Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/388

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. MAT is, im.

certain personal magnetism which made him a leader of men," and as having " in his best days united great intellectual quickness with many political opportunities and with wide social popularity." Among the writers who, under Hamber, helped to make The Standard were George Painter, whom he encouraged to write " in a vein more humorous than the paper generally indulged " (Matthew Arnold " had spoken in his essays about the Painter's little burlesques of their style were headed ' The Gaily Bellograph,' and, so their writer nattered himself, reproduced something of Maginn's humour " ) ; Alfred Austin, who in 1869 won real distinction for The Standard as well as for himself by the exhaustive circumstantiality with which, on its appear- ance, he refuted in several columns Mrs. Beecher Stowe's* * The True Story of Lady Byron's Life,' under the title of 'Lady Byron Vindicated' ; Thomas AdolphusTrollope, who, at Austin's suggestion, was appointed Italian correspondent ; and Lord Robert Cecil, who " contributed a few political slashers," though it was Percy Greg who did " most of the hard hitting." There was also H. E. Watts, formerly editor of The Melbourne Argus, who " emphatically advocated Colonial Preference and an Imperial Tariff." This was " long before the ideas were officially recognized at any of the Conservative head-quarters."
 * young lions of Peterborough Court ' ;

A veteran of the Hamber days still survives in Mr. Francis Bowater. We find in The Printers' Register of April 6th a letter from him stating that " had The Standard lived a few months longer, I should have completed a service on that paper without a break of sixty years."

On the outbreak of the American Civil War The Standard at once took the side of the South, and, in addition to its leading articles, had a series of letters over the signature of " Manhattan " which were even more fiercely anti-Federal. These letters were talked about by every one, and " sent up the circulation of the paper by leaps and bounds."

In 1868 came the collision between the two Houses over Gladstone's Irish

1869, refers with " indignant sorrow " to " the great scandal, suspected by none," which had just been published. Strangely enough, a sym- pathetic review of Mrs. Stowe's ' True Story ' appeared in The Times, the authorship being attributed to Mrs. Norton. This, The Athenceum of the 30th of October states, is indignantly denied by Mrs. Norton, she declaring her antagonism to its sentiments.
 * The Athenceum of the 4th of September,

Church Bill ; and Hamber, enjoying as he did the personal friendship of Disraeli, felt himself to be all-powerful, and would brook no interference in his conduct of the paper, making " fiercer demands than ever of no quarter to the enemy in the war against Gladstonianism." Johnstone felt that, if the paper was to render service to the party, its conductor must take counsel with the party managers as well as ask for information from them, but Escott relates that " Hamber point blank refused the proposal of anything like supervision by, or even co-operation with, any Conservative official from Parlia- ment Street." So " one October morning in 1870 Johnstone's solicitor called upon Hamber at his Chiswick house with an intimation of his services being no more required." Johnstone then made overtures to the Conservative head-quarters for cemen- ting the traditional connexion between the- party and the paper, and his son was appointed editor, with Sir John Gorst to supply the defects of his political experience*

The new editors were fortunate in starting in 1870, for it was a year of prosperity for the paper. The Franco-German War in- creased its sale ; and, moreover, Sir Henry Brackenbury's diary appeared in its columns, while on one or two occasions that writer watched, on behalf of the paper, the progress of the struggle from the battle-fields. The Standard took no side in the war, but in its comments held the balance equally between the two combatants. G. A. Henty, beloved of boys, was one of its war correspondents, and contributed to it in various ways. He* had a small room to work in, at the top of the old Shoe Lane house. He would do a hearty laugh when I called upon him, and said " I could not see him for the smoke." He was never without a small brier pipe in his mouth, from which the smoke would issue in volumes, for he was not a quiet smoker. Another of The Standard war- correspondents well known to me was Col. Knollys ; he had a very high opinion of the Austrian soldier, and told me, after his return from the Austrian manoeuvres, that he was the finest in Europe. The paper has always sought to stand high in the matter of war news, and during and since the Russo- Turkish War of 1877-8 the names of its war correspondents include J. A. Cameron, who was killed in the Sudan, and Prof. Palmer,, who was murdered by the Arabs.

In 1874 there was a " Conservative Re- action," when Disraeli came into office with Lord Derby as Foreign Secretary and Lord Carnarvon as Colonial Secretary. Sir John.