第51章

LONDON, MAY 9, 1865.

[On the above date Mr.Dickens presided at the Annual Festival of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Association, and, in proposing the toast of the evening, delivered the following speech.]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, - Dr.Johnson's experience of that club, the members of which have travelled over one another's minds in every direction, is not to be compared with the experience of the perpetual president of a society like this.Having on previous occasions said everything about it that he could possibly find to say, he is again produced, with the same awful formalities, to say everything about it that he cannot possibly find to say.It struck me, when Dr.F.Jones was referring just now to Easter Monday, that the case of such an ill-starred president is very like that of the stag at Epping Forest on Easter Monday.That unfortunate animal when he is uncarted at the spot where the meet takes place, generally makes a point, I am told, of making away at a cool trot, venturesomely followed by the whole field, to the yard where he lives, and there subsides into a quiet and inoffensive existence, until he is again brought out to be again followed by exactly the same field, under exactly the same circumstances, next Easter Monday.

The difficulties of the situation - and here I mean the president and not the stag - are greatly increased in such an instance as this by the peculiar nature of the institution.In its unpretending solidity, reality, and usefulness, believe me - for Ihave carefully considered the point - it presents no opening whatever of an oratorical nature.If it were one of those costly charities, so called, whose yield of wool bears no sort of proportion to their cry for cash, I very likely might have a word or two to say on the subject.If its funds were lavished in patronage and show, instead of being honestly expended in providing small annuities for hard-working people who have themselves contributed to its funds - if its management were intrusted to people who could by no possibility know anything about it, instead of being invested in plain, business, practical hands - if it hoarded when it ought to spend - if it got by cringing and fawning what it never deserved, I might possibly impress you very much by my indignation.If its managers could tell me that it was insolvent, that it was in a hopeless condition, that its accounts had been kept by Mr.Edmunds - or by "Tom," - if its treasurer had run away with the money-box, then I might have made a pathetic appeal to your feelings.But I have no such chance.Just as a nation is happy whose records are barren, so is a society fortunate that has no history - and its president unfortunate.I can only assure you that this society continues its plain, unobtrusive, useful career.I can only assure you that it does a great deal of good at a very small cost, and that the objects of its care and the bulk of its members are faithful working servants of the public -sole ministers of their wants at untimely hours, in all seasons, and in all weathers; at their own doors, at the street-corners, at every railway train, at every steam-boat; through the agency of every establishment and the tiniest little shops; and that, whether regarded as master or as man, their profits are very modest and their risks numerous, while their trouble and responsibility are very great.

The newsvendors and newsmen are a very subordinate part of that wonderful engine - the newspaper press.Still I think we all know very well that they are to the fountain-head what a good service of water pipes is to a good water supply.Just as a goodly store of water at Watford would be a tantalization to thirsty London if it were not brought into town for its use, so any amount of news accumulated at Printing-house Square, or Fleet Street, or the Strand, would be if there were no skill and enterprise engaged in its dissemination.