Читать книгу Candid Chronicles: Leaves from the Note Book of a Canadian Journalist - Hector Willoughby Charlesworth - Страница 16

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Edmund E. Sheppard, who had taken the responsibility of launching me in newspaper work, was the most picturesque figure in the Canadian literary and journalistic Bohemia of thirty-five years ago, and in some respects the most unique mingling of likeable and offensive traits that I have ever known. He was a man of intensive energy:—that is to say, he would at certain periods work prodigiously and at others loaf. This is a familiar condition with the literary temperament; but he was something more than a literary man. He was both dreamer and schemer, with the result that he managed to get a good deal more out of life than the average man; to travel much in foreign lands and to retire from active duty with a competence at an age when most men of his calling are happy to be still at work and wondering what is to happen them in old age, if they are unfortunate enough to live to advanced years.

Several men of my acquaintance have made considerable fortunes out of the newspaper business, but they have done so largely by gradually attaining a sort of mental atrophy which enables them to shut out from their vision the varied and fascinating panorama of human existence, and to concentrate on money-getting pure and simple. They grow less interesting every day they live, and the world grows less interesting to them. But "Ned" Sheppard, as his friends called him, or "Don", as he was known to the wider public, was at all times interesting. He was the type who could always find the money for what he wished to do. He was born in the early fifties in Elgin county, Ontario, where his father was both a small farmer and a preacher of the Disciples Church. The elder Sheppard was a man of very narrow and rigid ideas, I have been told, and under his stern rule the son, who was a natural rebel against all conventions, had so sad a time of it as a boy that it embittered him for the rest of his life. At the time E. E. Sheppard published his rural novel, Widower Jones, in the late eighties, it was widely rumoured that in its title character he had rather brutally satirized his own father. At any rate he acquired in boyhood a hatred of pietists, to him synonymous with hypocrites, that lasted all his life.

In his 'teens he managed to scrape up enough money to go away to Virginia and study medicine at one of the cheap colleges of the impoverished South; but without finishing his course he drifted to the Mexican border, where he worked as cowboy and stage driver, and picked up a marvellously racy vocabulary. I do not swear much myself, but I know good swearing when I hear it, and Mr. Sheppard, when the spirit moved him, was an artist. On the border he picked up a distinctive habit of dress, half-Spanish and half-American, and resembled one of Bret Harte's immaculate gamblers. It may be pure imagination, but I have a theory that the late Cuyler Hastings, an actor who came from the same part of Western Ontario as Mr. Sheppard, copied him when he created the role of the Sheriff in the famous melodrama, The Girl of the Golden West—a make-up now familiar the world over through Puccini's opera based thereon. "Don" had two hats, a tall "plug" for outdoor and a slouch for indoor wear,—and in the years when I knew him best I hardly once saw him with his head uncovered. Under his trousers he wore top boots of fine Spanish leather; and he liked to surprise British visitors to his office by putting his feet on the table and displaying these unique articles. He habitually chewed tobacco, and his aim at a distantly placed cuspidor, when he felt the need of expectoration, was invariably accurate. On one occasion the late Sir George Ross visited his office on a political mission; and Sheppard with a view to convincing the Premier of Ontario of his brusque independence practised this gift throughout the interview, occasionally ejaculating an unprintable synonym for buncombe which has its origin in ranch-life. Sir George was never in danger, but would jump nervously every time a quid flew past him to the cuspidor. The first thing Mr. Sheppard told me by way of admonition when I entered his employ was that he could drink all the whiskey the staff required, and it was no idle boast; though in those days it never seemed to unsteady him. On the contrary liquor made him pensive and morose; and it was a unique sight to see him ruminating under his slouch hat; meditating some attack on a charlatan, or some plan to "land" an advertising contract. Saturday Night, his weekly paper, had a few shareholders and a nominal board, and at the annual meeting he would present a statement of affairs with the words: "You won't understand what this means and I don't intend that you shall." Everyone took it as a good joke, for the promised dividend was always paid.

