Page:The Newspaper World.djvu/37

 26 The Newspaper World. * upon itself, which only prevails in England and America. We discern nothing in the editorial plural that justifies a gentleman, or body of gentlemen, in discrediting a gentle- man's forbearance and responsibility, and venting un- generojis spleen against a rival, by a perversion of a great power — a power, however, which is only great so long as it is good and honest." These admirable precepts, it is satisfactory to know, Dickens himself carried into practice. He was one of the early supporters of the Newspaper Press Fund, and president at its second annual festival. This Fund was the first attempt on the part of journalists to unite for a common object — except the organization, some years earlier, of country newspaper proprietors for the protection of their trade interests. The Provincial Newspaper Society was founded on the 25th April, 1836, and its second annual meeting took place in the week of the Queen's Coronation. The Society has done good work during its career of more than half-a- century, and though fortunately it has no longer to take part in the agitation for the removal of fiscal imposts, which in the first instance induced some of the most eminent of the country newspaper proprietors to band together for mutual action, it has still a constant and increasing work in the protection of newspaper proprietors from the designs of the unscrupulous ; in looking after the law as it applies to journalistic enterprise, and, where necessary, seeking its reform ; and, generally, in seeing that no opportunity is lost of promoting the success of newspaper work. When the Government took over the telegraphic system of the country, and decided to give a specially cheap rate for the transmission of news, the Press Association was formed, as an offshoot of the parent society, for the collection and transmission of news to subscribers. Both parent and child have grown with the growth of English journalism in the last half-century