Is it urged against this particular Institution that it is
objectionable because a parliamentary reporter, for instance, might
report a subscribing M.P. in large, and a non-subscribing M.P. in
little? Apart from the sweeping nature of this charge, which, it
is to be observed, lays the unfortunate member and the unfortunate
reporter under pretty much the same suspicion--apart from this
consideration, I reply that it is notorious in all newspaper
offices that every such man is reported according to the position
he can gain in the public eye, and according to the force and
weight of what he has to say. And if there were ever to be among
the members of this society one so very foolish to his brethren,
and so very dishonourable to himself, as venally to abuse his
trust, I confidently ask those here, the best acquainted with
journalism, whether they believe it possible that any newspaper so
ill-conducted as to fail instantly to detect him could possibly
exist as a thriving enterprise for one single twelvemonth? No,
ladies and gentlemen, the blundering stupidity of such an offence
would have no chance against the acute sagacity of newspaper
editors. But I will go further, and submit to you that its
commission, if it be to be dreaded at all, is far more likely on
the part of some recreant camp-follower of a scattered, disunited,
and half-recognized profession, than when there is a public opinion
established in it, by the union of all classes of its members for
the common good: the tendency of which union must in the nature of
things be to raise the lower members of the press towards the
higher, and never to bring the higher members to the lower level.
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