Part 2

It is now necessary to point out how—to glance at the opposite page of the account—the law guards against frauds attempted _by_ the public upon Savings’ Banks. The only way in which they could be so abused, would be by attempts, on the part of the comparatively wealthy, to obtain a higher rate of interest, for investments, than they could get elsewhere. But an average interest, 2_l._ 17_s._ 6_d._ per cent. with a maximum of 3_l._ 0_s._ 10_d._, would seem a sufficient bar to such deposits. But in order to guard against such a possibility, the law has enacted that no one person shall be permitted to deposit more than 30_l._ in any one year, or more than 150_l._ pounds in the whole; and if his principal and interest together ever amounts to 200_l._, then the payment of all further interest is stopped. These restrictions are effectual in preserving Savings’ Banks to the sole object of savings—the savings of the poor.

As regards actual frauds and attempts at fraud by the public, we have been obliged with the experience of the St. Martin’s Bank, which very probably speaks for that of all the Savings’ Banks in England:—“Since this Bank was instituted, in 1816,” says our informant, “there have been only five attempts at fraud, by forgery of depositors’ signatures, or otherwise. In two of those five cases the forgery was detected and no loss ensued. In the other three cases the Bank sustained the loss, which amounted in the whole to less than 50_l._ Attempts at personation seldom succeed,—nor are these always fraudulent; absent depositors are often consenting parties, in order to save themselves the trouble of attending personally. Such cases lead to dispute; but two such cases which have occurred here are rather curious. In 1847 a man married a female depositor, and induced her to withdraw the whole of her money (exceeding 100_l_), of which having possessed himself, he abandoned her. Subsequently he deposited 90_l._., part of this money, in three different Savings’ Banks, our own among the number. The wife having stated her case to us, we took advantage of the law which prohibited him from depositing in more than one Bank, and refused to allow him to withdraw. The case was referred; and the barrister appointed by act of Parliament to settle such questions awarded that, under the statute, the deposits were forfeited to the Commissioners of the National Debt. The Lords of the Treasury, upon the wife’s memorial, ordered the restitution of the money to her, for her own separate use, free from her husband’s control; and this arrangement we had the pleasure of carrying into effect.—The other case was equally singular. In 1848 the Painters’ and Glaziers’ Friendly Society had an account with us. They sought to eject one of the trustees of their fund from the benefits of their Society, on the ground that on the ‘10th of April’ he had acted as a Special Constable, contrary to the rule prohibiting him from ‘voluntarily entering Her Majesty’s service.’ The trustee protested to us, and we objected to pay the Society’s money without his signature to the order. Thereupon ‘the Painters and Glaziers’ caused the case to be referred, and the barrister awarded that the funds should not be transferred or withdrawn without the trustee’s consent.”

From the same quarter we ascertained, in reference to unclaimed money, a remarkable circumstance. The amount of unclaimed deposits in the St. Martin’s Place Bank has of late decreased instead of increased. In 1842 the Bank held 10,800_l._, which had been unclaimed for seven years. In 1849, although its business had so amazingly augmented, the amount which had remained unclaimed for seven years was 9898_l._ or nearly 1000_l._ less. This is accounted for by the great pains taken to trace and summon the depositors and their representatives. It certainly is remarkable that out of transactions to the extent of more than eight and a half millions of money, only 9900_l._ should remain unclaimed.

