LONDON AND PROVINCIAL JOURNALISM.
[To THE EDITOR OF THZ "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The reviewer of Mr. Saintsbury's "The Earl of Derby '' in your issue of July 23rd, describes his author as writing "at his best, like an angry man muttering to himself in jerky little sentences ; at his worst, like the leader-writer of a provincial paper." I am not in a position to judge how far this curious criticism describes the style of Mr. Saintsbury ; but if the- latter portion is meant to be condemnatory, the author may perhaps obtain more consolation from it than the reviewer intended.
The reviewer draws a distinction between Metropolitan and provincial journalism, to the disadvantage of the latter, putting its leader-writing below even the jerky mutterings of an angry man. Can this distinction be maintained ? We in the provinces are prepared to acknowledge that, at its best,. the leader-writing in the London dailies and weeklies is very good indeed, supplying a model for journalists everywhere ; but if I know my provincial brethren at all, they will concede nothing more. The average leader-writing in your London papers supplies no model for imitation. It has no, distinction of style, no reasoned force, no pre-eminent mark of culture ; while, at its worst, you will, I believe, be prepared to say with me that it is terribly bad.
The big provincial dailies compare most favourably in all that makes good journalism with the leading organs of Fleet Street, and the ordinary country paper has attained a higher standard than your reviewer, in the seclusion of his. study, dreams of. He might be usefully reminded that the- Telegraph and the Star are eminently Metropolitan, not. provincial. The tiresome tawdriness of the one and the super- ficial smartness of the other, do not receive their full recog- nition, nor the flattery of imitation, outside London.—I am,
[We entirely agree with our correspondent as to the excel-. lence of much of the writing in papers not published in London, and as to the badness of much that is Metropolitan_ When we used the expression, "provincial paper," we meant a paper morally as well as geographically provincial. We remember a provincial writer saying, in regard to an open- window controversy, "We always sleep with our window open, and frequently wake to find our moustache thickly coated with ice ; yet our health does not suffer." This is the kind of provincial writing which is morally provincial.—En. Spectator.]
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