Tag Archives: Edwardian era

The “American Reporter” Identified

In his Saki biography, A.J. Lagguth recounts a particularly hairy episode from Munro’s time as the Morning Post‘s Special Correspondent in the Balkans:

As Hector’s thoughtful piece was on its way to London, Bulgarian rebels drove carriages past the leading banks in Salonica and threw out bombs. The Ottoman Bank was totally destroyed, another was badly damaged, as was the German Club. Hector left at once for the scene but his trip was interrupted dramatically. “While traveling from Uskub to Salonica,” he confided to his readers, “I was seized by a railway picket and had a narrow escape of being shot, as I was suspected of being a dynamiter.”

With an American reporter he had gone south at about two in the afternoon, passing by many guards and encampments to reach Salonica by nightfall. There he was told that the city was under a state of siege and no one could leave the station.

(Langguth 96)

The book continues by quoting from Munro’s own words:

“In the hope of slipping out by a side exit we therefore picked up our valises and made for an apparent outlet some five hundred yards distant across a waste of inconveniently overgrown grass. As a slight precaution against being mistaken for prowling Komitniki we turned down the collars of our overcoats so as to display the white collar, if not of a blameless life, at least of a business that did not call for concealment.

“About four hundred yards of the distance had been covered when a frantic challenge in Turkish brought us to a standstill, and five armed and agitated figures sprang forward in the starlight and began to interrogate us at a distance, which they seemed disinclined to lessen. As five triggers had clicked and five rifles were covering us we dropped our valises and ‘uphanded,’ but without reassuring our questioners, who seemed to be possessed of a panic which might more reasonably have been displayed on our part.”

(Langguth 97)

Langguth does not identify who Munro’s travelling companion was but I have managed to identify him as Frederick Ferdinand Moore (1881–1947), who at the time was working for the San Francisco Examiner. Moore definitely had an adventurous life (and an unlucky end). Wikipedia describes him as an early 20th century American novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher, soldier and war correspondent. I’d recommend reading the whole article.

What’s more, he also wrote a book titled The Balkan Trail about his time reporting from Europe, published in 1906.

Here is Moore’s account of the same episode:

All of the special correspondents—gathered like vultures in Macedonia to prey on the harvest of death—knew of the prediction for Salonica; but correspondents flock together, and we all followed the leader to Uskub with our hawk eyes set upon Albania. And there we were, in Uskub, when the dynamiting took place. The news reached us about noon of the morning after the event. Instead of eating luncheon, I got a travelling bag ready and boarded the south-bound train at half-past two, with one other correspondent—an Englishman. Happily, we were not rivals: he represented a London daily and I was working for America: otherwise we might have resented each other’s presence. As it was we rejoiced together at having a clear start of twenty-four hours on the others, for there is but one train to Salonica each day.

By nightfall the Englishman was bored by my conversation and I was bored by his, and, having nothing to read, we stretched ourselves out on the seats of our compartment and went to sleep soon after dark. It was in this condition that we arrived in Salonica at half-past ten o’clock; but nobody woke us, and we slept on. The few other passengers—all Turks, as Bulgarians were restricted in travelling at the time—left the train quietly and repaired to a khan across the road to spend the night. The train hands, frightened Christians, lost no time in ‘shunting’ the train, and after placing it on a ‘siding’ a quarter of a mile from the station, deserted it, us included, and joined the Turks in the crowded café.