From what we have stated on this subject it will be seen that although Savings’ Banks are not on a satisfactory footing as between the Government and depositors, or as between the latter and the local managers; yet, on the whole, the system is so well contrived, that no good reason has lately been revealed for the public to withdraw their confidence from them. The cure of the more glaring defects is now under the consideration of Government, and this paper will be best concluded by a sketch of the proposed remedy. The bill introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with all the defects we have pointed out: perhaps it introduces some new ones, but these it will be purged of probably in Committee. One of the chief evils is that exemption from liability which was extended to trustees in 1844: and it is proposed, for wilful or neglectful losses, to restore this liability. These officers are now unpaid; and it is proposed to pay them, Government being responsible for their acts, and having the privilege of appointing. To prevent fraud, occasioned by the treasurer or actuary receiving monies at his own house, it is intended that the treasurer alone shall receive money, and that he shall attend at certain stated times for that purpose. A local banker is to fill the office, who will not be wholly unremunerated. For any other person than the treasurer to receive money as a savings’ bank deposit, will be a misdemeanour. Daily accounts are to be rendered to the Commissioners of the National Debt; and those Commissioners will appoint auditors, who shall exercise a constant revision of the accounts, subject to supervision by special inspectors despatched at discretion. These arrangements will necessarily entail greater expence, and to meet it, the rate of interest allowed to depositors, is to be reduced to 2_l._ 15_s._, and deposits limited to 100_l._ Above that amount, Government will either hold the money without interest, or, at the depositor’s option, invest it in the funds free of charge.

THE SUMMER SABBATH.

The woods my Church, to-day—my preacher boughs, Whispering high homilies through leafy lips; And worshippers, in every bee that sips Sweet cordial from the tiniest flower, that grows ’Mid the young grass, and, in each bird, that dips Light pinions in the sunshine as it throws Gold showers upon green trees. All things around Are full of Prayer! The very blush which tips Yon snowy cloud, is bright with adoration! The grass breathes incense forth, and all the ground Is a wide altar; while the stillest sound Is vibrating with praise. No profanation Reaches the thoughts, while thus to ears and eyes Nature her music and her prayer supplies!

NEWSPAPER ANTECEDENTS.

Those in whom the appetite for news on which we have already commented is very strong, must wonder how our forefathers existed without newspapers; for so it happened that the lieges of these realms did get on very well without them up to the days of the first of the Stuarts. But although they had no printed newspapers, they could not and did not do without news; conveyed orally in the form of gossip, or by means of manuscript intelligencers. Friendly communications containing the gossip of the town for the enlightenment of cousins in the country are as old as pen and ink, and much older than paper; for many, still extant in the British Museum, were written on vellum. By-and-bye, the writing of such letters became a profession, and every country family of pretension could boast of “our own correspondent.” These writers were generally disbanded military officers, younger sons very much “about town,” and, not unfrequently, clergymen. Shirley in his “Love Tricks” draws the portrait of one of these antecedents of the present race of Editors.

“_Easparo._ I tell you, Sir, I have known a gentleman that has spent the best part of a thousand pounds while he was prentice to the trade in Holland, and out of three sheets of paper, which was his whole stock, (the pen and ink-horn he borrowed,) he set up shop, and spent a hundred pounds a year. It has been a great profession. Marry, most commonly they are soldiers; a peace concluded is a great plague upon them, and if the wars hold we shall have store of them. Oh, they are men worthy of commendation. They speak in print.

“_Antonio._ Are they soldiers?

“_Eas._ Faith so they would be thought, though indeed they are but mongrels, not worthy of that noble attribute. They are indeed bastards, not sons of war and true soldiers, whose divine souls I honour, yet they may be called great spirits too, for their valour is invisible; these, I say, will write you a battle in any part of Europe at an hour’s warning, and yet never set foot out of a tavern; describe you towns, fortifications, leaders, the strength of the enemy, what confederates, every day’s march. Not a soldier shall lose a hair, or have a bullet fly between his arms, but he shall have a page to wait on him in quarto. Nothing destroys them but want of a good memory, for if they escape contradiction they may be chronicled.”

By the time James the First began to reign, this employment had so completely moulded itself into a regular craft, that news-writers set up offices and kept “emissaries,” or reporters, to bring them accounts of what was going on in various parts of the metropolis. These reports were sifted, collected, and arranged by the master of the office, or “Register,” who acted as Editor. To Nathaniel Butter, a news-writer of that period, was the British public indebted for the first printed newspaper. Ben Jonson in his “Staple of News” gives a vivid picture of Mr. Butter’s office before he took to printing.

