Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.

I do not exactly know how people dressed at that time; but I believe that sacks, and negligées, and toupees were going out, and the pigtail and the simpler modern style of dress coming in. I recollect hearing my mother describe the misery of having her hair dressed two or three stories high, and of lying in it all night ready for some visit or spectacle next day. I think I also recollect seeing Wilkes himself in an old-fashioned flap-waistcoated suit of scarlet and gold; and I am sure I have seen Murphy, the dramatist, a good deal later, in a suit of a like fashion, though soberer, and a large cocked-hat. The cocked-hat in general survived till nearly the present century. It was superseded by the round one during the French Revolution. I remember our steward at school, a very solemn personage, making his appearance in one, to our astonishment, and not a little to the diminution of his dignity. Some years later, I saw Mr. Pitt in a blue coat, buckskin breeches and boots, and a round hat, with powder and pigtail. He was thin and gaunt, with his hat off his forehead, and his nose in the air. Much about the same time I saw his friend, the first Lord Liverpool, a respectable looking old gentleman, in a brown wig. Later still, I saw Mr. Fox, fat and jovial, though he was then declining. He, who had been a "beau" in his youth, then looked something quaker-like as to dress, with plain colored clothes, a broad round hat, white waistcoat, and, if I am not mistaken, white stockings. He was standing in Parliament-street, just where the street commences as you leave Whitehall; and was making two young gentlemen laugh heartily at something which he seemed to be relating.

My father once took me – but I can not say at what period of my juvenility – into both houses of Parliament. In the Commons, I saw Mr. Pitt sawing the air, and occasionally turning to appeal to those about him, while he spoke in a loud, important, and hollow voice. When the persons he appealed to, said "Hear! hear!" I thought they said "Dear! dear!" in objection; and I wondered that he did not seem in the least degree disconcerted. The house of Lords, I must say (without meaning disrespect to an assembly which must always have contained some of the most accomplished men in the country), surprised me with the personally insignificant look of its members. I had, to be sure, conceived exaggerated notions of the magnates of all countries; and perhaps might have expected to behold a set of conscript fathers; but in no respect, real or ideal, did they appear to me in their corporate aspect, like any thing which is understood by the word "noble." The Commons seemed to me to have the advantage; though they surprised me with lounging on the benches, and retaining their hats. I was not then informed enough to know the difference between apparent and substantial importance; much less aware of the positive exaltation, which that very simplicity, and that absence of pretension, gave to the most potent assembly in Europe. —Leigh Hunt's Autobiography.

[From Household Words.]

A PARIS NEWSPAPER

Within the precincts of that resort for foreigners and provincials in Paris, the Palais Royal, is situate the Rue du 24 Fevrier. This revolutionary name, given after the last outbreak, is still pronounced with difficulty by those who, of old, were wont to call it the Rue de Valois. People are becoming accustomed to call the royally named street by its revolutionary title, although it is probable that no one will ever succeed in calling the Palais Royal Palais National; the force of habit being in this instance too great to efface old recollections. Few foreigners have ever penetrated into the Rue de 24 Fevrier, though it forms one of the external galleries of the Palais Royal, and one may see there the smoky kitchens, dirty cooks, the night-side in fact, of the splendid restaurants, whose gilt fronts attract attention inside. Rubicund apples, splendid game, truffles, and ortolans, deck the one side; smoke, dirty plates, rags, and smutty saucepans may be seen on the other.

It is from an office in the Rue de 24 Fevrier, almost opposite the dark side of a gorgeous Palais Royal restaurant, that issue 40,000 copies of a daily print, entitled the "Constitutionnel."

Newspaper offices, be it remarked, are always to be found in odd holes and corners. To the mass in London, Printing-house square, or Lombard-street, Whitefriars, are mystical localities; yet they are the daily birth-places of that fourth estate which fulminates anathemas on all the follies and weaknesses of governments; and, without which, no one can feel free or independent. The "Constitutionnel" office is about as little known to the mass of its subscribers as either Printing-house square or Whitefriars.