He had cut his teeth in newspaper work in St. Thomas and London, Ont., and in 1882 came to work as a reporter in the Mail, in Toronto, where his picturesque bearing and remarkably alert mind took the fancy of the late John Riordan, the paper manufacturer, who with Christopher W. Bunting owned the newspaper. John Riordan, I have been told, was always very ambitious to follow the lead of the famous New York publishers of forty years ago. Thus the Mail building, which still occupies the corner of Bay and King streets, Toronto, was constructed as a replica of the old New York Tribune building facing City Hall Square. At his home town, St. Catharines, he drove a team of trotters after the manner of Robert Bonner, who had made a fortune out of a fiction-weekly, the New York Ledger. Finally he decided to emulate James Gordon Bennett, who had founded, in connection with the New York Herald, a newspaper of different name, known as the Evening Telegram. The latter title having been pre-empted in Toronto, Mr. Riordan established the Evening News, and selected E. E. Sheppard, as the livest man in his employ, to conduct it.

The methods adopted by Sheppard to gain fame and circulation for the News were lurid, and anticipated many of the "circulation stunts" of to-day. For a time he printed it on pink paper; and when I was a youngster, most boys desired their fathers to take the News in order that they might have pink kites. Less innocuous was the institution of the "Peek-a-Boo" column containing offensive and often malicious gossip about leading men and women of Toronto society. This is a very old journalistic trick to get circulation. It was practised in New York before the American Civil War by the elder Bennett, and in Canada it was employed by William Lyon Mackenzie, whose plant was thrown in Toronto Bay, not for political reasons, as some school histories state, but because he had assailed the moral character of the wives and daughters of members of the alleged Family Compact. Pressure of public opinion compelled Sheppard to drop the "Peek-a-Boo" column, and with this cicatrice removed, the News won favour by the freshness and interest of the writing which appeared in its columns.

I do not think any Canadian editor ever showed better judgment than Sheppard in discerning newspaper ability. In later years I came to know several of his colleagues in the conduct of the News and they were all men of fine gifts. They included the late Louis P. Kribs, a Waterloo county "Dutchman" whose humorous articles signed "Henery Pica" were copied all over America; the late Thomas A. Gregg, who, with his brother George Gregg, had originally promoted the establishment of the Mail and who later was one of the founders of the Toronto Star; the late John A. Ewan, who subsequently became one of the editors of the Globe; and among the brilliant juniors who have made a great success in life was Walter Cameron Nichol, who became Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and a knight.

I am speaking of a period several years before my own entry into newspaper work; but in the nineties the lore of three decades was open to the young man interested in the history of his calling. One of Sheppard's circulation stunts was to try and make the News the organ of the then young and thriving body, the Knights of Labour, though I do not think he had any actual sympathy with its aims. I recall seeing a Labour procession in the mid-eighties when the entire staff of the News, editors, reporters, business clerks, compositors, and pressmen were compelled to walk wearing white "plug" hats like a minstrel company. Sheppard with his black goatee and sallow Spanish countenance walked at the head with Louis Kribs, a bulky blonde figure who looked like a German comedian and was nick-named "The Crown Prince". They were figures that one would not soon forget. I learned in after years that the white plug hats were a job lot picked up by Sheppard at a dollar apiece, and that it was a grievance with the staff that every man was compelled to purchase one at that figure. They refused to take them home after the parade, and when I went to work for the News in 1896 many of them were still lying about the office, and were used as waste baskets; while at the noon hour the printers' devils would play football with them. They were indeed hardy perennials.