_Enter Register and Nathaniel._

_Reg._ What, are those desks fit now? Set forth the table, The carpet and the chair; where are the News That were examined last? Have you filled them up?

_Nath._ Not yet, I had no time.

_Reg._ Are those News registered That emissary Buz sent in last night, Of Spinola and his eggs?

_Nath._ Yes, sir, and filed.

_Reg._ What are you now upon?

_Nath._ That our new emissary Westminster gave us, of the golden heir.

_Reg._ Dispatch; that’s news indeed, and of importance.—

_Enter a Country-woman._

What would you have, good woman?

_Woman._ I would have, sir, A groat’s-worth of any News, I care not what, To carry down this Saturday to our vicar.

_Reg._ O! you are a butter-woman; ask Nathaniel, The clerk there.

_Nath._ Sir, I tell her she must stay Till emissary Exchange, or Paul’s send in, And then I’ll fit her.

_Reg._ Do, good woman, have patience; It is not now, as when the Captain lived; You’ll blast the reputation of the office, Now in the bud, if you dispatch these groats So soon: let them attend in name of policy.

To have served his gaping customers too quickly, would have seemed as though the News was _made_ instead of being collected; so thought the Register.

Respecting the first English printed newspaper, the public have lain under a mistake for nearly a century. Some ten years ago, however, Mr. Thomas Watts of the British Museum exploded the long prevalent fallacy that the “_English Mercurie_,” dated in 1588, was originally the progenitor of modern journals. A copy of such a paper exists in the Birch Collection; but it is a manifest forgery, the concoction of which was traced to the second Lord Hardwicke. It pretends to give news from the expedition against the Spanish Armada; but, besides a host of blunders in dates, it is printed on paper made posterior to the date it bears. The truth is that no periodically printed newspaper appeared till thirty years after.

When the reign of James the First was drawing to a close; when Ben Jonson was poet laureate, and the personal friends of Shakspeare were lamenting his then recent death; when Cromwell was trading as a brewer at Huntingdon; when Milton was a youth of sixteen, just trying his pen at Latin verse, and Hampden a quiet country gentleman in Buckinghamshire; London was solicited to patronise its first Newspaper. There is now no reason to doubt that the puny ancestor of the myriads of broad sheets of our time was published in the metropolis in 1622, and that the most prominent of the ingenious speculators who offered the novelty to the world was Nathaniel Butter. His companions in the work appear to have been Nicholas Bourne, Thomas Archer, Nathaniel Newberry, William Sheffard, Bartholomew Downes, and Edward Allde. All these different names appear in the imprints of the early numbers of the first Newspaper—THE WEEKLY NEWES.[1] This prime, original progenitor of the acres of news which are now rolled out from the press failed, after many lapses and struggles, chiefly occasioned by the Star Chamber. Its end was untimely. The last number appeared on the 9th of January, 1640. Could it have survived a little longer it might have run a long career, for the incubus which smothered it was itself stifled—the Star Chamber was abolished in 1641.

Footnote 1:

The Fourth Estate, by F. K. Hunt.

Butter’s print was succeeded by a host of “Mercuries,” but none of them were long-lived. They were started for particular objects, to advocate certain views, and sometimes to circulate the likeliest lies that could be invented to serve the cause espoused. Each of these was laid down when its mission was accomplished. During the civil war, nearly thirty thousand journals, pamphlets, and papers were issued in this manner. In the heat of hostilities, each army carried its printing-press as part of its munitions of war. Leaden types were employed with as much rancour and zeal as leaden bullets. These were often headed as News, such as “Newes out of Worcestershire,” “Newes of a bloody battle,” fought at such a place, &c. In 1662 a regular periodical, called the “Kingdom’s Intelligencer,” was started, and in the following year the “Intelligencer, published for the satisfaction and information of the people,” was set up by Sir Roger L’Estrange.

All these were superseded by a journal, which has stood its ground so well that the last number came out only yesterday. This was the “Oxford Gazette,” set up in that city in 1665, and now known as the “London Gazette.” For many years after the Restoration this was the only newspaper; for the law restricted any man from publishing political news without the consent of the Crown. Charles and James the Second withheld that consent whenever it suited them, and put those who took “French leave” into the pillory.

