if I delicately may, in the august presence of members of
Parliament, how much we, the public, owe to the reporters if it
were only for their skill in the two great sciences of condensation
and rejection. Conceive what our sufferings, under an Imperial
Parliament, however popularly constituted, under however glorious a
constitution, would be if the reporters could not skip. Dr.
Johnson, in one of his violent assertions, declared that “the man
who was afraid of anything must be a scoundrel, sir.” By no means
binding myself to this opinion – though admitting that the man who
is afraid of a newspaper will generally be found to be rather
something like it, I must still freely own that I should approach
my Parliamentary debate with infinite fear and trembling if it were
so unskilfully served up for my breakfast. Ever since the time
when the old man and his son took their donkey home, which were the
old Greek days, I believe, and probably ever since the time when
the donkey went into the ark – perhaps he did not like his
accommodation there – but certainly from that time downwards, he
has objected to go in any direction required of him – from the
remotest periods it has been found impossible to please everybody.
I do not for a moment seek to conceal that I know this Institution
has been objected to. As an open fact challenging the freest
discussion and inquiry, and seeking no sort of shelter or favour
but what it can win, it has nothing, I apprehend, but itself, to
urge against objection. No institution conceived in perfect
honesty and good faith has a right to object to being questioned to
any extent, and any institution so based must be in the end the
better for it. Moreover, that this society has been questioned in
quarters deserving of the most respectful attention I take to be an
indisputable fact. Now, I for one have given that respectful
attention, and I have come out of the discussion to where you see
me. The whole circle of the arts is pervaded by institutions
between which and this I can descry no difference. The painters’
art has four or five such institutions. The musicians’ art, so
generously and charmingly represented here, has likewise several
such institutions. In my own art there is one, concerning the
details of which my noble friend the president of the society and
myself have torn each other’s hair to a considerable extent, and
which I would, if I could, assimilate more nearly to this. In the
dramatic art there are four, and I never yet heard of any objection
to their principle, except, indeed, in the cases of some famous
actors of large gains, who having through the whole period of their
successes positively refused to establish a right in them, became,
in their old age and decline, repentant suppliants for their
bounty. Is it urged against this particular Institution that it is
objectionable because a parliamentary reporter, for instance, might
report a subscribing M.P. in large, and a non-subscribing M.P. in
little? Apart from the sweeping nature of this charge, which, it
is to be observed, lays the unfortunate member and the unfortunate
reporter under pretty much the same suspicion – apart from this
consideration, I reply that it is notorious in all newspaper
offices that every such man is reported according to the position
he can gain in the public eye, and according to the force and
weight of what he has to say. And if there were ever to be among
the members of this society one so very foolish to his brethren,
and so very dishonourable to himself, as venally to abuse his
trust, I confidently ask those here, the best acquainted with
journalism, whether they believe it possible that any newspaper so
ill-conducted as to fail instantly to detect him could possibly
exist as a thriving enterprise for one single twelvemonth? No,
ladies and gentlemen, the blundering stupidity of such an offence
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Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
would have no chance against the acute sagacity of newspaper
editors. But I will go further, and submit to you that its