for it in many tons of the ink.
The workman explains the process.
“The ink,” says he, “must pass between these two large rollers to be ground. The rollers are of strong steel; they are very hard and heavy. But small particles of sand or stone would soon take away their polish. That’s what this side-cutting is for. Look here. I hold the point of my knife exactly at the point where the rollers touch one another. Did you see how at the slightest touch they separated? This happens whenever any hard body, however small, finds its way between them. They dont take it, but drop it, and in this manner they keep their polish.”
It is marvellous! This machine is most simple, and yet we could stand for hours to see it work. What is a sensitive plant to these heavy steel rollers, which are so sensitive that they recede at the touch even of a grain of sand! And it is all done by means of the cutting and the weight. It is no use attempting to describe these things without a diagram. And even that is unsatisfactory to those who never saw the machine in motion. But we revoke the pert remark we made just now. A dog cannot be trained to do this work; even the labour of man could not supply the labour of this machine. Enough for man that he made it.
Through the various work-rooms, each of them devoted to some part of the manufactory of notes, we come to the large work-shops of the printers and binders. In either of them steam is at work, and so are human beings. The Bank of England, which in the first year of its existence wanted only one ledger, requires now at least three hundred ledgers to register its accounts; they are all lined, paged, and bound in the house. It is one of the most interesting features of the Bank, that all its requirements, with the sole exception of the paper, are manufactured on the premises.
Exactly as in the stone-paved hall of the lower story, where we watched the great central steam-engine feeding itself, so we find in other rooms large machine monsters moving up and down, and to and fro, rattling, hissing, and thumping, and frequently not doing anything that we can see, although our guide tells us, that the results of their labours will become apparent to us in other parts of the building. And they stand, moreover, alone, completely left to themselves; in the rooms in which they work, in the corridors leading to those rooms, not a human creature is to be seen, not a human step to be heard, nor is there a trace of human influence that we are aware of. And then this measured rotation of the large wheels; the busy movement of the straps; the never tiring restlessness of the pistons, which seem to move faster the longer we look at them. There is something grand in these rooms, void of the presence of man, where the mind of man invisibly hovers over the world of machines, as the Spirit of God over the face of the waters in the hour of creation. It is grand, but it is also awful.
We feel quite relieved when we get down into the paved court-yard, where a living two-legged labourer walks by; and yet neither the place nor the man is very agreeable to look at. The yard has a neglected appearance, and the iron shutters which cover the place where the windows are supposed to be make it still more gloomy.
“That is the library of the Bank,” remarks our guide.
We are not likely to be astonished by anything. We just saw workshops without men; why should there not be a library without books? Let us have patience and wait. Perhaps some very clever machine will open the iron shutter from the inside, thrust forth its arm, and hand us a catalogue. No? Well, for a wonder, our guide, who is very polite, though by no means over-communicative, opens a small door, and motions us to enter.
A low, narrow, vaulted passage, which reminds us of the casemates or bomb-proof galleries of fortresses; a few rays of light straggling in through some grating somewhere; at the end of the passage a heavy iron door which opens into a small windowless room lighted up by the most consumptive-looking gas-jet imaginable. Our eyes are quite unused to the light; but, gradually as we get accustomed to it, we can see the objects around us. We stand in front of a railing, and behind it stands a little man in a black dress coat, and with a white cravat.
“This gentleman is the librarian of the Bank;” says our guide. Still no trace of books.
The man in the black dress-coat opens a door in the railing, bids us enter, and shows us an enormous number of parcels and bundles of notes, ranged along the walls up to the very ceiling. They call this the library of the Bank; but, in truth, it is its lumber room. It is an asylum for the notes which have been paid in at the Bank. They are valueless; for the Bank never issues the same note twice. They are kept and locked up in the library, I forget how many years, in order to be produced in the case of a theft or forgery, or any other matter of the kind. Afterwards they are burnt.
Every now and then clerks come in with fresh bundles. A few minutes ago these small papers were worth—Heaven knows how much money. “They are now mere waste paper. They have had their day. Many a note leads a long and honourable life; goes to the Continent, to India, or Port Adelaide; and returns to the Bank much the worse for wear after all its journeys. Other notes have scarcely a day’s roving license in the world; to-day they are issued, and to-morrow they are paid in. It’s accident, or fate, or Providence.” Saying which the librarian makes his bow, turns round, and returns to his desk.