As a specimen of a newspaper, when these restrictions were abated, after the flight of James the Second, we may instance the “Universal Intelligencer.” It was small in size, and meagre in contents. It appeared only twice a week, and consisted of two pages; that is to say, one leaf of paper a little larger than the page on which the reader’s eye now rests, and with hardly so much matter. The number for December 11, 1688, boasts two advertisements. A small paragraph amongst its News describes the seizing of Judge Jefferies, in his attempt to escape from the anger of his enemies. Besides this interesting morsel of intelligence, the paper has sixteen lines of News from Ireland, and eight lines from Scotland; whilst under its News of England, we have not very much more. One of the items tells us, that “on the 7th inst. the Prince of Orange supt at the Bear Inn, Hungerford.” There are other headings, such as “Forrain News” and “Domestick News.” Each item of intelligence is a mere skeleton—more in the nature of memoranda, or notifications of events, than accounts of them. “Further particulars” had not been invented then.

By Anne’s time, journalism had improved, and—when the victories of Marlborough and Rooke, the political contests of Godolphin and Bolingbroke, and the writings of Addison, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Steele, and Swift, created a mental activity in the nation which could not wait from week to week for its News—the first daily paper was started. This was the Daily Courant, which came out in 1709. Other such journals followed; but three years afterwards, they received a severe check by the imposition of the Stamp Duty. “All Grub Street,” wrote Swift to Stella, “is ruined by the Stamp Act.” On the 7th of August, 1712, he writes:—

“Do you know that Grub Street is dead and gone last week? No more ghosts or murders now for love or money. I plied it pretty close the last fortnight, and published at least seven penny papers of my own, besides some of other people’s, but now every single half-sheet pays a halfpenny to the Queen. The ‘Observator’ is fallen; the ‘Medleys’ are jumbled together with the ‘Flying Post;’ the ‘Examiner’ is deadly sick; the ‘Spectator’ keeps up, and doubles its price; I know not how long it will hold. Have you seen the red stamp the papers are marked with? Methinks it is worth a halfpenny the stamping.”

Grub Street was not, however, so easily put down; and from that time to the days of Dr. Johnson, newspapers had considerably increased in number and influence. In the Idler the Doctor says:—“No species of literary men has lately been so much multiplied as the writers of News. Not many years ago, the nation was content with one Gazette, but now we have not only in the metropolis Papers for every morning and every evening, but almost every large town has its weekly historian, who regularly circulates his periodical intelligence, and fills the villagers of his district with conjectures on the events of war, and with debates on the true interests of Europe.”

In Dr. Johnson’s day, the newspaper press was fairly set upon its legs, and it has gone on with some few vicissitudes to its present condition. As illustrations of the antecedents of the modern newspaper, we now purpose giving, at random, a few curious extracts from the earliest of them.

The Daily Courant, dated March 1, 1711, contains the following announcement of a publication which is still read with delight, and which was destined to play an important part in the reform of the coarse social manners of the time. It runs thus:—

“_This day is Published_,

“A paper entitled THE SPECTATOR, which will be continued every day. Printed for James Buckley, at the Dolphin in Little Britain, and sold by A. Baldwin, in Warwick Lane.”

In the first number thus announced, which was written by Addison, the Spectator says:—“As my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me may direct their letters to Mr. Buckley’s, in Little Britain.”

Hogarth never painted a more graphic picture of a horseman of the last century than that drawn in the Postman of Saturday, August 10, 1710. It is presented in the form of a hue and cry after a stolen horse.

