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 CHAPTER XVI. LINERS AND LINEAGE. The beadle is very careful that two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons (for whote accommodation he has provided a special little table . . . ) should see all that is to be seen. For they are the public chroniclers of such inquiries, by the line. — Dickens f"BUakH<mse"J. F late years the sphere of operations of the penny-a-liner — on whose exploits many press writers of the old school loved to dwell — has been seriously contracted. With tele- graphic news agencies and resident reporters all over the country, the liner has long since perforce confined his operations principally to the metropolis. London daily newspapers still rely on the liner for many items of information, and have, in fact, no staff of reporters avail- able for dealing with metropolitan local news, such as provincial newspapers employ for the collection of the news of their own town and district Indeed, when we consider the vast extent of London, it is evident that to attempt to do anything of the kind would be practically impossible. London newspapers, in point of fact, concern themselves only with subjects of Imperial and general interest, and the bulk of the daily public life of the metro- polis either goes unreported, or is dealt with partially by the district weekly papers. More than one writer on the subject has been struck by the phenomenon, that hitherto London has been without a great local newspaper which should report the proceedings of public bodies in the adequate way familiar to residents in the country who support their own local organs. No capitalist has, up to the present, however, shown any disposition to embark on a rather costly and certainly hazardous enterprise, though