A JOURNALIST’S NOTE-BOOK.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 475, 28 May 1890, Page 3

A JOURNALIST’S NOTE-BOOK.

LECTURE BY DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY. People, as a rule, have very hazy notions as to the qualifications of a successful journalist, and perhaps no one who has passed through the varied career of a newspaper reporter and attained a point of preeminence is better able to afiord this experience to the uninitiated than Mr David Christie Murray, novelist, reporter, and lecturer, who, after a worldwide experience of things in general, appeared before an Auckland audience at the City Hall last evening. There was, as was due to the lecturer, a very large audience, and the only thing to be regretted was that Sir George Grey, who had promised to occupy the chair, was unable to be present on account of special- orders received from his medical advisers regarding the state of his health. Mr Murray, however, needed no introduction, and he offered none. On stepping on to the platform he was received with a round of hearty applause, and assuming an easy and graceful attitude, he at once, like the expert lecturer that he is, plunged headlong into | his subject without either preamble or apology of any kind. The first impression | conveyed by the lecturer was that he was thoroughly at home in his subject, the next that he was fully en rapport with his audience. Speaking in an easy and natural tone, his voice penetrated every part of the hall, and when he had once got into the heart of his subject there were displayed, not only a remarkable descriptive power, bub much eloquence, and considerable oratorical ability. Humour chased seriousness from stage to stage from the beginning till the end, and the originality and cleverness of the whole provided such a twohours’ entertainment as seldom falls bo the lob of any audience in the form of a lecture. Mr Murray, having made good use of what Shakspere calls “young ambition’s ladder” until he has obtaiued the “utmost rung,” does not now scorn those “ base degrees ” by which he did ascend, but rather loves to revel amongst reminiscences of his earlier, and at times somewhat bryingeareer. lie possesses what has been aptly called “ the saucy habit of travellers’ criticism,” and with, added to this, a highly cultivated power of mimicry, and considerable histrionic ability, he is able to place nob only scenes but men and manners in full view of the audience in such complete form as to very narrowly approach the realistic. The interest evinced in the lecture, and its numerous stirring incidents, can be estimated to some extent by the fact that after Mr Murray had spoken without intermission for two hours, receiving again and again very hearty rounds of applause, his audience appeared quite as eager as at the outset to sib still and and enjoy that enthusiasm which Mr Murray had proved himself so well able to impart

Mr Murray said he used to call this ta.k “ Making a Novelist,” but in deference to his critics, had changed the title to “ Leaves From a Journalists Notebook.” Formerly he used to start with the axiom that a man who writes good prose must of necessity have begun by writing verse, and that the man who writes good verse to any excellence must have begun by falling in love ; that, therefore, since good prose was an essential towards the work of a novelist, falling in love was the first necessity. His advice to the tyro in literature accordingly was to begin to fall in love early, and do it often. (Laughter.) Mr Murray went on to relate his own love experiences, and created considerable amusement by describing his first efforts in the composition of verse, on the occasion of his twenty-first birthday. Mr Murray next related an amusing incident concerning a diplomatic encounter that he had with Dr. Keneally, when that gentleman was contesting the borough of W6st Bromwich in the Liberal interest, and which led him (Mr Murray) to pen what he described as the “ weakliest leading article that he had ever written, and which appeared in the weakliest of weekly journals he had known. This article was a scathing attack on Dr. Keneally, and the lecturer concluded the relation of this incident by remarking significantly that “ Dr. Keneally died many years afterwards from totally different causes.” Subsequently he edited this same weekly until he found that doing another fellow’s work, while the other fellow drew the pay, was not all that could be desired ; but this experience as an amateur was a good preparation for the professional work in which he was afterwards engaged. He went to fight under the banner of George Dawson, at Birmingham, potentially the greatest man ' with whom he believed he should ever be permitted to be on familiar terms, a talker only, but possessing a fund of wit, wisdom, learning, and humour as no other man had exhibited to his knowledge to this day. George Dawson proposed to take Mr Murray on the staff of a Birmingham paper as sub-editor, but the practical man of the newspaper pointed out the desirability of his beginning at the bottom of the ladder and he became police reporter. He attended the Police Court in the morning, in the afternoon inquests occupied his attention, and in the evenings he had the varied pleasure of attending lectures and meetings, while at midnight he made the round of the hospitals to inquire whether any casualties had occurred. The remuneration he received for all this was 25s per week. En passant Mr Murray gave a highly humorous description of his first day s experience in a Police Court, and subsequent investigations amongst the class of people who occupied the dock there, which brought to him conviction that the Christian virtues of pity, suffering, of help for others, and enduring charity, lived more and lived longer amongst the poor than they did amongst broadcloth people. (Applause.) Promotion was rapid with Mr Murray in his journalistic career. He was soon appointed to the important post of special correspondent, to travel throughout England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and one of his first engagements in this capacity was of a most thrilling and never-to-be-forgotten character. It was the description of the scene at the mouth of a mine which was on fire, and from which huge volumes of smoke and flame were belching forth in awful splendour, around which were congregated some 25,000 of people, watching, in breathless silence, the marvellous and heroic deeds of daring done by brave men in their almost superhuman efforts to rescue their unfortunate comrades, who were imprisoned in the bowels of the earth, some 1,500 feet below the surface. In his description of this great scene Mr Murray became terribly realistic, and his audience was wrought to such a pitch of excitement by his vivid portraiture of the intense excitement that then prevailed, leading up to the rescue of every living being from the burning entrails of that mine, that the applause with which the recital of this incident was greeted was almost the applause of general rejoicing. Following out the record of heroism given here, Mr Murray went on to say that he did not believe in this talk about “ the decadence of the British Empire.” “ W hilst England breeds such men as these,” he

