At the dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund this day
week Mr. Dickens, who was in the chair, announced that in advocating the claims of this fund on the public he held a brief for his brothers, on the ground that he had once been a reporter for The Morning Chronicle, and he then gave a very amusing sketch of this part of his career, on which we have commented elsewhere. His speech, however, was of more literary than logical value, and his advocacy of the policy of going to the public for help more successful than deserving of success. His line was the special merits of newspaper writers and reporters, the instructiveness and amusingness of newspapers, and the admirable discretion of re- porters in condensing long or dull speeches so that we may read them without being afraid with any amazement. We have a great esteem for newspaper writers and makers, but we cannot quite see that their merits are so much beyond those of any other class of producers as to set up a special claim as if for " works of supererogation." But what should we do without newspapers ? Well, at least as well as without shirts and shoes—better than without bread or meat. If newspapers have " a righteous claim " to abounding help from the general public, righteous claims of that kind will themselves much more abound. Twelve hundred pounds were subscribed during the evening.
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