If “The Street of Adventure” supplies a cinematographic record of the London journalistic life of to-day, it should be well worth while, I think, to compose some account of the very different conditions prevailing on the Press less than two decades ago; to present some fairly recognizable sketches of the gentlemen of the Press who bore the burden and heat of that day; to indicate the manner in which our cheery duties were discharged; and—a more difficult matter—to render, if possible, something of the atmosphere of the period. My own experience, roughly speaking, covers a period of twenty years. It extends from 1870 to 1890. The mere record of a few of the names of those with whom at one time or another I became associated indicates at once the great gulf fixed between the Then and the Now. There were, among others, George Augustus Sala, Godfrey Turner, “Scholar” Williams, Edmund Yates, Gilbert Venables, Tom Purnell, Archibald Forbes, Captain Hamber, George Henty, John Augustus O’Shea, Edmund O’Donovan, Hilary Skinner, Charles Williams, Henry Pearse, John Lovell. In the mere matter of physique this short catalogue suggests another age of journalists. Imagine these men, or any one of them, being thrown into hysterics by the failure of a newspaper to pay its way. Fancy Forbes in tears over the _Daily News_ reduced to a halfpenny! Or Edmund O’Donovan, on the morrow of his proprietor’s financial ruin, seeking balm for his wounded spirit in the flats of lady colleagues! By the nature of his calling the journalist is thrown much into contact with those outside his profession. The descriptive writer and special correspondent touches life at all points. A memorable struggle in the Commons House; the more lurid impact of armies; coronations; first nights at the theatre; command nights at the opera; the funerals of statesmen; prize-fights—the thousand pageants that make up the passing show called “public life”—these were approached by the Press correspondents, not in the spirit of nervous despondency described as characterizing the attitude of the puppets of Mr. Gibbs. My contemporaries went to work in an optimistic mood, mixed with the pageant with an air of cheery familiarity, and recorded their impressions in articles which would be considered nowadays as too picturesque, too vigorous, and too literary in style. Their functions brought them into pleasant contact with the heroes of whom they sung. They were given to looking at things from the inside as well as from the outside. They made friendships among the Parliament men, the pugilists, the pulpiteers, and the players, of whose exploits they were the chartered chroniclers. If an acquired familiarity with social functions of every sort could constitute a Society man, then the journalist of my period should—after a long and exhausting experience—possess all the gifts and graces of that ineffable being. And at the least his retrospect should be of the most pleasant description.