said,*“ there is no room for fear in all her heart, not if the armies of the whole world are against her.” (Loud applause.) Mr Murray then went on to relate his experience of human cowardice at the scaffold, and gave it as his opinion that it would be well that such a barbarous penalty as hanging should be as soon as possible wiped off the statute book of a country that called itself civilised. (Applause.) Anew king having arisen in the newspaper office in which Mr Murray was engaged, and as the new king “knew not Joseph,” Joseph got what is familiarly known as the sack, and he carried it to London. Here fortune did not smile upon him, and for four days and nights he was compelled by force of circumstances to while away the time on the Thames embankment. During this brief period he became acquainted with the poverty, rascality and shiftlessness and drunkenness of London, and this subsequently led him, when he had once again been firmly established on his literary feet, to go thoroughly into the subject of London poverty and roguery, spending several days amongst this class of people and living just as they did, from hand to mouth, although he had taken the precaution to have a rescue fund of his own distributed at distant posts along the line of route. As the result of the experience thus gained, he gave it as his opinion that the Poor Law existed for the absolute grinding of the honest working man who desired to go about the country seeking work, and for the benefit of the shiftless pauper class, who would not work under any circumstances. Mr Murray next gave a very clever description of incidental scenes in the British House of Commons, commencing with the relation of an incident which gave rise to the now notorious scheme of parliamentary tactics known as stonewalling, inaugurated by the late Mr Biggar. Mr Murray said he looked upon the game of politics as the least paying game that was played anywhere by any intelligent man—a game of “ pull devil, pull baker,” which had been going on for hundreds of years, with the result that he was convinced that nothing ever did or would come out of politics. Mr Murray described several very humorous incidents which took place in the House of Commons, notably, the short and brief career of Dr. Keneally, and the late Mr McDonald, working man’s candidate for Stafford. Disraeli, he said, when serious, did not impress anyone with his sincerity, but when he took upon himself the role of the comedian he was master of the House. Mr Murray gave illustrations of the speeches and mannerisms of Disraeli, John Bright, and other notable men, and concluded his lecture by a spirited vindication of English novelists, as opposed to the namby-pamby literature of modern times, and the “ realistic ” novel of the French school. The novelist’s vocation, he said, was to give delight and hurt not. He believed in the good old English school of stalwart fictionists, but he believed in purity all the same, and he protested against those writers who made it their business to try to amuse the world whilst they wrote that which might lay a soil upon the soul of any little simple, womanchild. The lecturer concluded amidst loud and hearty applause.