A GREAT JOURNALIST.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3740, 11 July 1883, Page 4

A GREAT JOURNALIST.

_t[i' George Augustus Sala, the wellknown English journalist, has gone _to Moscow to attend and report the coronation of tho Czar. Probably no living person has been at so many coronations, royal christening, marriages and funerals. Mr Labouchcrc, avlio knows him well, has an excellent " Anecdotal Photograph " of him in a recent number of Truth, of Avhich the following extracts arc interesting:—"His career has been remarkable from tho commencement, and furnishes a striking example of x>luck and honest Avork. He is generally supposed to bo gifted Avith a sort of intuitive knowledge of every subject tinder the sun, enabling him to dash off an article on any theme at a moment's notice, without the smallest mental effort. It is true that he Avic-lds a facile pen ; and Thackeray, referring to his abilities, once humorously described him us ' a horso big enough to'pull any shay about.' But lie rarely gets credit for tho years and years of laborious study by which ho has qualified himself for tho exacting duties of his profession. Still less do people realize the immense amount of unseen Avork Avhich is necessary to enable a public Avritcr to keep abreast Avith tho times. Mr Sala is a voracious reader, ancl can show folio after folio filled with extracts in his own hand, extending over many years, on political and social questions of the day, in Avhich the result of his extensive and varied studies arc carefully arranged and codified for reference These voluminous note-books may be called tho stock-in-trade of his art; for though he possesses in a remarkable degree the gift of a retentive memory, he is too much a master of his craft to rely upon it for facts, and his carefully indexed memoranda form an indispensable aid to his daily work."

" It is said that his article, ' The Key of the Street,' which first brought him into notice, and attracted the attention of Charles Dickens, was the outcome of his having had to spend the small hours of a Summer morning in perambulating the streets, after being accidentally locked out of his house. At all events, it was a turning point in his life ; and from that time forward he became a constant contributor to Household Words, and soon made his mark."

Notwithstanding the strain of his journalistic work, "which includes the wellknown page of ' Echoes of the Week' and the ' Playhouses ' in the Illustrated London News, besides other regular contributions to current literature, he has published a small library of novels, stories, essays, and travels, and has even perpetrated a half a pantomime, and an adaption to the English stage (at tho Surrey) of 'Les Freres Corses.'" —Now York Hour.