Fleet Street is haunted by the ghosts of dead newspapers. At midnight they flit—in white sheets, of course—out of the doors and windows of old offices in the thoroughfare itself, and in the tributary lanes and streets and courts that flow into it. You may—if you have a good reliable imagination—catch the glimmer of their silent passage as they scurry back to their long homes. Poor sheeted dead! once so full of life and hope and confidence, but cut down untimely, and fated to revisit the scenes of their short but well-meant labours!

When my time comes to go, I shall not be able to leave my children much money; but I can—and will—leave them a lot of good advice. Should one of them determine to try his fortune in Fleet Street—a course which I should deplore—I would advise that devoted child of mine to keep a diary. Had I adopted this precaution, I should now be in a position to fix an exact date to every incident and anecdote related in these chronicles, and to record a hundred others which have escaped my memory. And for the purposes of this particular chapter I should be in a position to give the names, dates, and careers, of all the dead newspapers I have known during their brief stay on earth.

In the absence of any record, and having no desire to engage in research at the British Museum, I should roughly compute the number of publications started in my time and since died the death at between forty and fifty. I confine myself in this estimate to papers founded during the twenty years of my Press experience, and issues with which I had some intimate or remote personal connection. And here permit me to give another crumb of advice to that unfortunate boy of mine who may develop journalistic leanings. I would say to him:

“My son, when sinners entice thee to found a newpaper, be sure you do not call it after the name of a bird.”

That way disaster lies. There is ill luck in the selection. Even Chantecler would fail to draw the public if put on a Fleet Street publication. There is a fatality about feathers. It has happened so, perhaps, since journalists abandoned the goose-quill for the Gillott, the pencil, and the stylus. But that it is so there can be no manner of doubt. The smartest, breeziest, and best-written little paper of which I have any recollection was The Owl. It appeared only during the Parliamentary session. It was a sort of co-operative concern carried on by a group of able men in politics and Society. It came somewhat before my time, and I am shaky in my recollections of its short but brilliant career. I think Bowles fleshed his maiden sword in its columns, and Hume Williams the Elder wrote in it his “Diary of a Disappointed Politician.” The other members of the group were persons of higher social distinction. The profits of the issue were expended on dinners at Greenwich—I wonder why people ever did dine at Greenwich?—and on a box at the opera. But the paper did not live, and now “The Owl, for all his feathers, is a’ cold.”

The Cuckoo made its early flights with a strong pinion. It was started as an evening paper by Edmund Yates, and was frankly named after the predatory fowl because it made free with the nests of its morning contemporaries. Yet in truth it did not sin half so largely in this direction as the other evening papers, and its original matter was smart, ably written, and cheery. But who cares in these days to hear of original matter in a paper? Nowadays matter doesn’t matter. From Yates the devoted Cuckoo passed, by purchase, into the hands of my friend “Jimmy” Davis. “Jimmy,” in his desire to make his journal spicy, lowered its tone. He was very fond of writing what he called “snaky” paragraphs, and too ready to accept, without making due inquiries, items of curious information about people in Society. It was useless to reason with him on the subject. A short time before the end came I met the sub-editor in Fleet Street, evidently labouring under a stress of emotion. I asked him what was the matter.

“If we don’t dry up we’ll be smashed tip,” he replied. “Look at this! He insists on its going in!”

“He,” of course, was Davis, and “it” was a paragraph dealing with the private life of a very great lady indeed. This particular item got crushed out at the last minute. But the risks of criminal libel run every day by “Jimmy” would appal the modern journalist. This notwithstanding, the Cuckoo died a natural death. Contrary to general expectation, it “dried up,” and was not “smashed up.”

The bat is not what naturalists would call a bird, but I feel sure Davis thought it was. For his second venture was a weekly publication called The Bat. In his earlier paper he had gone out of his way to attack Society people; in the Bat he found a savage delight in crucifying Stage folk. In this direction he probably went as far as any man ever did go without suffering from reprisals. He was less fortunate when he turned his attention to the leading men on the Turf. Lord Durham, being advised that the Bat had gone beyond the limits of fair criticism, took criminal proceedings. The redoubtable James, having a lawyer’s notion of what the upshot would be, and a nice appreciation of the advantages of liberty, repaired to France, where he remained in exile for several years. George Lewis, indeed, boasted that as long as he (Lewis) lived Jimmy should never return to his native land. And when two Jews feel like that about each other, you may safely anticipate trouble. But Mrs. Davis brought her personal influence to bear on Lord Durham, and, the Hatton Garden threat notwithstanding, “Jimmy,” who had got as far as Boulogne, was permitted to return to London—absent from which centre of activity he was never really happy.

