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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 3
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
One of our English contemporaries criticises an American printer for speaking of « that ingenious Dutchman, Gutenberg. » In America, and throughout the continent, a Dutchman means a German. The application of the term to a Hollander is one of the eccentricities of the English language.
Last year a Dunedin gentleman, having perpetrated a shilling shocker, caused some amusement by petitioning Parliament to impose a duty on imported literature sufficient to compel an unappreciative public to buy his local effort. This gentleman, who was an ornament to the Bar as well as a literary aspirant, has disappeared, leaving behind him heavy liabilities, including trust funds—in one instance the life-savings of a clergyman.
English judges do not submit to the « interviewer » with the same complaisance as their transatlantic brethren. The English papers are making merry over the experience of a Yankee news-hunter in connexion with the Maybrick trial. The story is thus told:—It occurred to him that it would be a good stroke of business to interview Sir James Fitzjames Stephen on the matter, thinking no doubt that by going to the fountain-head he would obtain special information. So Mr Reporter put on his best visiting suit of clothes, hired a swell trap with servant in livery, and drove up to the residence of the Judge in great style. The servants of the house thought it must be some one of consequence, and as the visitor's card bore a well-known English name without a smell of the press about it, the visitor had no difficulty in getting into the presence of the august judge, when the following dialogue took place:—Judge Stephen: « Well, sir, what do you want? » Reporter: « Well, I want to ask your Lordship a few questions with reference to the Maybrick affair, which you alone can answer. I am, Sir, a reporter from the Chicago Tribune. » Judge Stephen, iu his awful judicial voice: « Sir, there is the door, » and turning to the servant close at hand: « See that he leaves by it. » The reporter did not stay to ask any questions. His great ambtion was to escape from the terrible judge as quickly as possible, and he has now the greatest respect for British judges.