Kribs was one of the kindest hearted men who ever lived. He and his wife were childless and made a practice of adopting orphans and giving them a start in life. He had seldom less than four little ones in his home, of whose misfortunes he had learned in the course of newspaper work. And he was a famous hand at hoaxes. In the seventies, while conducting a country newspaper at Barrie, he had chronicled the death at Allandale, across Kempenfeldt Bay, of one T. H. O. Mascat, who had been run over by a train. Half the population of Barrie walked over to view the remains, only to find that the unfortunate victim was an ordinary tabby. The greatest hoax that he perpetrated while on the News staff was the announcement of the retirement from public life of Sir John A. Macdonald, accompanied by the full text of an alleged farewell address. For a few hours it caused consternation in Canada, until the more learned citizens discovered that it was copied word for word from the farewell address of George Washington, a document really written, it is supposed, by the great federalist, Alexander Hamilton. Sir John did not resent the hoax, for he was very fond of Kribs and two years later was instrumental in having him appointed news editor of a new Conservative organ, the Empire. Kribs was a gifted oboe player, who had been a member of the Waterloo town band; and another recruit of the Empire staff was James W. Curran, the present editor of the Sault Ste. Marie Star and a renowned authority on the docility of wolves. Curran had been a trombone player in the Orillia town band; and after I went to work on the Empire staff in 1893 I was told of the melancholy duets transposed for oboe and trombone with which they used to while away the night hours. That was before the days of "jazz", and these duets may be said to have anticipated Paul Whiteman in weird combination effects. I once told the famous conductor, Walter Damrosch, of these duets, which I regret never to have heard personally, and he shuddered at the thought of them.

I never knew Louis P. Kribs very well, but he was literally adored by all his associates, a contrast to Sheppard, who was not popular and was sensitive about the isolation he suffered in his own calling. And it was through Kribs, who would not willingly have wronged any man, that Sheppard lost the News, though I do not believe that it ever made a dollar for anybody throughout the forty years of its existence.

The military calling boasts its heroes, but it boasts its liars as well. At the close of the Northwest rebellion of 1885 some prevaricating soldier told Kribs that the 65th Battalion of Montreal, largely composed of French Canadians, had shirked their duty while on active service in the West, because of their sympathy with the rebel leader, Louis Riel. Kribs, never a model of discretion, wrote and printed the yarn. There was a less offensive story going the rounds at the time which related to the 65th battalion. It was of a captain who being told that a band of rebels was concealed in a coulie gave the order, "Front rank, ready, present, fire!" and when the soldiers kept on banging away shouted peremptorily, "Stop shoot! Leave some for the rear rank!" The men of the 65th battalion did not mind this yarn; but, when Kribs published his tale of dereliction in duty, all its officers entered suit for damages against the News, of which E. E. Sheppard under a purchasing agreement with the Riordan interests was already part owner. They also took proceedings for criminal libel against Mr. Sheppard personally, as editor of the offending newspaper.

Then ensued a long game of hare and hounds. Political animosity between Quebec and Ontario has never run so rancorously as in the mid-eighties, owing to the agitation among French Canadians over the hanging of Riel. Under the libel law of Canada actions both criminal and civil must be tried in the home town of the injured party, or the nearest legal centre thereto. This clause is a menace to justice, because it operates very strongly against the prospect of a fair trial. If Sheppard and Kribs had been taken to Montreal in 1885, matters would have been black for them. Sheppard took responsibility for the article, though he had not seen it until it appeared in print, and owing to his natural sense of caution would probably have "killed" it, as newspaper men phrase it. The only course open to him was to evade service of writs and warrants; and this he succeeded in doing for nearly two years. For months the Quebec police officials had great difficulty in securing the signature of a Toronto magistrate to the warrant. Col. Denison, then the sole police magistrate, was usually conveniently absent from his office, or on the bench, when the High Constable from Montreal would appear on the scene to seek his signature; and local justices of the peace were also diffident. At last the warrant was validated by the higher courts; but the game of evasion went merrily on. Sheppard had convenient exits broken in the offices of the News on Yonge street, Toronto, which enabled him to vanish when the alarm was given. The office was indeed a curious rookery. There was a platform or balcony on the second floor where you might stand unseen and watch anyone moving about in a corridor below, through which a police officer searching for the accused must necessarily pass. One of the News stereotypers told me that on one occasion when the High Constable of Montreal was known to be in town, he and a fellow employee had arranged to douse the official with a barrel of flour from this vantage point. Fortunately the information leaked to the "boss", who gave stern orders against violence. If the incident had transpired it would have been disastrous, for it is a very serious matter to assault an officer while in the pursuit of duty.

