The World Pays Its Tribute, 



We know how strong his courage, and his faith : 

 So strong, they could not fail him at the end : 

 And when, upon high seas, he met with Death, 



He must have hailed him as a trusted friend, 

 Coming from lands, familiar, and most dear ; 

 Therefore, we feel his passing held no fear. 



Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 



We confess to a feeling of difficulty, amounting almost to impossibility, in making a selection for this 

 Memorial Number among the tributes which the world has paid to the memory of one who was perhaps more 

 universally known and loved than was any man of his time. From high and low, from crowned heads and 

 from nations, from statesmen and everyday men and women, tributes haw; come. The Press of the world, 

 that mirror and voice of the mind of the people, has offered its wreath of admiration and tribute to the memory 

 of one who not only made the Press great, but raised appreciably the level of goodness in the world. While 

 space prevents even an attempt at adequate representative quotation, what matters it ? — he belonged to the 

 world, and the world, mourning, pays him tribute. 



TIMES." 



"THE 



Wii.Li.\M Thom.as Stead, whose "redoubtable 



journalistic career " (to use Lord Morley's phrase) 



has been abruptly closed by the wreck of the Titanic, 



was born in 1849, his father being a Congregational 



minister, at Howdon-on-Tyne, a few miles from 



Newcastle. He received all the regular schooling 



he obtained at Silcoates (Wakefield), a school 



much frequented 



by the sons of 



Congregational 



ministers. He 



used to be fond 



of saying that he 



acquired there 



one distinction 



of much use to 



him in after life 



— he was known 



at school as the 



boy with the 



hardest shins. 



When fourteen, 



he was taken 



awavfronisciiool 



in order tu be 



apprenticed in a 



merchant's office 



at Newcastle. 

 Here he remain 



ed, rising pre- 

 sently to the posi- 

 tion of salaried 

 clefk, for seven 

 years. The firm had sonic dealings with Russia, and 

 this was the origin of his sjiecial interest in that 

 country. His real teachers were his father and him- 

 self. He was a true son of the manse ; he was 

 surrounded witii a I'liriian atniosi)liere, and Croinw<-ll 

 was the god of his idolatry. In after years he used 

 to say that the greatest compliment he ever received 

 was when Cardinal Manning said to him, " When I 



rh«t 



The Manse at Embleton, where W. T. Stead was boiu. 



read the Pall Mall every night, it seems to me as if 

 Oliver Cromwell had come to life again." One of 

 the novelties which he promised the public in con- 

 nexion with his short-lived Daily Paper was dramatic 

 criticism by a man who up to that time had never 

 set foot inside a playhouse. He dated his serious 

 call from the appearance of Dick's " Penny Shake- 



spear e." H i s 

 pocket-money 

 was 3d. a week, 

 and the m i s- 

 sionaries claimed 

 a third of it — 

 the rest all went 

 in Shakespeare. 

 It was his own 

 early experience 

 that led him in 

 after years to 

 produce a series 

 of Penny Poets 

 — one of his 

 many publishing 

 ventures. Even 

 as a lad, he 

 seems to have 

 regarded himself 

 as appointed to 

 set the world to 

 rights, for one 

 of his favourite 

 stories was of 

 the following re» 

 mark which his father once made to him : — " You 

 would do much better, \Villiam, if you would occa- 

 sionally leave (lod to manage His universe in His 

 own way." He used laughingly to admit that he 

 chose his telegraphic address to denote his vice- 

 gerency — " Vatican, London." 



In 187 1, when Mr. Stead was twenty-two, there was 

 a vacancy in the editorship of the Noii/icnt Echo, 