We leave the library. The way is frequently very short from the old bookshop where good books and bad books are alike given up to dust and moths, to the printing-office, from whence they are launched forth into the world. Thus it is in the Bank. We have scarcely left the library, and we are already in the department where they print the notes.
The printing from the plates is simple enough. The wonders of the machinery consist chiefly in the spontaneous advance of the numbers (each note has its own number, and a double set too), and in the control which the machine exercises over the workmen. There is no inspector to watch the printer. The machine, which he compels to print, compels him to be honest. The machine registers the exact numbers that are being printed, and registers them too in a distant part of the establishment. That the machine can do this with astonishing accuracy; that it masters the intricacies of our system of numbers; and that it produces the numbers at the same moment in different places; is a triumph of human invention which almost startles us. It is also the result of the various systems of wheels which we saw working all alone in other parts of the building.
A great deal more might be said of the astonishing results of this most perfect system of machinery. But, since description is out of the question, we should only reproduce our own impression. Still we must tell the fairer portion of our readers that at the Bank even the washing is done by machinery, and that the establishment manages to get on without female labour.
The dirty linen of the Bank—that is to say the cloths which are used in the printing process—are sent to the washhouse, where they are compelled to perform a pilgrimage through a number of large pails full of hot and cold water. They are then washed by wheels; then dragged into hot water and next into cold water, wrung out and hung up in a drying room. And all by steam—all by machinery! No busy housewife—no able-tongued laundresses—no disturbance of the house—and no washing-days! There is no saying how shocking a want of respect of the whole female sex is implied by this process! But then the poor mechanics are quite as badly treated. You must put up with it, Madame. The Bank can and will do without you.
Our guide leads the way to other regions. We enter the reception and meeting-rooms of the Governor and the Directors.
Charming open places, with lawns and shrubberies, and here and there a shady tree—clean, well-sanded paths—it is quite evident that we have left the manufacturing districts, and are in the midst of the parks and homesteads of Old England. And these buildings, rising up from the lawns, are palaces, with columns, large stone steps, and carved ornaments. Their interior excels in splendour the wildest anticipations we might have formed. Saloons, high and lofty as cathedrals, splendid cupolas everywhere, and an overwhelming profusion of panelling, architectural ornaments, rich carpets and furniture, fit for a king’s palace. We would gladly remain here and see nothing else; but our guide is determined on our admiring all the sights of the house.
We follow him to the guard-room, where a detachment of soldiers from the Tower enter every evening and pass the night, to protect the Bank “in case of an emergency.” We follow him to the Bullion Office, a subterranean vault, where they keep the gold and silver bars from Australia, California, Russia, Peru, and Mexico; where they weigh them, sell them, and from whence they send them to the Mint. These vaults are very interesting to the admirers of precious metals.
But is this all? No! nothing of the kind. Our guide—a real guide—has reserved the most interesting part of the exhibition to the last. He has taken us through several yards and passages. He knocks at a large door, which is opened from the inside. Two gentlemen, in black dress coats and white cravats, stand in a large room, which receives its light through a lantern in the top. In the centre of the room is a heavy bureau. The walls are covered with iron lock-ups and safes. This is the Treasury of the Bank, where they keep the new notes and coins.
One of the gentlemen looks at our order, and, with that unpretending dignity which characterises the English, he turns round and opens some of the iron safes. They are filled with bags, containing 500 or 1000 sovereigns each. He takes some of them and puts them into our hands, to convince us, as though we ever doubted of the fact, of the bags being filled with good sterling money.
The other gentleman—they are both dressed as if they were going to a levée—takes a bunch of keys, and opens a large closet filled with notes. The most valuable and smallest bundle is again put into our hands. “You have there,” says he, “two thousand notes of one thousand pounds each.” Two million pounds sterling! Surely an enormous sum to hold in one’s hand. An army in paper, containing the power of much evil and much good, especially since the paper is not mere paper and since, at a few yards’ distance, you may change it into “red, red gold,” as the poets say. But as we are not in a position to perform that alchymistic process, we return the notes to their keeper. “Good bye, Sir.” “Good morning, gentlemen.” We have left the Treasury, without being either wiser or richer men. Of course, because we were not allowed to carry off its contents.