Finally the long game of hide and seek ended by Mr. Sheppard's voluntary surrender. The long litigation in the courts had been very costly; he had been unable to meet his obligations for purchase of the News, and the Riordan interests were resolved to dislodge him. There were economic reasons to justify this course. They were the owners of the Conservative organ, the Mail, though they had already quarrelled with Sir John Macdonald and announced that the publication would thenceforth be independent in politics. Nevertheless it was an embarrassment in business to be known as the partial supporters of a publication at open war with the province of Quebec. Sheppard was practically ruined; and it was arranged that he should depart. At Montreal he was most leniently treated. Instead of imprisonment, he was fined the nominal sum of $500, and the civil suits were withdrawn. It was the knowledge that they had accomplished their purpose and as they supposed ended the career of their enemy that led to this magnanimity on the part of the officers of the 65th Battalion—or so I have been assured.

In reality this supposed misfortune was the luckiest event that ever happened to E. E. Sheppard. The litigation had advertised him throughout the length and breadth of Canada, and it had created for him many sympathizers in Ontario. I have spoken of the junior, Walter Cameron Nichol, then a verse and skit writer on the News. Though but a boy he, with one of the News advertising staff, had projected a weekly newspaper devoted to political commentary, social gossip and musical and dramatic criticism. This was the origin of Saturday Night, which has not only been the most successful of all Canadian weeklies, but the only one of its kind that has survived.

Walter Nichol and his advertising friend had been unable to raise capital for their project, but Mr. Sheppard had friends who were willing to advance money to set him on his feet again, and having nothing else to turn to he looked favourably on the projected weekly. His name did not appear in the first issue, which was gotten out by Nichol in the autumn of 1887, but in the second he began the front page of independent commentary which has ever since been a feature of Saturday Night, and to which I have myself in later years contributed countless words.

Mr. Sheppard himself when he chose to apply his mind to the task was a splendid editor with a fine discernment in securing talent. Unfortunately for themselves Mr. Nichol, who became assistant editor under him, and his friend, who had become advertising manager, quarreled with Sheppard because they did not think they had been fairly treated. They accused him of having grabbed control of a project which had originated with them. They demanded a "show-down" and were refused. Early in 1888 they left and established another weekly on similar lines entitled Life. They lacked the prestige and the means to swing the enterprise, though Walter Nichol wrote witty lampoons of which Mr. Sheppard was the target in many instances.

One of his ideas was a fake questionable submitted to public men as to whom they regarded as the world's three greatest men. Sheppard's alleged answers were as follows: First, Edmund E. Sheppard; second. E. E. Sheppard; third, "Don".

To-day in British Columbia Sir Walter Cameron Nichol is recognized as a model of dignity and business acumen, but as a boy-reporter in my native city of Hamilton where he served his apprenticeship on the Spectator he was regarded as a "terror", and I heard many amusing stories of his pranks. There was in those days a character who was a good deal of a fop known as Miles O'Reilly Jarvis. Nichol wrote a few verses of asinine poetry and sent them to Puck signed by Jarvis. They were of course thrown in the waste paper basket; and for weeks Nichol bombarded the famous editor, H. C. Bunner, with enquiries as to when they would appear, assailing his literary intelligence and proclaiming the verses the work of genius. These communications, each containing fresh copies of the verses, were also signed by the name of Jarvis. Finally Mr. Bunner instructed one of the Puck staff to write a jocular story about the Hamilton poet Miles O'Reilly Jarvis, who was so confident of his genius. The article was a huge joke in Hamilton, but Mr. Jarvis set an investigation afoot and the letters were traced to Nichol, who had not kept the secret. He was threatened with criminal proceedings, compelled to make an apology, and was a sadder and wiser boy before he heard the last of Miles O'Reilly Jarvis.

