Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/188

 postage was reduced to a halfpenny. Apropos of this, Mr. A. J. Mundella related, at a Cassell meeting in 1889, how twenty-one years before, when he entered Parliament, he was advocating the reduction of postage for printed matter, and, ignorant as he was of the rules of the House, held up to the gaze of the Speaker a copy of the Echo. His argument was that, now that at the very doors of the House an excellent and admirably produced newspaper was sold for one halfpenny, it was absurd to charge a penny to transmit it from one side of London to the other. The next year this reform was carried.

Before accepting the editorship of the Echo, Arnold had contributed to journalism only as an outsider; but his aptitude was soon evident, not only from the articles he himself wrote, but from the discrimination with which he chose his staff. Save for a suggestion now and again from the proprietors, he was given entire control of the paper. George Barnett Smith was for some time the chief sub-editor. Among the contributors and leader-writers were the Rev. H. R. Haweis, one of whose articles on Mr. Bradlaugh began, "There is no God, and Mr. Bradlaugh is his prophet"; William Black, the famous novelist; John Macdonell, later a Master of the Supreme Court; and George Shee, a son of the distinguished Judge. "One day there came to me," said Sir Arthur Arnold, "a tall young man, whose card bore the undistinguished name of 'Mr. Bottomley.' He asked for work as a writer. Both himself and his introduction interested me. I said my leaders were sufficiently numerous, but he might take up some special subject, and suggested the Government of London. He said he knew nothing of the subject—an advantage upon which I sought to improve by letters to John Stuart Mill, then engaged in Parliament upon the first London Government Bill, and to Mr. Beal, the Regent Street auctioneer, a well-known authority at this time. Mr. Bottomley, who soon added Firth to his name, and was afterwards well known as M.P. for Chelsea and first Deputy-Chairman of the London County Council,