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Updated: May 16, 2025
One night in February, 1874, when seated in my editor's room, I received over the private wire a telegram that took my breath away. It was from our London sub-editor, announcing that Parliament was to be dissolved immediately, and that Mr. Gladstone had written a long address to the electors of Greenwich, explaining his policy and intentions.
He knew that he had done a risky thing in associating young Rickman with them in this high enterprise. But under all his doubts there lay a faith in the genius of his sub-editor, a faith the more fascinating because it was so far removed from any certainty.
I give it up to you. But she didn't, and we did it together. We let Albert-next-door be sub-editor, because he had hurt his foot with a nail in his boot that gathered. When it was done Albert-next-door's uncle had it copied for us in typewriting, and we sent copies to all our friends, and then of course there was no one left that we could ask to buy it. We did not think of that until too late.
Wants touching up, though; can't have 'spirit' twice within four lines. How lucky for him Leon is just off the box seat! That queer beggar would never have submitted to any dictation any more than the boss would have dared show his hand so openly." While the sub-editor mused thus, a remark dropped from the editor's lips, which turned Raphael whiter than the news of the death of Gideon had done.
It is only the business of the great man who writes the leading articles which appear in the large type of the daily papers to compose those astonishing pieces of eloquence; the other parts of the paper are left to the ingenuity of the sub-editor, whose duty it is to select paragraphs, reject or receive horrid accidents, police reports, etc.; with which, occupied as he is in the exercise of his tremendous functions, the editor himself cannot be expected to meddle.
We marked our claim upon Toryism even in the colour of our wrapper, and spoke of ourselves collectively as the Blue Weeklies. But our lunches were open to all sorts of guests, and our deliberations were never of a character to control me effectively in my editorial decisions. My only influential councillor at first was old Britten, who became my sub-editor.
Mr Alf explained that this had been put in by the sub-editor, and that it only afforded such news as the paper was bound to give to the public. He himself pointed out the fact that no note of triumph had been sounded, and that the rumour had not been connected with the election. One old gentleman was of opinion that they were bound to make the most of it.
We had a common roof, common dinners, wore scarlet gowns, possessed football and cricket clubs, and started, of course, a kind of weekly magazine. It was only a manuscript affair, and was profusely illustrated. For the only time in my life, I was now an editor, under a sub-editor, who kept me up to my work, and cut out my fine passages.
He was agreeable to everybody, but he never sought acquaintances, and avoided intimacies. More especially was he averse to any mention of his earlier days. Speedwell, sub-editor of the Minute, buttonholed him one day at the club, and led him into a corner. "You are the very man I wanted to see, Jesson," he exclaimed. "Have a drink?" "I've just dined, thanks," Douglas answered.
He began removing that garment with an air of set intensity, flung it playfully at Mr. Hoskins' head, entirely enveloping him, and looked at himself in the glass. "The coat off," he said, "and the hat on. That looks like a sub-editor. It is indeed the very essence of sub-editing. Well," he continued, turning round abruptly, "come along with that paper."
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