LORD RANDOLPH'S REFUSAL 291 



campaign at Birmingham. I think this record should 

 be widely known and remain always to his credit. 



Beaten but not defeated, I retired to see what else could 

 be done, and presently found an old lawyer named 

 Charsley who by judicious purchase of a certain big re- 

 version had come into an income of some 30,000 a year, 

 but only during the tenure of the life tenant. 



He was a very keen politician and almost unbalanced by 

 his own prosperity, as was subsequently shown, but he 

 cheerfully entered into my scheme for illustrated " insides" 

 for provincial papers and agreed to lose 1000 in establish- 

 ing it. This I proposed to do by undercutting the exist- 

 ing agencies to the extent of 20 loss each week (a most 

 unholy device, but my own), and so with the assistance of 

 the indefatigable Tasker this part of the grand scheme was 

 fairly started. We had forty provincial papers taking 

 our sheets within a fortnight of commencement, and there 

 was promise of rapid extension of our clientele. Here, 

 at any rate, a good work had been done, but when I turned 

 to St Stephen's Review the " parent " paper it was 

 with a chill foreboding, as a company with 10,000 share- 

 holders needed a city office and secretary, with much extra 

 expense, and the capital actually subscribed had been 

 insignificant. 



It was at that time I first met Richard Parker Mortlock, 

 now Major, who came to me as secretary (not of the 

 Company), and we have been closely associated ever since, 

 as clients of the International Horse Agency and Exchange 

 Limited know, though they can have but small idea of the 

 troubled waters we had to get through or over with the old 

 paper. 



I now found myself with a Board of Directors, and one 

 of them, Colonel Malleson, a severe literary critic, but 

 without the touch of humour which is absolutely essential 

 in journalism, whatever it may be in writing history. He 

 was a most able man, in his way, and a very good sort, but 

 he hampered me dreadfully, more especially when he took 

 a dislike, for no reason, to J. R. Taylor, who was managing 