About midnight I awoke and wondered where I was. It gradually dawned upon me that I was aboard a train, and I rose and looked out of the window. Every light was out: they must have been extinguished from above or we should have been discovered. I could discern, indistinctly, in the faint light of a new moon, a waving line of high grass on both sides of the train, and here and there a low, thick tree, but not a house was visible. I woke the Englishman. Towards the city, usually aglow with little lights from the water’s edge all the way up to the wall on the hills, only a few dim lamps now shone. The gas main to the town had been cut by the committajis the night before, and they had also attempted, in their dynamite revel, to destroy a troop train not far from the spot where ours now stood. We knew that the railways were patrolled everywhere and doubly guarded in the vicinity of Salonica, and there was little chance of our getting out of the train without being seen. We also knew that the Turk is averse from taking prisoners on any occasion, and naturally supposed that the deeds of the dynamiters—for many of whom they were still hunting—had not tended to lessen this Mohamedan characteristic. But to remain in the train and be discovered in the small hours of the morning by some excited Asiatic seemed a greater danger, and we decided to take to the open at once. Whereupon we gathered our bags, quietly opened the door, jumped to the ground and scurried through the high grass in the direction of the town. Fortunately we escaped from the train without detection. But we had gone hardly a hundred yards when a Turkish shout went up that was both a challenge and an alarm. We saw the Turk who gave the yell, for the moon was behind him, but I am sure he only heard us. He was near a tent, and the first to respond to his call for assistance were his companions from within. Six of them rolled out from under the canvas in their clothes, rifles in hand, and in a minute more there were twenty others by his side, all jabbering high Turkish. We had dropped our bags at the challenge and thrown up our hands, but still they did not seem to see us. They evidently thought we numbered forty—the usual size of an insurgent band—and it took us some time to convince them that we were only two Englishmen.

‘Inglese Effendi’ was the extent of our Turkish, and this we shouted to them with every variation of accent we could contrive, trusting they would comprehend our meaning in one form or another. I had not forgotten in the excitement that I was an American, but neither had I forgotten that the Turks consider an American a peculiar species of Englishman, and the situation was such that I was willing to forgo detail in explanation. They located us at once from the noise we were making, and, as soon as they had loaded and cocked their rifles, spread out single file like Red Indians, and wound a circle about us—keeping at a safe distance from our dynamite. During this manœuvre an animated discussion took place as to whether—we judged—it were not better to shoot us first and find out afterwards whether we were Bulgarians or not. This process was boring, for our arms were growing numb, and yet we dared not lower them. They shouted to us a score or more questions, but we could understand not a word. And we, concluding our Turkish had failed, tried them with English, French, and German, and the Englishman (who was the linguist) in a rash moment discharged a volley of Bulgarian. It was well for us then that these soldiers (as we learned later) had arrived from Asia Minor only a few days before, and knew not even the tone of the insurgents’ language. They had understood one variation of our ‘Inglese Effendi,’ and though they could not imagine what ‘English gentlemen’ were doing on a railway line beyond the city in the dead of night, there was one among them willing to take the chance of capturing us alive. But the bold fellow was not without grave fears, as the manner in which he performed this task amply demonstrated. All guns were turned on us:

Rifles to front of us,
Rifles to back of us,
Rifles all round us,
But nobody blundered.

The Turks signed to us to keep our hands up. We could lift them no higher so we stood on our toes—to show how willing we were to comply with all suggestions. Then the brave man who had volunteered to take us prisoners made a long détour and approached us from behind stealthily, lest we should turn upon him suddenly and cast a bomb. I was made aware of his arrival at my back by a thump in the spine with the muzzle of a loaded and cocked rifle. The finger on the trigger was nervous—if it was anything like its owner’s voice—and I dared not even tremble lest the vibration should drop the hammer of his gun. I being thus in my captor’s power, the other Turks approached. One unwound the long red sash from his waist and with an end of it bound my hands. Meantime, the Englishman had been surrounded, and two curly-bearded fellows, gripping his hands tightly, dragged him to my side and bound his wrists with the other end of the red sash. Our proud captor then seized the centre of the sash, and, carefully avoiding our baggage, led us away to the camp in exactly the same manner as he would have led a pair of buffaloes, and the other soldiers followed, jabbering, at our heels. Our captor’s tugging pulled the sash off my wrists, but I held on to it and pretended I was still shackled, considering the fright it would give the Turks to discover me mysteriously at liberty again.