There is always an old and respectable look about the interior of newspaper establishments, in whatever country you may find them. For rusty dinginess, perhaps, there is nothing to equal a London office, with its floors strewed with newspapers from all parts of the world, parliamentary reports, and its shelves creaking under books of all sorts, thumbed to the last extremity. Notwithstanding these appearances, however, there is discipline – there is real order in the apparent disorder of things. Those newspapers that are lying in heaps have to be accurately filed; those books of reference can be pounced upon when wanted, on the instant; and as to reports, the place of each is as well known as if all labeled and ticketed with the elaborate accuracy of a public library.

Not less rusty and not less disorderly is the appearance of a French newspaper office; but how different the aspect of things from what you see in England!

Over the office of the "Constitutionnel" is a dingy tricolor flag. A few broken steps lead to a pair of folding-doors. Inside is the sanctuary of the office, guarded by that flag as if by the honor of the country: for tricolor represents all Frenchmen, be he prince or proletarian.

You enter through a narrow passage flanked with wire cages, in which are confined for the day the clerks who take account of advertisements and subscriptions. Melancholy objects seem these caged birds, whose hands alone emerge at intervals through the pigeon-holes made for the purpose of taking in money and advertisements. The universal beard and mustache that ornament their chins, look, however, more unbusiness-like than are the men really. They are shrewd and knowing birds that are inclosed in these wire cages.

At publishing time, boys rushing in for papers, as in London offices, are not here to be seen. The reason of this is simple: French newspaper proprietors prefer doing their work themselves – they will have no middle men. They serve all their customers by quarterly, yearly, or half-yearly subscriptions. In every town in France there are subscription offices for this journal, as well, indeed, as for all great organs of the press generally. There are regular forms set up like registers at the post-office, and all of these are gathered at the periodical renewal of subscriptions to the central office. The period of renewal is every fortnight.

Passing still further up the narrow and dim passage, one sees a pigeon-hole, over which is written the word "Advertisements." This superscription is now supererogatory, for there no advertisements are received; that branch of the journal having been farmed out to a company at 350,000 fr. a year. This is a system which evidently saves a vast deal of trouble. The Advertising Company of Paris has secured almost a monopoly of announcements and puffs. It has bought up the last page of nearly every Paris journal which owns the patronage and confidence of the advertising public of the French capital. At the end of the same dark passages are the rooms specially used for the editors and writers. In France, journals are bought for their polemics, and not for their news: many of them have fallen considerably, however, from the high estate which they held in public opinion previous to the last revolution. There are men who wrote in them to advocate and enforce principles, but in the chopping and changing times that France lives in, it is not unusual to find the same men with different principles, interest, or gain, being the object of each change. This result of revolution might have been expected; and though it would be unfair to involve the whole press in a sweeping accusation, cases in point have been sufficiently numerous to cause a want of confidence in many quarters against the entire press.

The doings of newspaper editors are not catalogued in print at Paris, as in America; but their influence being more occult, is not the less powerful, and it is this feeling that leads people to pay more attention to this or that leading article than to mere news. The announcement of a treaty having been concluded between certain powers of Europe, may not lower the funds; but if an influential journal expresses an opinion that certain dangers are to be apprehended from the treaty in question, the exchanges will be instantly affected. This is an instance among many that the French people are to be led in masses. Singly they have generally no ideas, either politically or commercially.

The importance of a journal being chiefly centered in that portion specially devoted to politics, the writers of which are supposed, right or wrong, to possess certain influences, it is not astonishing the editorial offices have few occupants. The editorial department of the "Constitutionnel" wears a homely appearance, but borrows importance from the influence that is wielded in it – writers decorated with the red ribbon are not unfrequently seen at work in it. In others, and especially in the editorial offices of some journals, may be seen, besides the pen, more offensive weapons, such as swords and pistols. This is another result of the personal system of journalism. As in America, the editor may find himself in the necessity of defending his arguments by arms. He is too notorious to be able to resort to the stratagem of a well-known wit, who kept a noted boxer in his front office to represent the editor in hostile encounters. He goes out, therefore, to fight a duel, on which sometimes depends not only his own fate, but that of his journal.

