9*8. XL JAN. 24, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
63
was sixpence. It consists of but sixteen
pages, including advertisements, of which
there are only fifty-six. The first number
contains one of Leech's spirited hunting
sketches and two sketches by Ansdell. The
advertisements tell us that * Uncle Tom's
Cabin' is being played at Drury Lane as
well as at two other theatres, that Madame
Vestris has the management of the Lyceum,
Charles Kean of the Princess's, Phelps of
Sadler's Wells, Madame Celeste of the Adelphi,
and Shepherd and Creswick of the Surrey.
The Royal Polytechnic Institute is flourish-
ing under the patronage of Prince Albert;
and in a corner at the bottom of a column
we find ' Mr. Albert Smith's Ascent of
Mont Blanc.' John Chapman advertises the
Westminster Review, and evidently intends
to try to cut out the bookseller : " When
payment is made direct to the publisher
for a year in advance, four numbers of
the Review will be delivered for ll. t or
postage free ll. 4s." The published price
'was six shillings per number.* The news
of the week is pithily told, and at a glance
we get an idea of the world of 1853. Dizzy,
who became Chancellor of the Exchequer,
with Lord Derby as his chief, on February
27th, 1852, and thought he had "come to
stay," set Messrs. Banting, the Government
upholsterers, to work to make the official resi-
dence in Downing Street light and gay, and
brilliant with modern furniture. Before
Christmas the fatal division came, and
Gladstone reigned in his stead. u Farewell to
the dawning visions of the resuscitated glories
of a Holland House on the Conservative side,
and all those intellectual coteries that might
have assembled in that hitherto ' unused
spot,' under the auspices of a literary
Chancellor of the Exchequer." It is sad to
relate that some ladies seemed to enjoy Dizzy's
discomfiture. The Earl of Aberdeen becomes
Prime Minister, and states in the House of
Lords that "at home the mission of the
Government would be to maintain and extend
free-trade principles, and to pursue the com-
mercial and financial system of the late Sir
Robert Peel." Under music, regret is ex-
pressed that England possesses no School of
Music. The news from France is the Em-
peror's decree that, should he die without
leaving an heir to the throne, the succession
shall pass to his uncle Jerome Napoleon
Bonaparte and to his descendants, from male
- The memorable meeting of authors and book-
sellers at John Chapman's on the 4th of May, 1852, for the purpose of hastening the removal of the trade restrictions on the commerce of literature is graphic- ally described in ' The Life of George Eliot.'
to male, by order of birth, and to the entire
exclusion of the females. Prince Jerome's
allowance was to be one million francs
per annum, with the Palais Royal as resi-
dence ; Prince Napoleon's, 300,000 francs ; and
the Princess Mathilde's (Demidoff), 200,000.
Photography first appeared in the second
volume, when the champion of the Thames
was drawn from a daguerreotype by Mayall.
In November, 1853, the Field became the property of Benjamin Webster, of the Adelphi Theatre, but the change of proprietorship did not bring prosperity. It was, in truth, a very poor sixpenny worth ; but, as the article in the Jubilee number states, news- paper enterprise in those days was hampered by the Stamp Act and by a monstrous paper duty.
Towards the end of the second year of its existence Mr. Serjeant Cox purchased the pro- perty, and in the number for November 25th, 1854, it was announced that the paper had passed into new hands. Its address stated that " the Field would be a family paper, sedulously weeded of whatever a gentleman should be unwilling to place in the hands of
his children It will make no endeavour
to become the newspaper of ' the man about town,' but to be that of ' the man out of town.' " Readers were invited " to express their opinion as to the scheme indicated, and to forward any suggestions." To this invita- tion there was a ready response, and, with but four exceptions, the communications were couched in language of warm commendation.
In 1857 Mr. John Henry Walsh took the editorial control ; he was an all-round sports- man, and in the previous year had published under the name of " S tonehenge " 'British Rural Sports.' He is described in the article on the Jubilee as being a "heaven-born"editor, a man in a thousand for the position to which he was appointed. This was his first connexion with newspaper work. Born in 1810, he had prac- tised as a doctor in Worcestershire for twenty- five years, but he had a great liking for sport, and indulged in it as far as his professional engagements admitted. The Field had at first paid little attention to angling, but in 1856 Francis Francis came upon the scene, and he and James Lowe, Frank Buckland both members of the Field brotherhood and others, were successful in working out problems of fish culture, and now angling forms an important feature of the contents. Angling, in common with all sports, has largely increased of late years so much so that it now supports a paper of its own, the Fishing Gazette. In this the contents of Mr. Edward Marston's delightful little holiday