Some few years before his death Davis founded yet another paper. This time he combined in his title his taste both for ornithology and for mythology. He called his paper The Phoenix. He now showed his pristine smartness without his old-time scurrility. The paper was, indeed, very well done—bright, original, and mordantly humorous. But the day for that sort of thing was closing in. There was no longer any public for six-pennyworth of smartness. Seeing this, the accommodating proprietor reduced his price to twopence; but even at that figure his smartness proved unsaleable. At the other end of the town, however, he was making money “hand over fist,” as the vulgar saying has it. His “Floradora” was running at a West End theatre and playing to crowded houses. I suspect that a considerable amount of the money which he made out of comic opera was lost in comic journalism. I wrote for Davis on all his papers, and although he usually owed me a balance at the moment of the inevitable “smash-up” or “dry-up,” that balance was so inconsiderable in each case, as compared with the sums that I had taken from him, that I never thought of pressing him. Davis was essentially a good “pal.” He has followed his papers and his other enterprises into the grave. May the turf lie light on him! The Turf pressed him rather heavily here.

Another bird of ill omen was The Hawk. This was hatched out by Augustus Moore, an Irishman very well known in the eighties on the Press, but in later years better known in connection with the stage and stage plays. Augustus Moore was the brother of George of that ilk, an author who first came into notice by means of a collection of verses, chiefly imitations of Swinburne, and called “Pagan Poems,” and afterwards notorious for some faithful studies of domestic servants given to the public in the guise of fiction of the Zolaesque order of literature. In his labours on the Hawk, Augustus Moore was greatly assisted by his compatriot and copartner, Mr. J. M. Glover, known in later days as the conductor at Drury Lane and onetime Mayor of Bexhill-on-Sea.

Moore passed through many vicissitudes in carrying on the Hawk, all of them encountered in that spirit of cheery optimism which characterized the adventurers of the jocund days—the boys of the Old Brigade, as Clement Scott called them. But the financial position at last became impossible. Moore sold out his interest for a small sum, and the Hank came under the control of John Chandor, an implacable enemy of Moore’s, and a sort of Ishmael in his attitude with respect to society generally. Chandor’s reign was brief but lurid. He hit out all round, not with the rapier, but with the bludgeon, and at last, getting into a fracas at the Aquarium with some gentlemen holding commissions in the army, he attacked these men by name in his paper. The Colonel of the regiment insisted on his officers obtaining an apology or bringing an action. No apology was forthcoming. The action was taken; heavy damages were imposed. The venomous bird of prey had made her last flight.

The Pelican may, at first sight, appear to be an exception to the rule which associates ill luck with the selection of a bird name for a paper. But, with all respect to Mr. Boyd, the Pelican is scarcely a paper in any large or liberal use of that term. It is a little organ owned, edited, and principally written, by one man. It has discovered a nice adjustment between the minimum of “copy” and the maximum of advertisement. But the circulation is good, and the advertisers are quite satisfied, so no one else need cavil; however, I should not advise any future promoter to attempt success on Mr. Boyd’s lines, even with a good bird name to start out on.

Another bird which, having for many years suffered severely from the pip, at length died a lingering death, not greatly regretted by the public for which it fatuously “clucked,” was The Bird o’ Freedom. This weird fowl was hatched in the hot incubators of the Sporting Times. Its memorial tablet is now affixed, together with that of the Man of the World, among the titles of the parent paper. No paper has so many titles incorporated as the Pink Un.

“How much money should you have to start a daily newspaper?” I once asked the owner of one of our great dailies.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds,” he answered promptly.Many daily papers have been started on less than that sum, and a few of them have succeeded. But my experience of Fleet Street confirms the estimate of the eminent man whom I have quoted. It is not the mere start, of course, that demands that large capital sum; it is the income expended in keeping the thing going until it reaches the paying point that renders desirable a big capital. The best sub-edited paper that ever saw the light in London was The Echo. Its editing also was good. But for sub-editing it held, in its time, an easy pre-eminence. No one knows—no one ever will know—the amount of capital sunk in that venture successively by the publishers in La Belle Sauvage Yard, by Baron Grant, and by Passmore Edwards. Sanguine speculators succeeded each other in prolonging its existence. It was the very type and model of what an evening paper should be. It lived for many years. It never paid. It is one of the mysteries of the profession.

