he sheets was spent in the mental discussion of that
offer. There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth at home when
I decided to accept it. The journal was very loosely conducted--a leader
in the Birmingham Daily Post spoke of us once as the people across
the street who were playing at journalism--and the junior reporter
was permitted to write leaders, theatrical criticisms, and a series of
articles on the works of Thomas Carlyle, then first appearing in popular
form in a monthly issue.

I have always maintained, and must always continue to believe, that
there is no school for a novelist which can equal that of journalism.
In the police court, at inquests in the little upper rooms of tenth-rate
public-houses, and in the hospitals which it was my business to visit
nightly, I began to learn and understand the poor. I began on my own
account to investigate their condition, and as a result of one or two
articles about the Birmingham slums, was promoted at a bound from the
post of police-court reporter to that of Special Correspondent. Six
guineas a week, with a guinea a day for expenses, looked like an entry
into Eldorado. There was a good deal of heartburning and jealousy
amongst the members of the staff; but I dare say all that is forgotten
long ago.

The first real chance I got was afforded me by the first election by
ballot which took place in England. This was at Pontefract, where the
Hon. Hugh Childers was elected in a contest against Lord Pollington.
Some barrister-at-law had published a synopsis of the Ballot Act, which
I bought for a shilling at New Street Station and studied all the way to
Pontefract I sent off five columns of copy by rail in time to catch
the morning issue of the paper, and received the first open sign of
editorial favour on my return in the form of a cheque for ten pounds
over and above my charges. The money was welcome enough; but that it
should come from the hands of my hero and man of men, and should
be accompanied by words of unqualified approval, was, I think, more
inspiriting than anything could possibly be to me now. A very little
while later Dawson came to me with a new commission.

'I hate this kind of business,' he said, 'but it has to be done, and we
will do it once for all.'

There was an execution to take place at Worcester. One Edward Hughes,
a plasterer, I think, had murdered his wife under circumstances of
extraordinary provocation. The woman had left him once with a