and four,
galloping through a wild country, and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. The
very last time I was at Exeter , I strolled into the castle-yard there, to identify, for the amusement of a friend , the spot on which I once 'took ,' as we used to call it, an election -speech of Lord John Russell at the Devon contest , in the midst of a lively
fight maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the country , and under such a pelting rain that I remember two good -natured colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my note-book , after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession . I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery
of the old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet by standing to write in a preposterouspen in the old House of Lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep, - kept in waiting,say , until thewoolsack might wantrestuffing. Return ing home from exciting political meetings in the country to the
waiting press in London , I do verily believe I have been upset in almost every description of vehicle known in this country. I have been , in my time, belated on miry by -roads, towards the
small hours, forty or fifty miles from London , in a wheelless carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken post-boys, and have got back in time for publication , to be received with never
forgotten compliments by the late Mr. Black , coming in the broadest of Scotch from the broadest of hearts I ever knew . These trivial things I mention as an assurance to you that I never have forgotten the fascination of that old pursuit. The pleasure that I used to feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its
exercise has never faded out of my breast.” 2 With change of scene, these are the conditions under which reports
to-day must often be written. It is possible that an explanation may be found in the words of an experienced editor , — “ The case of the reporter ' is to a con siderable extent a question ofmoral education , ” 3 or the older ex
planation of Addison 'smay hold good to the effect that sensations must be manufactured if not found at hand . He says: " It is an old observation that a time of peace is always a time of prodigies ; for, as our news-writers must adorn their papers with that which the critics call the marvellous, they are forced into a dead calm of affairs, to ransack every element for proper 9 John Forster , Life of Charles Dickens, I , 99- 100 .
3 W . L . Cook , “ The Press in its Relation to History,” History Teacher 's
Magazine, January, 1914 , 5 : 3 -8 .