With regard to the personal power of a newspaper name, it is only necessary in order to show how frequently it still exists, to state that the provisional government of February, 1848, was concocted in a newspaper office, and the revolution of 1830 was carried on by the editors of a popular journal – that among the lower orders in France, at the present time, the names that are looked up to as those of chiefs, belong to newspaper editors, whose leading articles are read and listened to in cheap newspaper clubs, and whose "orders" are followed as punctually and as certainly as those of a general by his troops. A certain class of French politicians may be likened to sheep: they follow their "leaders."

The smallness of the number of officials in a French newspaper office is to be accounted for from the fact that parliamentary debates are transcribed on the spot where the speeches are made; and the reporting staff never stirs from the legislative assembly. The divers corps of reporters for Paris journals form a corporation, with its aldermen, or syndici, and other minor officers. Each reporter is relieved every two minutes; and while his colleagues are succeeding each other with the same rapidity, he transcribes the notes taken during his two minutes' "turn." The result of this revolving system is collated and arranged by a gentleman selected for the purpose. This mode of proceeding insures, if necessary, the most verbatim transmission of an important speech, and more equably divides the work, than does the English system, where each reporter takes notes for half or three quarters of an hour, and spends two or three hours, and sometimes four or five, to transcribe his notes. The French parliamentary reporter is not the dispassionate auditor which the English one is. He applauds or condemns the orators, cheers or hoots with all the vehemence of an excited partisan.

"Penny-a-liners" are unknown in Paris; the foreign and home intelligence being elaborated in general news' offices, independent of the newspapers. It is there that all the provincial journals are received, the news of the day gathered up, digested, and multiplied by means of lithography; which is found more efficacious than the stylet and oiled "flimsy" paper of our Penny-a-liners. It is from these latter places too, that the country journals, as well as many of the foreign press, the German, the Belgium, and the Spanish, are supplied with Paris news. England is a good market, as most of our newspapers are wealthy enough to have correspondents of their own.

My first visit to the "Constitutionnel" was in the day-time, and I caught the editor as he was looking over some of his proofs. Their curious appearance led me to ask how they were struck off, and, in order to satisfy me, he led the way up a dark stair, from which we entered upon the composing-rooms of the premises. These, in appearance, were like all other composing-rooms that I had seen; the forms, and cases for the type, were similar to those in London; the men themselves had that worn and pale look which characterizes the class to which they belong, and their pallor was not diminished by their wearing of the long beard and mustache. Their unbuttoned shirts and bare breasts, the short clay pipe, reminded me of the heroes of the barricades; indeed, I have every reason to know that these very compositors are generally foremost in revolutions; and though they often print ministerial articles, they are not sharers in the opinions which they help to spread. The head printer contracts for the printing, and chooses his men where he can find them best. As a body, these men were provident, I was told, and all subscribed to a fund for their poor, their orphans and widows; they form a sort of trade union, and have very strict regulations.

I found a most remarkable want of convenience in the working of the types. For instance, there were no galleys, or longtitudinal trays, on which to place the type when it was set up; but when a small quantity had been put together in column on a broad copper table, a string was passed round it to keep it together. Nor was there any hand-press for taking proofs; and here I found the explanation of the extraordinary appearance of the proofs I had seen below. For when I asked to have one struck off, the head printer placed a sheet of paper over the type, and with a great brush beat it in, giving the proof a sunken and embossed appearance, which it seemed to me would render correction exceedingly difficult. The French, it seems, care not for improvement in this respect, any more than the Chinese, whom the brush has served in place of a printing-press for some three thousand years.