“A Full Face, Round shoulder Middle sized Man, with a light Bob Goat’s Hair Wig, a snuff-coloured Secretary Drugget coat, the trimming the same colour, 2 waistcoats, one of Black cloath, the other blue, trimmed with silver lace, Black cloath breeches, a Mourning Hatband, wears a cane with a silver Head, made to screw at the top, a seafaring man, stammering in his speech, his name William Tunbridge but goes by the name of William Richardson, rode away from 7 Oaks in Kent the 20th of July last, with a Sorrel Horse full 14 hands high, a star in his forehead, white feet behind, high mettled, loth to have his hind feet taken up, Bob Tail, a black saddle stitched with silver, Tan Leather stirrup Leathers with a slit crupper buckled on the saddle with 2 buckles. Whoever gives notice of man or horse to Mr. Adams, Postmaster of Seven Oaks, shall have a guinea reward and reasonable charges.”

The Daily Courant of Thursday, March 15, 1711, puts forth the announcement of a performance at the Haymarket Theatre, “on the 1st of April,” to which the Bottle Conjuror’s promised feat must sink into a mere common occurrence. A gentleman was to sup off several children “to the music of kettledrums.” The same advertisement appeared in the Spectator on the day after, namely, Friday, March 16:—

“On the first of April will be performed at the play house in the Hay Market an Opera called the Cruelty of Atræus. N. B. The scene wherein Thyestes eats his own children is to be performed by the famous Mr. Psalmanazaar, lately arrived from Formosa, the whole supper being set to kettle drums.”

Scattered through the journals of 1712 are advertisements of a patent medicine, which has not wholly ceased to be imbibed by the ailing of 1850. The Spectator of April 18th has it thus:—

“Daffy’s famous Elixir Salutis prepared by Catherine Daffy, the finest now exposed for sale, prepared from the best drugs and the original receipt which my Father Mr. Thomas Daffy having experienced the virtues of it imparted it to Mr. Anthony Daffy who published the same to his own great advantage. This very original receipt is now in my possession, left me by my father under his own bond. My brother Mr. Daniel Daffy, late apothecary in Nottingham, made this Elixir from the same receipt and sold it there during his life. Those who know me will believe me, and those who do not know me may be convinced I am no counterfeit by the colour, taste, smell and just operation of my Elixir. Sold at the Hand and Pen, Maiden-lane, Covent Garden, London, and in many other places in Town and Country.”

Mist’s weekly journal of Saturday, March 6th, 1725, contains an artful paragraph most likely emanating from a despairing author whose play had not succeeded:—

“Mrs. Graspall, who has been our customer two years, desires us to inform the masters of Drury Lane playhouse, that if they please to play the comedy, called _A Wife to be Let_, within ten days, they will oblige her and a great many of the quality to whom she has communicated her design.”

We find by subsequent numbers that Mrs. Graspall’s request was not complied with.

There is an anecdote of historical interest in the St. James’s Evening Post of Sept. 17th, 1734. It relates to the Chevalier St. George, afterwards the rash but chivalric “Pretender” to the British throne. It appears that when the Spaniards made the Conquest of Italy, and were sailing for Sicily, the Chevalier was on board one of their ships with the young King of Naples, the latter, doubtless, a prisoner;—

“When the fleet set sail,” says the ‘special correspondent,’ “a blast of wind blew the young Chevalier St. George’s hat off his head into the sea. Immediately there were several officious enough to endeavour to take it up; but the young Chevalier called out, _Let it alone, let it alone; I will go and get another in England_. Whereupon the young King of Naples threw his hat into the sea, and said, _and I will go along with you_. But they may happen to go bare-headed a long time; if they get no hats till they come amongst you: for we are well assured that they will find none in England that will fit their heads.”

The designs of young Charles Edward must have been deeply rooted to have been entertained so early—for he was then only fourteen years old—and so long before they were fulfilled. At the end of his ’45 adventures, he did indeed go bare-headed for months without a hat or a roof to cover him.

The Daily Post of Thursday, August 17th, 1738, must be a priceless treasure in the eye of the collector for two remarkable paragraphs with which it is enriched. On one of them was founded the most pathetic and popular of Scott’s novels—The Heart of Mid-Lothian. The story of the girl “of a fine soul,” even as told by the paragraphist is touching. The communication is dated “Edinburgh, August 20th, 1738.”