t in my judgment
succeed; but he was obdurate and after a good deal of correspondence I
consented to do all the writing if he was willing to do all the losing
money. I submitted a number of names which I thought suitable for the
paper, but all were rejected, and he finally wrote that he had decided to
call the new journal _The Lantern_. This decision elicited from me another
energetic protest. The title was not original, but obviously borrowed from
M. Rochefort's famous journal, _La Lanterne_. True, that publication was
dead, and its audacious editor deported to New Caledonia with his
Communistic following; but the name could hardly be agreeable to Mr.
Mortimer's Imperialist friends, particularly the Empress--the Emperor was
then dead. To my surprise Mr. Mortimer not only adhered to his resolution
but suggested the propriety of my taking M. Rochefort's late lamented
journal as a model for our own. This I flatly declined to do and carried
my point; I was delighted to promise, however, that the new paper should
resemble the old in one particular: it should be irritatingly
disrespectful of existing institutions and exalted personages.

On the 18th of May, 1874, there was published at the corner of St. Bride
Street and Shoe Lane, E.C., London, the first number of "_The
Lantern_--Appearing Occasionally. Illuminated by Faustin. Price,
sixpence." It was a twelve-page paper with four pages of superb
illustrations in six colors. I winced when I contemplated its artistic and
mechanical excellence, for I knew at what a price that quality had been
obtained. A gold mine would be required to maintain that journal, and that
journal could by no means ever be itself a gold mine. A copy lies before
me as I write and noting it critically I cannot help thinking that the
illuminated title-page of this pioneer in the field of chromatic
journalism is the finest thing of the kind that ever came from a press.

Of the literary contents I am less qualified for judgment, inasmuch as I
wrote every line in the paper. It may perhaps be said without immodesty
that the new "candidate for popular favor" was not distinguished by
servile flattery of the British character and meek subservience to the
British Government, as might perhaps be inferred from the following
extract from an article on General Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had just
received the thanks of his Sovereign and a munificent reward from
Parliament for his successful plundering expedition throu