Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/343

 dition of bettering the authors by editorial transposition and paraphrase, either in the form of suggestion or of absolute correction."

Even editors themselves are not immune from the blue pencil. When Blanchard Jerrold was the editor of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, Thomas Catling was sub-editor. At one time the latter told Lloyd that an article Lloyd had disapproved was written by Jerrold. "That," said the owner, "has nothing to do with it; I look to you to see that everything is kept right." "From that time onward," continues Catling, "though the editor's name appeared on the front page of the paper, his copy had to be closely supervised by the sub-editor."

The troubles of editors with contributors do not end with the wrath expressed by them over the editorial changes made in their manuscripts. Often contributors claim that certain fields and subjects belong to them and that the editor should not allow others to poach on their preserves. To one such, Macvey Napier wrote with some asperity, "You think that I ought to have rejected an article on the Italian Economists by Spring Rice, on the ground that the whole province of Political Economy ought to be kept sacred for yourself. Now, it is impossible for me to agree to this. No man connected with the Review, none even of its founders, has ever claimed an exclusive right over any particular province."

Brougham's infirmities of temper led Napier into frequent difficulties on the same score. "Pray send off your countermand to Macaulay," he wrote the harassed editor to whom Macaulay had offered an article on the politics of France after the Restoration, "I can trust no one but myself with it," and he plaintively adds, "Jeffrey always used to arrange it so upon delicate questions." Macaulay was naturally much vexed and so writes to Napier at some length, but he yielded to the imperious Brougham.