glancing at some modern aspects of master john gutenberg’s ingenious but over-rated invention

it was very pleasant thus to meet uncle dudley in the strand. only here and there is one who can bear that test. whole legions of our friends, decent and deeply reputable people, fall altogether out of the picture, so to speak, on this ancient yet robust thoroughfare. they do very well indeed in chelsea or highgate or the pembridge country, where they are at home: there the surroundings fit them to a nicety; there they produce upon one only amiable, or at the least, natural, impressions. but to encounter them in the strand is to be shocked by the blank incongruity of things. it is not alone that they give the effect of being lost—of wandering helplessly in unfamiliar places. they offend your perceptions by revealing limitations and shortcomings which might otherwise have been hidden to the end of time. you see suddenly that they are not such good fellows, after all. their spiritual complexions are made up for the dim light which pervades the outskirts of the four-mile radius—and go to pieces in the jocund radiance of the strand. it is flat presumption on their part to be ambling about where the ghosts of goldsmith and johnson walk, where prior and fielding and our dick steele have passed. instinctively you go by, looking the other way.

it was quite different with uncle dudley. you saw at once that he belonged to the strand, as wholly as any of our scorned and scornful sisters on its comers, competing with true insular doggedness against german cheeks and raddled accents; as fully as any of its indigenous loafers, hereditary in their riverside haunts from tudor times, with their sophisticated joy in drink and dirt, their large self-confidence grinning through rags and sooty grime. it seemed as if i had always associated uncle dudley with the strand.

he was standing in contemplation before a brave window, wherein american cheese, danish butter, norwegian fish, belgian eggs, german sausages, hungarian bacon, french vegetables, australian apples, and algerian fruits celebrate the catholicity of the modern british diet. he turned when i touched his shoulder, and drew my arm through his.

“sir,” said uncle dudley, “let us take a walk along the strand to the law courts, where i conceive that the tide of human existence gets the worst of it with unequalled regularity and dispatch.”

on his way he told me that his gout had quite vanished, owing to his foresight in collecting a large store of the best medical advice, and then thoughtfully and with pains disregarding it all. he demonstrated to me at two halting places that his convalescence was compatible with rich and strong drinks. he disclosed to me, as we sauntered eastward, his purpose in straying thus far afield.

“you know mrs albert is really a kindly soul,” he said. “it isn’t in her to keep angry. you remember how sternly she swore that she and fernbank had seen the last of miss timby-hucks. it only lasted five weeks—and now, bless me if the girl isn’t more at home on our backs than ever. she’s shunted herself off, now, into a new branch of journalism—it seems that there are a good many branches in these days.”

“it has been noticed,” i assented.

“she doesn’t write any more,” he explained, “that is, for the papers. she goes instead to the museum or somewhere, and reads carefully every daily and weekly journal, i believe, in england. her business is to pick out possible libels in them—and to furnish her employers, a certain firm of solicitors, with a daily list of these. they communicate with the aggrieved people, notifying them that they are aggrieved, which they very likely would not otherwise have known, and the result is, of course, a very fine and spirited crop of litigation.”

“then that accounts for all the recent——”

“perhaps not quite all,” put in uncle dudley. “but the timby-hucks is both energetic and vigilant, and she tells me she is doing splendidly. she is very enthusiastic about it, naturally. she says that while the money is, of course, an object, her real satisfaction is in the humanitarian aspects of her work.”

“i am not sure that i follow,” i said doubtingly.

“no, i didn’t altogether myself at the start,” said uncle dudley, “but as she explains it, it is very simple. you see business is in a bad way in london—worse, they say, than usual. the number of unemployed is something dreadful to think of, so i am told by those who have thought of it. there are many thousands of people with no food, no fire, no clothes to speak of. most people are discouraged about this. they can’t see how the thing can be improved. but miss timby-hucks has a very ingenious idea. why, she asks, do not all the unemployed sue all the newspapers for libel? do you catch the notion?”

“by george!” i exclaimed, “that is a bold, comprehensive thought!”

“yes, isn’t it?” cried uncle dudley. “i am immensely attracted by it. for one thing, it is so secure, so certain! broadly speaking, there are no risks at all. i suppose there has never yet been a case, no matter what its so-called merits, in which the english newspaper hasn’t been cast in damages of some sort nobody is too humble or too shady to get a verdict against an editor or newspaper proprietor. miss timby-hucks relates several most touching instances where the wolf was actually at the door, the children shoeless and hungry, the mother prostrated by drink, rain coming through the roof and so on—and everything has been changed to peace and contentment by the happy thought of bringing a libel suit. the father now wears a smile and a white waistcoat; the drains have been repaired; the little children, nicely washed and combed, kick each other’s shins with brand new boots, and sing cheerfully beneath a worsted-work motto of ‘god bless our home!’ i find myself much affected by the thought.”

“you had always a tender heart,” i responded. “i suppose there would be no trouble about the judges?”

“not the least in the world,” said uncle dudley, with confidence. “of course the bench would have to be greatly enlarged, but there need be no fear on that score. there is a mysterious but beneficent rule, my boy, which you can always count upon in this making of judges—no matter how hail-fellow-well-met an eminent lawyer may be, no matter how intimate his connection with newspapers, how large his indebtedness to them for his career—the moment he gets on the bench he catches the full, fine, old-crusted judicial spirit toward the press. the scales fall with a bang from his eyes, and he sees the editor and newspaper proprietor as they really are—designing criminals, mercenary reprobates, social pests—to be lectured and bullied and put down. o, you may rely on the judges! they are as safe as a new liberal peer is to vote tory.”

“but the ‘power of the press’?” i urged. “if the newspapers combine in protest, and——”

“you talk at random!” said uncle dudley almost austerely. “i should say the most certain, the most absolutely reliable, element in the whole case is the fact that newspapers do not combine. whenever one editor gets hit, all the others grin. one journal is mulcted in heavy damages: the rest have all a difficulty in dissembling their delight. you read in natural history that kites are given to falling upon one of their kind which gets wounded or decrepit, and picking out its eyes. well, kites are also made of newspapers.”

“and juries?” i began to ask.

“here we are,” remarked uncle dudley, turning in toward the guarded portals of the great hall.

“i have a friend among the attendants here, a thoughtful and discerning man. i will learn from him where we may look for the spiciest case. he takes a lively interest in the flaying of editors. i believe he was once a printer. he will tell us where the axe gleams most savagely to-day: where; we shall get the most journalistic blood for our money. you were speaking of juries. just take a look at one of them—if you are not afraid of spoiling your luncheon—and you will see that they speak for themselves. they regard all newspapers as public enemies—particularly when the betting tips have been more misleading than usual. they stand by their kind. they ‘give the poor man a chance’ without hesitation, without fail. they are here to avenge the discovery of movable types, and they do it. come with me, and witness the disembowelling of a daily, the hamstringing of a sub-editor—a publisher felled by the hand of the law like a bullock. since the bear-pits of bankside were closed there has been no such sport.”

unhappily, it turned out that none of the judges had come down to the courts that day. there was a threat of east wind in the air. “you see, if they don’t live, to a certain age they get no pensions, and their heirs turn a key in the lock on the old gentlemen in weather like this,” explained uncle dudley, turning disappointedly away.