A much shorter shrift was accorded by the public—that difficile and insensate public!—to The Hour. This ambitious Tory organ was edited by Captain Hamber, who had held a corresponding post on the Standard. Hamber was one of the most remarkable men I ever met. He possessed some rather pronounced eccentricities; but he was a gentleman ad unguem, and he had the authentic editorial flair. But the faith of the proprietors of the Hour could not have been equal to the proverbial grain of mustard-seed. For—at least, so Hamber more than once told me—they “shut down” on the very day on which, for the first time, the paper showed a profit. On the collapse of this Conservative venture the gallant Captain was offered the editorship of the Morning Advertiser. Thus he could—and did—boast of having controlled the destinies of three morning papers. He did not, however, very greatly relish his connection with the “’Tiser,” as it was irreverently called by the Street. But he did his work well and conscientiously, and succeeded in what should have seemed an impossible task—that, namely, of raising the tone and increasing the influence and circulation of the organ of the British Bung.

Hamber always treated his licensed victualling proprietors with a sort of lordly tolerance, and they forgave his mood in return for the good fortune which had attended his conduct of their property. Indeed, they evinced the unbounded confidence they bestowed in him by always granting any advances for which he asked, for he was afflicted with a chronic need of advances. Once or twice the worthy men gave him a bonus to discharge some pressing obligations. His salary was £1,000 a year; but had it been £5,000 a year, Hamber would have contrived to get through it. To be in debt was his mÉtier. Yet he was fond of lecturing members of the staff, who evinced a faculty for following his brilliant example on the folly and wickedness of the thing. Indeed, I have known him to be interrupted in the delivery of a homily of the kind by the intrusion of a Sheriff’s officer charged with an ultimatum to the genial editor himself.

His handwriting was the very worst I ever attempted to make out. As a matter of fact, he could not decipher it himself. But there was one compositor in each of the offices in which he had edited who could set up his copy, though, as Hamber often said, “whether he really sets up exactly what I wrote is quite another matter. But he always swears he does, and I’m blessed if I can contradict him!” Before Captain Hamber took to journalism he had become known as having been the man who enrolled and commanded the German Legion during the Crimean War. Neither Hamber nor his Legion was ever called to the front; but it was generally admitted that in this matter he had acted promptly and patriotically. Hamber was a staunch party man, a member of the Junior Carlton Club from its foundation, and he possessed an unrivalled acquaintance with the fine art of party tactics. It is not altogether to the credit of the party that his last days should have been passed under a cloud to which there was no silver lining. He was a man physically of great proportions, but had acquired a stooping habit and unmilitary gait. And his great frame contained a heart as big as the shell that enshrined it.

The forerunner of the halfpenny dailies was The Morning. The one circumstance against that wonderfully well edited paper was that it came before its time. It was founded by Mr. Chester Ives, one of the most popular and most accomplished of the American colony in London. He edited the paper himself, and surrounded himself with a really smart and reliable staff. Among other men whom he introduced was a young man from the North who afterwards became associated with the Harmsworths in the promotion of their successful newspaper undertakings. Notwithstanding the bold bid which the Morning made for public favour, it failed to “catch on,” and we watched its disappearance with regret—but not as those without hope. Poor Chester Ives! since the above lines were penned he has passed from amongst us, and under peculiarly painful circumstances.

H. J. Byron brought out a penny rival to Punch, to which he gave the somewhat jejune title Comic News. But there was nothing at all jejune about the contents. The editor seemed to have inspired his staff with his own spirit of wild and irresponsible fun. The thing was a roar from beginning to end. The title displayed a caricature of the royal arms, with the mottoes “Dieu et mon droit” and “Honi soit qui mal y pense” riotously rendered, “Do ’em and drwaw it” and “On his walks he madly puns.” It was the funniest thing ever produced, but it did not take with the many-headed. I strongly suspect that the public imagined that “H. J.” was laughing at and not with them.