We were kept but a few minutes at their camp, then taken through the railway station, now deserted, across a road to the Turkish café where the other passengers and the train crew were spending the night. It was a peaceful spectacle we entered upon, but we soon disturbed the composure of the Christians in the place. The train crew was stretched out on the floor snoring lustily, and the passengers, because of their race, sat on the tables, their feet folded under them, occupied in sucking hookahs. Our dramatic entrance, on the ends of the red sash and surrounded by ragged soldiers, did not distract the Mohamedans from their hubble-bubbles, but the snoring ceased immediately.

We pounced upon the conductor before he was on his feet, and through him, by means of French, explained to our captors who we were and how we happened to be in the train, and demanded our release. But the Asiatics threatened the Christian and he slyly deserted us and slunk out of the door. The passport officer, who records arrivals, a Mohamedan, took it upon himself to relieve us of the bondage of the red sash and returned it to its owner, whereupon he brought upon himself a storm of abuse from the Asiatics, and he too deserted us. One by one all the Christians escaped to the next khan, taking their snoring with them, but leaving the curly-bearded Anatolians and the ‘bashi-bazouks.’ These Turks remained perched on the tables, our only company through the whole long night, apparently without a thought of a thing but their gurgling pipes. Indeed, not even the occasional sound of an explosion in the town caused them so much as to lift their eyes.

The soldiers knew now that we were foreigners, and did not attempt to re-bind our hands, but they continued to keep us prisoners with the object of securing ransom money. Had we been subjects of their Sultan we should probably have had our pockets searched, but, being foreigners, our persons, at least, were favoured with a grudged respect.

We refused persistently to comply with their demands for money, until they became violent. When they had given our bags ample time to explode, one of the Turks fetched them to the café, but declined to surrender them unless we paid him. Even this we refused to do. Hereupon one truculent fellow whipped out his bayonet and shook the blade in our faces, at the same time drawing a finger significantly across his throat and gurgling in a manner that must have been copied from life. This realistic entertainment so impressed me that I rewarded the actor with all the small change I possessed, about six piastres. The amount did not satisfy him by any means, for he explained that he desired to divide the money with his companions, but I dreaded to show them gold, and handed over an empty purse—my money was in a wallet. Then they put pressure on the Englishman, but he flatly declined to reward them and pretended to prefer the alternative they offered. Bold Briton! they turned from him in disgust and proceeded to fight over the shilling I had given them. The individual who had drawn his bayonet carefully replaced it in its scabbard and slung his gun by a strap over his shoulder before entering the fray. And not once did he or any of the others use a weapon, though they punched each other’s faces viciously—not, however, disturbing the bashi-bazouks on the tables, whose rhythmic suck of the hubble-bubbles could be heard above the irregular sounds of the brawl.

The fight concluded and quiet restored, the Englishman got writing materials out of his bag and proceeded to take notes for despatches. But this proceeding did not meet with the approval of our guards. The truculent individual walked round behind him without a word, and drew his bayonet again. This time he was truly alarming, for he was alarmed himself. He suspected that we were making a report of the treatment we had received. Now this Englishman was none other than ‘Saki,’ author of ‘Alice in Westminster,’ a man who would write an epigram on the death of a lady love. In a few minutes Saki’s mind had risen above all earthly surroundings in search of an epigram on a capture by Turks, and he was oblivious to the presence of the Asiatic hovering over him. Perceiving my friend’s unfortunate plight, I came to the rescue, shook him back to earth, and persuaded him to destroy his papers. We could do nothing the rest of the night but sit and study the Turks and listen to the rhythmic gurgles of the hubble-bubble pipes.

Early in the morning two army officers arrived and came into the khan for coffee, and we appealed to them in French to relieve us from the tender mercies of our tormentors. But they sipped their coffee unaffected, and informed us that the soldiers were not of their command. Indeed, these Asiatics seemed to be of nobody’s command! Up to the hour they took it into their heads to return to the railway station, no superior officer came near them. It was about six o’clock when they departed, leaving us without ceremony. There were already cabs at the station, bringing passengers for the early train, and one of these took us into the city.

(Moore 106-115)

I’ll be posting a few more extracts from the book here in the coming weeks.

