Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3827/My Favourite Paper
By a Voracious Reader.
All day long I read the papers that keep this little island noisy and tell us how we ought to be governed. I can't help it. I want to know the latest, and reading the papers seems (more or less) way to get at it. The best way of all, of course, is to meet a man at a club or a resident in a locality favoured by retired colonels; but, in default of those advantages, one must buy the papers. And then of course it follows that one reads far too many papers and gets one's head far too full of war news. Still, what would you have? The war is so eminently first and everything else nowhere that this is inevitable.
Outside suggestion has its share, too. Morning papers are a matter of course. One reads one's regular morning papers and no others. But after that the trouble begins with the evening paper placards, each with its lure. How can one resist them? The progress of the Allies! The repulsing of the enemy! The ten miles gained! The Russian advance! A German cruiser sunk! Each newsman has a different bait, and as the day goes on they become more attractive, so that one goes to bed at night filled with optimism. Well, these all have to be bought.
Speaking as a reader of too many of them I must admit to a grievance or two; and the chief is the difficulty that we have in finding the fulfilment of all the promises which are set out in the headings to the principal war news. For example, I find among these headings on the day on which I write a reference to a German admission of failure and dismay. But can I find the thing itself? I cannot. It may be there, but again and again has my eye travelled up and down the columns seeking the nutritious morsel and not yet has it alighted thereon, and that is but one case out of many. Sometimes after a long hunt I do track these joyful tit-bits down, and then discover that they are separated from the heading by several columns. Some day a newspaper editor will arise who can achieve a really useful index to his contents. The Times used to have something of the sort, but under the stress of battle that has gone.
Another grievance—but I shall say no more on that subject. Grievances are for peace time, when a general huffiness and stuffiness about the way that everyone else conducts business is natural and indeed expected. In war-time no one should be harassed by criticism. So I pass on to the paper which I like best of all those now being published. I like it because it contains the news I most want to read, and every day, or rather every night, it gets better and will continue to get better until the Brandenberg gate opens to let the Allies in. This paper is not a morning paper and not an evening paper. IT is published at night, in the smallest of the small hours, and I am its sole subscriber, for it is the paper of my dreams. Whether or not I am its editor I could not say. That question leads to the greater one which would need a volume for its decision: Do we compose our own dreams, or are they provided by Ole Luk Oie or some some other dream-spinner? Anyway, no one can read the paper of my dreams but I, and it is, after all, the best reading. It contains the oddest things. Last night it had a fine article about a football match in the North of England. Twenty-two terrific fellows, whose united salaries came to a respectable fortune and whose united transfer fees, should their Clubs every let them go, would be sufficient to build a Dreadnought, had been charging up and down the ground in a series of magnificent rushes, while ten thousand North of England lads roared themselves hoarse to see such glory. Suddenly a newspaper boy, reckless of his life, dashed on to the ground with a placard stating that a whole regiment of British soldiers had been trapped by a German ruse an annihilated. In an instant the game was broken up and every player and every spectator who was of age ran like hares to the nearest recruiting office and enrolled themselves as soldiers. They had seen in a flash that the only chance for England to get rid of this German menace was for every eligible man to do his share.
In another part of the paper I read of a young and powerful man in an English village who, on being asked if he did not think that England was in danger, replied "Yes." He was then asked if he did not think that it was necessary to fight for her, and he replied "Yes" again. He was then asked who in his opinion were the most suitable volunteers to come to her aid, and he replied, "Other people." So far the story is not appreciably different from a story that you might read anywhere. But the version in my paper stated that he was seized by all the company present and not only ducked in the nearest horse-pond but held under the water for quite a long time, and then held under the water again.
And another article—a most exciting one—described the success of a British aviator who flew over Essen and dropped five bombs on Krupp's gun factory and did irreparable damage. I forget his name, but, although he was pursued, he got clear away and returned to the Allies' lines. There was a fellow for you!
So you see that I get some good reading out of my favourite paper. And more is to come!