Two weekly organs of gossip, criticism, and politics which depended for acceptance chiefly on their cartoons were the Tomahawk and Will O’ the Wisp. The former introduced to the public the bold and effective artistic work of Matt Morgan; the latter was the first to discover the abundant merits of the art of my friend John Proctor. In the literary department both papers occasionally condescended to scandal and scurrility. Morgan’s cartoon entitled “A Brown Study” was resented by all decent-minded men, and both papers failed because they entirely misunderstood the tastes of those who at that time purchased weekly journals. The cartoons in both cases were of sufficient merit to keep any properly edited paper alive. But when the cartoonists themselves were inspired by the conductors the worst happened. Both papers died the death unregretted.

How the St. Stephen’s Review managed to struggle through its recurring financial viscissitudes is one of the unsolved mysteries of the publishing world. It was a strong Tory weekly, price sixpence, with a coloured cartoon by Tom Merry, and the one outstanding fact to its credit is that Mr. William Alison, the editor, gave Phil May his first chance. Alison has since those days discovered his journalistic mÉtier in a field far removed from the arid area of politics, and in his new line he has achieved a large and financial success. I wrote a lot of copy for the St. Stephen’s Review. But I turned it up after a while, and I have no doubt someone better qualified took my place.

A curious incident happened to me in connection with this paper. The Hon. Mrs. Whyte-Melville, widow of the novelist, had engaged as her private chaplain a wild Irish divine known as the Rev. Peter Higginson. Peter had been chaplain to Bishop Colenso, and his native impetuosity had been increased on the African veldt. Now, a paragraph had appeared in Alison’s paper in which it was stated, as a matter of gossip, that Whyte-Melville’s favourite cob, which had been provided an old age of ease by the deceased gentleman’s will, was being daily galloped about the Thames Valley by a mad clergyman with a big red beard. A day or two after the appearance of the paragraph a gentleman answering the description of the person mentioned in connection with Whyte-Melville’s cob, entered my room unannounced. He threw a copy of the paper containing the note on the table at which I was sitting.

“That manes me, an’ you wrote it!” he said.

I asked him to be so good as to remove his hat and take a seat. He complied growling, and blushing, I thought, on his cheek-bones.

“Now, perhaps,” I suggested suavely, “you will tell me who you are and how you got in here.”

“I’m the Rivirind Pether Higginson,” he answered, in a more chastened spirit, “an’ I gev your boy five shilluns to let me in.”I rang the bell. My unfortunate clerk entered.

“You’ve got five shillings belonging to this gentleman. Give them back to him.” Greatly resenting the order, the boy complied. “Now show the gentleman out!” I continued.

A letter from Peter received a month after assured me that he had discovered the writer of the offensive note, that he greatly regretted his intrusion, and that he would esteem it as a great favour if I would lunch with him on the following day at Simpson’s in the Strand. I went, and had a most amusing time listening to his gasconading. He married the widow for the repose of whose husband’s soul he had been engaged to pray, and I became an occasional visitor at their house at St. Margaret’s-on-Thames. Peter’s solicitude for my welfare was quaintly evinced on the first occasion of my dining with the newly-married couple. Just before going into the dining-room he whispered solemnly in my ear:

“Don’t dhrink the clar’t: it’s muck!”

“If I be waspish best beware!” was the motto which appeared under the title of The Hornet. This smart and satirical little paper was originally launched in the wilds of Hornsey as a minor City organ. It then came into the hands of the American, Stephen Fiske. This gentleman made theatrical criticism the leading feature of his newly-acquired property. He was a great friend of Mrs. John Wood, the inimitable comedienne, and he was said to have been financed by Peabody the philanthropist. This I always took leave to doubt, because, although Fiske put plenty of brains and labour into his new purchase, it gave none of the customary signs of any considerable outlay of money. Indeed, in his hands, the Hornet was more or less (rather more than less) of a financial failure. Fiske returned to New York. Here he took up the post of dramatic critic on the Spirit of the Times, a position which he still holds, though the name of the journal has been changed to Sports of the Times.

