1831.] The Newspaper Office. 173 



EDITOR. Hear ! hear ! ! hear ! ! ! 



MEMBER. Sir, I am a member of the British legislature as established 

 by the glorious constitution of 1688, Sir, and I will bring the subject 

 of your corrupt press before Parliament ; I will expose its utter licen- 

 tiousness, Sir ; it's bare-faced effrontery, Sir ; its shameless neglect of 

 public spirit, Sir ; I will divide the house on the question, I will resolve 

 it into a committee on the question, I will follow up the question, night 

 after night week after week month after month session after ses- 

 sion till the whole profligate, prejudiced and unprincipled press, 

 whig tory liberal or downright radical finds too late that the 

 honourable member for the free and independent Borough of Humbug 

 is not a man to be affronted with impunity ! [Exit, out of breath. 



EDITOR, solus. What an unlucky dog I am ! Bored hourly by all 

 parties from a duke to a dustman. St. James's and St. Giles's have 

 entered into a holy alliance to drive me frantic. I was miserable enough 

 when married, but no sooner did I get rid of my wife, than fate, jealous 

 of my felicity, sentenced me for life to a newspaper. Nor is this my 

 sole affliction. The two proprietors are diametrically opposed to each 

 other. One is an Ultra, the other a Liberal, yet despite the difference of 

 their politics, they coalesce most lovingly in annoying me. Well, well, 

 with all its vexations, there is nothing like a newspaper to incul- 

 cate a true knowledge of the world. It is there youth anticipates 

 the experience of age, and enthusiasm finds its level : there the hum- 

 bug of fashion of trade of literature of the fine arts of patriotism 

 of religion of morality, stripped of its specious drapery, stands out in 

 naked deformity ; there and there alone, the novice learns early to discri- 

 minate between the true and false in men and things, in nature and art. 

 Not a column in a newspaper but points a sterling moral. The police-re- 

 ports expose the crimes the reviews the follies the advertisements the 

 lucre-loving spirit of mankind. The parliamentary debates prove to 

 what extent the dullness of the human mind can be carried when once 

 it assumes the form of oratory. There are longer ears in St. Stephen's 

 than I ever saw pricking up at the sight of a thistle! As regards the 

 moral influence of the newspaper ; never yet did prince or potentate wield 

 such tremendous power ! Tyranny is blasted at its voice ; the march 

 of armies is arrested at its bidding. It calls on freedom, she comes 

 forth ; it proclaims her advent to the world, and the regenerated world 

 leaps up at the tidings. What is the sword ? The unwieldly weapon of 

 Goliah. What the pen ? The little stone of David. What the news- 

 paper ? The sling that drives the pebble home. And " so ends my 

 catechism." Dixi ; 1 have done. 



SCENE II. Proprietor's Room at the Office. Mr. Western, one of the Pro- 

 prietors, seated at a Table. Pamphlets Magazines Bills of Mor- 

 tality, fyc. lying about. 



Mr. WESTERN reads, "On the whole, we are decidedly of opinion that 

 parliamentary reform is the sole step now left to preserve the peace of 

 the country." Capital, 'pon honour, I never wrote better in my life, 

 even Brougham himself might envy my deduction. After all, there is 



no amusement equal to political composition, as dear Lady J would 



say. ( Takes up the Morning Post.) I wonder who sings at the Opera 

 to-night ? Lablache, by Jove ! oh, the divine vocal Colossus ! (Hums 

 O Patria ! ) A fine air that, and how nobly the Pasta by the by, I won- 



