Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/91

 s. v. JAN. 27, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES,

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here, but disastrously disadvantageous for the ordinary searcher, compelling an enor- mous preliminary waste of time to get at the simplest thing.

I think the late Mr. Cornelius Walford issued a project for a catalogue of news- papers. In Mr. Boase's 'Modern English Biography' are lists (see indexes to each volume) of hundreds of newspapers, pub- lished all over the world. But as a whole there is no guide yet published, and an inquirer simply looks into an abyss of dark- ness. There are two lists of great value : 4 The Newspaper Press Directory ' and ' Wil- ling's Press Guide' ; but these are trade, not students' lists. Thus, when a weekly like Grindlay's Home 3~ews for India, after a useful and I may say honourable career of fifty years, ceases to be .published, it drops out of the lists, like the name of a person in the 'P.O.D.' The guides give no parting word, no history.

In the series of papers at the B.M. there will be found occasional gaps, more annoying,

n'haps, to the librarian than the searcher, lave mentioned such in my bibliography 1 Swimming' frequently, though I can only recollect that on p. 365, relative to a paper called Notes. I think it is generally early and last numbers that are deficient. Some papers never get to the B.M. at all, as, for example, a weekly called Pastime. I do not actually say it was not in the library when 1 1 wrote p. 377, but it can be inferred, as I was ! able to refer only to the * P.O.D.'

On 24 August, 1868, there was sold (lots 1209 to 1302) at Sotheby's "a collection of short lived periodicals illustrative of the history of English periodical literature," many of the eighteenth century. Sotheby's original catalogues, with the prices, are pre- served at the British Museum.

RALPH THOMAS.

In the list of works on London news- papers your correspondents P. L. and MR. MACMlCHAEL make a curious omission in ignoring Mr. Joseph Hatton's 'Journalistic London,' published first as a serial in Harper's Magazine, and afterwards in a volume (Sampson Low & Marston, 1882) which for the first time penetrated the editorial sanctum. The author gave a singularly accurate view of the London press at the time, and evidently all his interesting per- sonal revelations had the full authority of editors and their staffs. J. H.

In The Bibliographer ; vol. ii. p. 116, is a note, taken from Land and Water, which gives the names of twenty-seven London and

provincial newspapers, with the dates of their first publication eighteenth century in nearly every case. At p. 179 of the same volume is a long note containing particulars respecting a number of London newspapers.

An interesting note on Manchester papers will be found in The Bibliographer, vol. iii. p. 116; and at pp. 153-6 of the same volume is a paper on The London Gazette.

G. L. APPERSON.

Wimbledon.

1 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY ' (10 th S. i. 166, 217, 274 ; iv. 455 ; v. 14). It is not of very much importance who first discovered Dickens's blunder (or sarcasm ?) in making Squeers send his pupil to weed the garden in mid- winter ; but as the question has been raised, it may be said that the first to put it in print (so far as I know) was the late Robert H. Newell ("Orpheus C.Kerr' 1 ), in chap. ii. of the travesty of 'Edwin Drood' entitled 'The Cloven Foot,' which he published in 1870, seriatim with the original, in the New York comic paper Punchinello, and reprinted in book form. I cite his note :

" In anticipation of any critical objection to the introduction of a living fly in December, the Adapter begs leave to observe that an anachronism is always legitimate in a work of fiction when a point is to be made. Thus in chap. viii. of the inimitable 'Nicholas Nickleby,' Mr. Squeers tells Nicholas that morning has come, 'and ready iced, too'; and that 'the pump's froze'; while only a few pages later, in the same chapter, one of Mr. Squeers's scholars is spoken of as ' weeding the garden.'"

I may remark that the whole book is a very clever and instructive (though coarse- thumbed and rather vulgar) study in bringing out the weak spots in a work of art by minutely restating its positions, and adapting its detail under new conditions a different method from Burnand's in the 4 Pocket Ibsen,' which is mainty to clear away brushwood and leave the essential outline glaringly visible. The introduction also discusses acutely the causes for the superiority of average English fiction to American. F. M.

Hartford, Conn.

PUNCH, THE BEVERAGE (10 th S. iv. 401, 477, 531 ; v. 37) I have read the many replies which my article has called forth, and do nob think that I shall greatly advance my argu- ment by answering with further detail. I observe that, though the writers are mostly disposed to disagree with me, not one has made bold to affirm that Fryer is certainly right ; and as I guarded myself against pro- nouncing him certainly wrong, I have no