We enter another large room, with the neatest, prettiest steam-engine in it, and with a variety of other small machines, whose complicated wheels are kept in motion by the said engine. The bulkiest object in the room is a large table, literally covered with mountains of sovereigns. A few officials, with shovels in their hands, are stirring the immense glittering mass.
“It is here that they weigh the sovereigns,” whispers our guide. We stand and watch the process. Ignorant as we are of the exact principles of the machines, we are altogether startled by their fabulous activity.
Besides the mysterious system of wheels within wheels, each of these marvels displays an open square box, and in this box, slanting in an angle of 30°, two segments of cylinders, with the open part turned upwards. A roll of sovereigns, placed into one of these tubes, passes slowly down, and one gold piece after the other drops into a large box on the floor.
All the clerks have to do is to fill the tubes. The sovereigns slide down, but just at the lower end of the tube the miracle is accomplished. Whenever a sovereign of less than full weight touches that ticklish point, a small brass plate jumps up from some hidden corner, and pushes the defaulter into the left-hand compartment of the box, while all the good pieces go to the right. This little brass plate, hiding where it does, and popping out at intervals to note a bad sovereign, is an impertinent, ironical, malicious thing. There is an air of republicanism about it. As to the sharpness of its criticism, we actually do not believe that any republican would attempt to compete with it. For who would estimate the virtues of his fellow-men by grains, especially in the law of crowned heads!
We cannot see enough of these active machines. The small plates of brass show themselves pretty often as old and worn out sovereigns glide down. Not one of them is allowed to pass; and withal these small plates act with so much quiet promptitude and calm energy, and altogether without noise or pretension.
One of the clerks is kind enough to explain the purpose of this process.
“The Bank selects the full weighted sovereigns from the light ones, because all the money we pay out must have its full weight.”
“And what do you do with the light ones?”
“We send them to the Mint after we have taken the liberty of marking them. Shall I show you how we do it?”
He takes a handful of the condemned ones, and puts them into a box, which has the appearance of a small barrel-organ. He turns a screw, or touches a spring—it is clearly impossible to note each movement of the man’s hand—and there is a sounding and rushing noise in the interior of the box, and all the sovereigns fall out from a slit at the bottom. But mercy on us! how dreadfully disfigured they are! Cut through in the middle. The Victorias, and Williams, and Georges, all cut through their necks; in fact, beheaded! And that’s what the English call “marking a bad sovereign.” It makes us shudder. We are positively afraid. We cant stay one minute longer. “Good morning, sir.” “Good morning, gentlemen.”
What with our confusion and distress, we quite forgot to thank our kind guide. We are again in the street: to our left is the Exchange, to our right the Mansion-house, and before us the Iron Duke on horseback, and all around the furious, rattling, ceaseless crowd of vehicles; the moving and pushing of the foot-passengers; women hunted over the crossings; walking advertisements; street-sellers; red Post-office carts; the dusky streets, and the heavy leaden sky—the City in its working dress!
At home, while we are sitting at tea, Dr. Keif wastes much valuable eloquence in trying to convince Sir John, that the English can never get a proper understanding of German affairs: 1st, because it is hardly possible even for a German properly to understand them; 2nd, because the English newspapers have none but English correspondents in Germany, who know just as little of that mysterious country as he (Dr. Keif) knows of banking; 3rd, because the English consider all other countries with exclusive reference to their own country; and, 4th, because they fancy that reform can be brought about by peaceable public meetings, even in countries where those who attend such meetings are at once arrested, and locked up in fortresses or houses of correction; 5th, because social life in England is vastly different from social life in Germany; 6th, because Britons are too ignorant of the geography of Germany; and, 7th, because there are many who might understand German affairs, and who have very good reasons for not wishing to understand them. As we cannot follow the learned Doctor through the whole length of his argument we leave him to fight his own battle with Sir John, and merely remark, that an armistice was concluded at two o’clock in the morning, after which the belligerent parties went into night-quarters. And with this satisfactory intelligence we close the chapter.