Sources

Langguth, A. J., Saki. A Life Of Hector Hugh Munro With Six Short Stories Never Before Collected (Oxford: OUP, 1982).

Moore, Frederick Ferdinand, The Balkan Trail (London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1906), online at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62947.

Moore, Frederick Ferdinand, Wikipedia article, online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Ferdinand_Moore.

 

More on Saki, Selfridge’s and the ‘Romance of Business’

Following on from the publication here of the lost Saki story ‘The Romance of Business’, Saki scholar Brian Gibson managed to turn up the following article about the series of ads of which Saki’s tale was but a part. I publish it in full below. Readers may think that the writer is taking his brief a bit too seriously and the prose gets bit purple as a result, but it gives an idea of the context.

OCTOBER 3, 1914 SELFRIDGE & CO, LTD, London, England.–A series of ads exploiting the store’s fifth anniversary. There are some twenty odd ads in the complete series. Three of them are reproduced on this page.

It is possible that no more remarkable ads than these have been produced in the entire history of retail advertising. It is certain that there has never been a more interesting and more constructive presentation of the institutional phase of retailing–the side of retailing that is too often submerged when the actual function of a store is under consideration.

It is not in technique and design that the Selfridge ads are out of the ordinary–although they are in reality works of art, on the one hand, and literature, on the other. Their chief novelty and merit lie in the point of view they reflect, a point of view that puts retailing as an enterprise, and trade as a vocation, on the high level on which they properly should stand.

While each ad of the entire series carries the signature of Selfridge & Co., the theme in the text is “the Retail Store as an Institution,” and the subject matter is composed not of what Selfridge & Co. think of themselves, but of what other people think of them. And, after all, is it not public opinion that makes any institution what it is–any institution, at least, the basis of whose work is service? Continue reading →

Where Saki was published

Munro was fortunate as a freelance writer because he did not have to hawk around his stories. As you can see from the “first publication” table, the vast majority of them were printed in one of three  outlets. In order of Munro’s connection with them, they were:

1. The Westminster Gazette

The front page of the Westminster Gazette, 25 September 1901, with Saki’s first Reginald story.

Founded in 1893, it quickly became one of the pre-eminent Liberal daily newspapers. In Munro’s day it supported the Asquith/Grey wing of party. It was an evening paper, printed on green paper to make it easier on the eyes when read under artificial light.1 A prestigious newspaper with a wide influence despite its small circulation (20,000 copies sold but read by an estimated 100,000),2 it never made a profit, relying instead on subsidies from wealthy Liberal supporters. It was required reading in “clubland” and political circles. It also published sketches and short stories and could make a writer’s reputation. Munro was introduced to the paper’s editor J.A. Spender by its renowned cartoonist Francis Carruthers Gould; the result was the collaboration The Westminster Alice. It was owned by George Newnes till 1908, then sold to a consortium headed by Alfred Mond/Sir John Brunner/Weetman Pearson (different sources name different men as the key mover behind the purchase).

2. The Morning Post

Founded in 1772, it first supported the Whigs but reoriented to the Tories from 1795 when bought by Daniel Stuart. From 1876 it belonged to the Borthwick family. It is said to have been the first daily newspaper in London to regularly feature notices of plays and concerts (from the early 20th century.) It was highly respected and had a tradition of publishing good writing: Dr. Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Charles Lamb, George Meredith, Thomas Hardy and Rudyard Kipling were all contributors. It employed Munro as a foreign correspondent in the Balkans, eastern Europe, Russia, and Paris from 1902 to 1909.

3. The Bystander

Advertisment in the Daily Mail for The Bystander.

This was a magazine of about eighty pages established in 1903 by the proprietors of the Graphic. Published weekly on Wednesdays in ‘tabloid’ form, it was targeted at “persons of refinement and taste” (according to its advertisements). It was attractively produced, being printed on high-quality, glossy paper, and included a colour supplement. Illustrations, photos and cartoons complemented its coverage of social, literary and theatrical news, as well as of sport (“for both sexes”, the Daily Mail noted), travel and fiction. It also printed short stories; Daphne du Maurier was another prominent author featured early in its pages. At the time of Munro’s connection with it its editor was William Comyns Beaumont.

