epenny humorous journal, is a record.

It is said I wrote the journal myself. I never wrote one line in it from
the first number to the last. I had the best writers money could
procure, and I venture to say it was the best-written paper of its class
ever produced in England.

It is said I illustrated it all myself!

I had in the _first number_ alone George du Maurier, Bernard Partridge,
Fred Barnard, A. C. Corbould, W. Ralston, J. F. Sullivan, G. Ashton, W.
D. Almond, J. B. Yeats, and myself. Ten artists!--eight of whom have
contributed to _Punch_. In subsequent numbers I added work by Sir Frank
Lockwood, Arthur Hopkins, Gordon Browne, W. Maud, W. F. Thomas, C.
Richardson, Louis Wain, G. Montbard, James Greig, "Rab," Max Cowper, J.
H. Roberts, Rene Bull, S. Adamson, J. E. Donnison, W. H. Overend,
Charles Burton Barber, A. T. Elwes, Hal Hurst, F. Miller, E. F. Skinner,
George Morrow, J. Jellicoe, A. Greenbank, and others--in all nearly
forty artists, and this in six months!

I have another inaccuracy to nail to the counter of Dame False Rumour's
shop. That I stopped _Lika Joko_ because it was a failure.

The facts about this incident are brief and instructive.

Mr. Astor stopped his artistic weekly, the _Pall Mall Budget_, suddenly.
It so happened it was printed in the same office as _Lika Joko_. This
very paper, which had prevented me accepting the editorship of the
proposed new sixpenny weekly paper, and had driven me into publishing a
threepenny weekly, was "put to bed" (to use a printer's phrase) week
after week side by side with mine. I was sent for one Saturday morning.
The expensive sixpenny child was to die that day. Could I not adopt it?
There was a chance--splendid circulation, splendid returns for
advertisements.

Why then does Mr. Astor discontinue it?

Because, I was told, Mrs. Astor had just died,--it was so dear to her
that Mr. Astor felt he could not continue it, for purely sentimental
reasons.

This was pathetically explained to me. It was so natural. Yet why should
such a splendid paper cease when I had a large proprietor with capital
waiting to start one? I was the man. So I was told, and so I believed,
and so I proved to be. Not a moment was to be lost. I was with Sir
George Lewis. Has Mr. Astor any objection? He thought certainly not.

I therefore engaged the same staff, the same printers, the same paper
and machines were used. The paper, with the exception that the title was
changed from