To
one, who knows the wear and tear of the London press, to whom the very
name of a newspaper recalls late hours and interminable reports,
despatches and telegrams, proof-sheets, parliamentary debates and police
intelligence, leading articles and correspondents' letters; a very series
of Sisyphean labours, without rest or end; to such an one the position of
the Roman journalist seems a haven of rest, the most delightful of all
sinecures. There are many mysteries indeed about the Papal Press. Who
writes or composes the papers is a mystery; who reads or purchases them
is perhaps a greater mystery; but the bare fact of their existence is the
greatest mystery of all. Even the genius of Mr Dickens was never able to
explain satisfactorily to the readers of _Nicholas Nickleby_, why
Squeers, who never taught anything at Dotheboys Hall, and never intended
anything to be taught there, should have thought it necessary to engage
an usher to teach nothing; and exactly in the same way, it is an
insoluble problem why the Pontifical Government, which never tells
anything and never intends anything to be told, should publish papers, in
order to tell nothing. The greatest minds, however, are not exempt from
error; and it must be to some hidden flaw in the otherwise perfect Papal
system, that the existence of newspapers in the sacred city is to be
ascribed.
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