Sources

Boyce, George, et al., editors. Newspaper History from the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day. Constable; Sage Publications, 1978.

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/the-bystander

The Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press. Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

Hindle, Wilfried. The Morning Post 1772-1937: Portrait of a Newspaper. 1. publ., Routledge, 1937.

Koss, Stephen E.. The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain 1. – the Nineteenth Century. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981.

Lee, Alan J. The Origins of the Popular Press in England: 1855-1914. Croom Helm, 1976.

“Multiple Classified Advertising Items.” Daily Mail, 9 Dec. 1903, p. 6. Daily Mail Historical Archive, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EE1862524833/DMHA?u=heidel&sid=bookmark-DMHA&xid=3293eaad. Accessed 9 Sept. 2021.

“The Bystander.” Daily Mail, 7 Dec. 1903, p. 5. Daily Mail Historical Archive, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EE1862524516/DMHA?u=heidel&sid=bookmark-DMHA&xid=30377c87. Accessed 9 Sept. 2021.

“The Bystander.” Daily Mail, 10 Dec. 1903, p. 3. Daily Mail Historical Archive, link.gale.com/apps/doc/ EE1862524964/DMHA?u=heidel&sid=bookmark-DMHA&xid=c95acde9. Accessed 9 Sept. 2021.

  1. See Whitaker, Brian (ed.). Notes & Queries. 3. London: Fourth Estate, 1992, p. 206.↩
  2. Lee p. 166; Langguth p. 60.↩

Review: The Edwardians by Roy Hattersley

Book cover of The Edwardians by Roy Hattersley

Image from goodreads.com

This was published a good number of years ago but I’ve only got around to reading it now.

Although there is no mention of Munro at all, the book provides useful and entertaining background information about the period when he was writing and publishing. Hattersley begins with the death of Queen Victoria and continues with a panoramic sweep across politics, society, culture and science, ending (inevitably) with the outbreak of the First World War.

The author (who I should perhaps explain for non-UK readers was for many years a Labour MP and served as a member of the government in the 1970s) is particularly good on the politics and personalities of the time. Such knowledge is really indispensable if you want to properly appreciate early satires such as The Westminster Alice. His treatment of the trade union movement and the founding of his own party is similarly well-informed (though less relevant to readers of Munro).

The whole story is told in an engaging and lively way. He has some nice turns of phrase and a good eye for an interesting detail. A highlight was the section on the pioneers of motoring, from which I can’t resist quoting the following, describing one episode in the Automobile Club of Britain’s first attempt at “what, today, would be called a rally”:

Halfway to the summit of the Cumbrian Hills, the Ariel tricycle’s clutch failed and it began to roll backwards – accelerating as it descended towards the valley floor. It was then that the driver discovered, to his surprise, that the brakes only worked when the vehicle was going forwards. He managed to steer successfully to safety with his left hand while turned in his seat to watch the road over his right shoulder. Unfortunately that required him to push his passenger out on to the road. (p. 431)

I even found the section on cricket (a sport I have no understanding of or interest in) readable.

Years ago I read his sort-of-sequel Borrowed Time: The Story of Britain Between the Wars  and I remember the chapters on literature in that being a real weakness, so it was a relief to find a more detailed and considered discussion of writers and their works in The Edwardians – one that actually gives the impression Hattersley had read the books and formed his own opinions on them rather than copying sections out of some undergraduate guide to Twentieth Century Eng. Lit.

Possibly he read a little too much Virginia Woolf, though. How else to explain his calling the Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic “Harland and Woolf”? Coming from Northern Ireland, I feel I must put on record that it is Harland and Wolff. (One of the founders was a German, which is a little ironic when you consider that one of the big issues of the period was Anglo-German rivalry, particularly when it came to building ships.)

Despite that error (and the bizarre typo that has the Balkan Wars against the Ottoman Empire starting two years late in September 1914), this book is definitely to be recommended.