This journal has, as I have said, from 40,000 to 50,000 subscribers, in order to serve whom it was necessary that the presses should be at work as early as eleven o'clock at night. But there is no difficulty in doing this, where news not being the sine quà non of journalism, provincial and foreign intelligence is give as fresh, which in England would be considered much behind in time. But even when commencing business at the early hour above mentioned, I found that it had been necessary for the paper to be composed twice over, in order to save time; and thus two printers' establishments were required to bring out each number of the journal in sufficient time for the country circulation by early morning trains. The necessity for this double composition is still existing in most of the French newspaper offices, but had been obviated here lately, by the erection of a new printing-machine, which sufficed by the speed of its working to print the given number of copies necessary for satisfying the wants of each day.

Having seen through the premises, and witnessed all that was interesting in the day-time, I was politely requested to return in the evening, and see the remaining process of printing the paper and getting it ready to send out from the office.

Punctually at eleven o'clock I was in the Rue du 24 Fevrier. Passing through the offices which I had seen in the morning, I was led by a sort of guide down to some passages dimly lighted with lamps. To the right and to the left we turned, descending stone steps into the bowels of the earth as it seemed to me; the walls oozing with slimy damp in some parts; dry and saltpetry in others. A bundle of keys, which were jingling in my guide's hand, made noises which reminded me of the description of prisoners going down into the Bastile or Tower. At another moment a sound of voices in the distance, reminded me of a scene of desperate coiners in a cellar.

These sounds grew louder, as we soon entered a vast stone cellar, in which rudely dressed men, half-naked as to their breasts and arms, were to be seen flitting to and fro at the command of a superior; their long beards and grimy faces, their short pipes and dirty appearance, made them look more like devils than men, and I bethought me that here, at last, I had found that real animal – the printer's devil.

There were two or three printing-presses in the room, only one of which was going. Its rolling sound was like thunder in the cave, in which we stood. As paper after paper flew out from the sides of this creaking press, they were carried to a long table and piled up in heaps.

Presently some of the stoutest men shouldered a mass of those, and my conducter and myself following them, we entered a passage which led to another cellar, contiguous to that in which the papers were printed. There, sitting round a number of tables, were several young women. These women seized upon a portion of the papers brought in, and with an amazing rapidity folded them into a small compass. In a few minutes all the papers I had seen printed were folded and numbered off by dozens. Then comes another operation: a man came round and deposited before each woman a bundle of little paper slips, which I found to be the addresses of the subscribers. The women placed the labels and the paste on one side, and commenced operations. A bundle of papers, folded, was placed before each; the forefinger, dipped in the paste, immediately touched the paper and the label simultaneously, and the "Constitutionnel" flew out with a speed perfectly astonishing from the hands of these women, ready to be distributed in down or country. They were then finishing the labeling of the papers for Paris circulation; 20,000 copies scarcely sufficing for the supply.

This was the concluding sight in my visit to a Paris Newspaper-Office.

ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT

TO A MOTHER

BY THE AUTHORESS OF "THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE"

His languid eyes are closing,
On the pale, placid cheek,
The lashes dark reposing,
So wearily, so weak.
He gasps with failing breath,
A faint and feeble strife with death;
Fainter and fainter still – 'tis past.
That one soft sigh – the last.

Thy watching and thy fearing,
Mother, is over now;
The seal of death is bearing
That pale but angel brow,
And now in the deep calm
That follows days of wild alarm,
Thy heart sinks down, and weeps, and weeps,
O'er him who silent sleeps.

Oh, Mother, hush thy crying,
The ill of life is o'er,
E'en now his wings are flying
Unto a happy shore;
Those wings of stainless white
Unfolded ne'er to earthly sight,
He spreads them now, they bear him high
Unto the angel company.

From sight of evil shrinking,
From thought of grief like thine
At the first summons sinking
Into the arms divine.
Oh! thou who knowest life,
Temptation, trial, toil and strife,
Wilt thou not still thine aching breast
To bless his early rest?

[From the Autobiography of Leigh Hunt.]

RECOLLECTIONS OF EMINENT MEN