Joseph Hatton then undertook to run the Hornet. Hatton had written a novel called “Clytie,” a great part of which was made up of the proceedings in the celebrated Twiss case lifted bodily from the columns of a daily paper. The novel enjoyed a sort of library success, and Hatton thought to increase the circulation of his new property by bringing out “Clytie” as a serial. Now, the public hates reprint, and it particularly hates reprint of unsuccessful stuff. But Hatton was obsessed by “Clytie.” He not only ran it in his paper, but he turned it into a play, and as he could not find a manager willing to produce it, he took it on the road himself. That soon settled poor Jo Hatton, and incidentally involved his parting with the Hornet.

Under the editorship of Vero Shaw the Hornet exhibited all the signs of enlightened management and a desire to live up to the paper’s motto. Shaw introduced new men and new features. H. J. Byron was engaged to write a serial, and he also contributed a weekly causerie entitled “Our Absurd Column.” Other members of the staff were Godfrey Turner, John Augustus O’Shea, Tom Purnell, and the redoubtable Featherstonhaugh. For the first time in its varied career the paper began to hum, a circumstance attributable not only to the increased brightness of the literary department, but also to the fact that the cartoons were the work of that most gifted of caricaturists and most amiable of men, the late Alfred Bryan. One salient feature of the paper under its new control was a spicy City article in which the bucket-shops of the period were remorselessly exposed and condemned. A syndicate of City men then came forward and offered a price so substantial that the proprietor could not resist the temptation to realize. Having gained their object by purchase, the Hornet was put to a speedy and painless end by its new owners.

An incident delightfully characteristic of the irresponsible way in which minor journalism was carried on in the jocund days may be popped in here. I can personally vouch for the truth of it. During the last weeks of his proprietorship, and during the negotiations for sale, Hatton was away from home, and the affairs of the Hornet were left in the hands of Broughton, the dramatic critic. It was essential, in view of negotiations then pending, that the paper should be kept alive. Danks, the printer, whose “works” were next door to the Argyll Rooms, suddenly refused to proceed with the printing unless his balance were paid, and the “oof bird” was particularly shy and strong on the wing just then. Broughton, though a little man, was a most loyal and determined one. By hypothecating some sleeve-links and a watch-chain, and by the skilful manoeuvring of cross cheques, a small sum of “ready” was secured. The Cesarewitch was being run that day, and the money thus secured was, on the advice of Vero Shaw, invested on Hilarious. The noble horse won at excellent odds. Danks, the printer, was appeased, the hypothecated jewellery was redeemed, the cross cheques met, and the Hornet saved!

James Mortimer made a long, arduous, and plucky fight of it with Figaro. First of all the paper appeared as a daily, and was supposed to enjoy some financial backing from the Tuileries. Eventually it settled down into a weekly. For a short period, too, it sent out a Sunday edition. But Mortimer was not one of the lucky ones. After the disappearance of Figaro from the face of the earth, he started the Lantern, and in still more recent years the Anglo-Saxon. His later bantlings all perished in early life owing to feeble circulation and insufficient nourishment. It is, however, with his first venture, Figaro, that the name of James Mortimer will always remain honourably associated. His staff on that paper was largely recruited from the Civil Service. He engaged Clement Scott, of the War Office; Dowty (“ O. P. Q. Philander Smiff”), of the Paymaster’s Office; Ernest Bendall, of the same Department; Archer and Winterbotham. They were not only capable writers—Mortimer was wont to say—but they were reliable. “You always know where to find them when you want them,” he would slyly add. Mortimer’s hobby had always been chess, and to the pursuit of this stimulating science he devoted a considerable portion of a full and busy life.

Hugo Ames was, I think, the tallest man who ever adventured in Fleet Street. He is a younger brother of Captain “Ossy” Ames, who has the distinction of being the tallest man in the British Army. The career of Mr. Ames as a newspaper proprietor was brief—and disastrous. He established a smart little paper called The Dwarf, to which he contributed largely himself. He also founded Smart Society, and he was foolishly persuaded to purchase the Hawk. Ames was a splendid fellow, but he got into wrong hands, and as a consequence dropped a fortune at newspaper promotion in less than two years.

. . . But I have exceeded the chapter limit which I had assigned to myself, and I have dealt with but a few of the dear—the very dear—departed papers of my day. . . . The sheeted dead press round me, gibbering and clamouring for notice. Poor ineffectual ghosts! They are doomed still to “walk.” I have no space in which to “lay” them.