The Origin of "Chums"
provincial towns has for years contributed some of the most amusing poems and pictures to the magazine, and still looks upon it as one of his own "children." The pseudonyms, or initials, to be seen from time to time beneath some of its pictures and articles hide the names of business and professional men who still retain the happy hearts of children and find it a pleasure to amuse and interest the children of a later generation than their own. So it has come about that to-day the magazine represents the life and thought of the child in a thorough and wholesome manner.
To Max Pemberton the thanks of many a youngster of yesterday and to-day are due for the idea of launching Chums on the stream of literature for boys. He himself relates the origin of the paper:—
"My connexion with Cassell's was accidental. I had devised a scheme for a popular penny newspaper, and everything was ready but the money. Unfortunately I did not discover a multitude of intelligent people competing for the privilege of financing me. The scheme went into the City, where so many good schemes go every day, and somehow or other—I have never yet discovered exactly in what way—it came to the notice of the late Mr. Galpin. He took it to Sir Wemyss Reid, who was then managing director of the company, and in due course I was asked to make my second appearance at La Belle Sauvage. The first had been far back in the historic past, when, as a mere undergraduate, I had bearded the then editor of the Saturday Journal in his den, and sold him a story. At this early achievement I thought my fortune was made, but, unfortunately, before I could perpetrate a second assault upon the Journal sanctum the editor had vanished and the castles in Spain were shattered.
"Sir Wemyss Reid, having considered the scheme, found it to be good and promptly proceeded to ignore it. The fact was that Cassell's were then contemplating a boys' paper, and whether it was that I looked juvenile
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