In disgust with the difficulties of carrying on Life and the failure to obtain the share in Saturday Night that was his due as first promoter, he went to British Columbia, where his rise to affluence and eminence is a matter of history. After he left his partner tried to continue Life with other assistance. A young literary aspirant, just graduated from the University, whom I later came to know well, was induced to advance five hundred dollars on condition of being appointed to the staff. The first use that was made of this windfall was the purchase of a ton of coal, for the finances of Life had sunk so low that the staff was literally freezing to death. The balance of the funds financed two more issues, and then the young man who had advanced the money was out of a job and out of pocket. Thus perished the first rival of Saturday Night. Mr. Sheppard had been too shrewd to advertise its existence by answering lampoons at his own expense, but on its collapse he penned this epitaph: "The name of Life has been changed to Death".

Saturday Night was itself unpretentious in quarters and equipment in those days. Its chief ornament was a vast "old master" by Guercino of doubtful value, which Mr. Sheppard picked up in a European auction room as a bargain and subsequently presented to the National Club, where it still hangs. The weekly occupied three narrow floors and a basement in the Grand Opera House building, which as the only first-class theatre in Toronto at that time was an excellent location in which to house a publication of the kind. Every playgoer had the name of Saturday Night before his eyes; and on publication day sheets were pasted on the windows to tease him into buying. The editorial rooms upstairs were the nearest approach to a literary Bohemia that Canada afforded at that time. A dark and narrow hallway led to them, and they had at one time been the quarters of a defunct Press Club at which Henry Irving and other celebrities had been entertained. On the wall was a sketch of the great actor, which had been made from life on one of these occasions. Many scribbled names, some noted, still decorated the panelling, when I first entered these quarters in 1891; and on the same floor was the studio of the celebrated landscape painter, O. R. Jacobi, whose finer canvasses to-day command a high price. He was a peculiar fusty old Teuton with the soul of a poet, and he looked as though he lived on the smell of an oil rag and slept in his clothes, as I believe he not infrequently did. He used to let me go into his studio to watch him paint in his peculiar minute spots, from which, however, he evolved unique and charming effects in colour; and sometimes he would come into my room to get warm.

In the frank picture of E. E. Sheppard which this chapter presents I trust I have not belittled his real powers. His was indeed a remarkably prophetic mind. Two or three years after he finally left Canada for California in 1910, he wrote a book entitled The Thinking Universe. It was a metaphysical disquisition, which owing to the writer's lack of familiarity with the vocabulary of metaphysics and philosophy was somewhat unintelligible, yet in it he unquestionably anticipated the Einstein theory. More remarkable still was a paper he prepared in 1897 which he hoped to have the privilege of reading before the British Association for the Advancement of Science which convened in Toronto that year. His offer was rejected by those in charge of the programme because of his lack of scientific standing, yet his secretary, to whom it was dictated, and who remembers its contents, not long ago informed me that in that paper Mr. Sheppard prophesied the advent of what is now known as "radio" in explicit terms. He also once planned a life of Christ as viewed by the common man of to-day and visited Palestine to get "atmosphere", but, perhaps fortunately, became overawed by his own project.

The contrast between the mind of the man given to so much abstract, if not entirely lucid, thinking and his daily conversation was startling. Once when a local poet tendered him verses apostrophizing Toronto in this wise,

Let the daughter of the Don

Put her radiant garments on,

Mr. Sheppard said that the poem, like the Don River itself (a muddy stream which flows through the eastern part of Toronto), was "hog-wash". The poet retorted with a quatrain:

Hogwash is a word

That can only be heard

In the swinish herd

Of a man named "Shep-perd".