* * * * * THE FUNCTION OF THE NEWSPAPER [Speech of Sir Henry Irving, as Chairman, at the thirty-fifth anniversary dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund, London, May 21, 1898.] GENTLEMEN:--When I received the great compliment of an invitation to occupy this chair, I was conscious of a certain ironical fitness in my position. The politician and the actor divide between them the distinction of supplying the most constant material for the most intimate and searching vigilance of the newspaper press. [Laughter.] So when this great corporation of the newspaper press fund gives its annual dinner, what more natural and fitting than a politician or an actor in the chair, who illustrates in his person and in his own fortunes both the appreciation and the discipline which it is the function of the press so liberally to bestow? I can imagine that when such a chairman happens to be a pretty old stager like myself, there may be journalists in such a distinguished company as this who will look at him with the moistened eye of emotional reminiscence and murmur: "Ah, it was upon that man I fleshed my maiden pen!" [Laughter.] Thoughts like these shed the mellowing influence of time over the volumes of press cuttings which no actor's library is without. I have heard of public men who say they never read the newspapers. That remark has been attributed to a bishop, and perhaps there are kinds of abstinence quite easy to bishops but difficult to other mortals. [Laughter.] If it were possible for a man whose doings are considered worthy of public notice to avoid the newspaper, he could scarcely hope to make his friends practice the same denial. Even a bishop who is not inquisitive must occasionally meet deans and chapters who are. [Laughter.] There's the rub. You may not read the newspapers, but as soon as you scent the morning air you know whether those proverbial little birds who spread the news with such alacrity, are chirping about yourself, and the first feathered acquaintance that you hit upon is generously eager to share with you the crumb picked from a newspaper with a special flavor for your own palate.