would grow greater and greater, till at last, as we see, dialects were left altogether to the remote country districts and the 'standard English' affected by the better educated. The languages of Alfred, of Hampole, of the old northern and southern literatures, lived but in the mouths of so-called clowns and clodpoles. Not, of course, that they have not changed. Let no one fancy that he will find the country-folk of Berkshire talking to-day the identical, unmodified language that King Alfred talked, or that he may still hear on the banks of the Severn the speech used by Piers the Ploughman, or that near Doncaster he may 'sit under ' a sermon written in the dialect of The Pricke of Conscience. No; languages are ever changing, ever on the wing. Our standard English, for all the many influences that act on it to make it stationary, yields yet to other changeful influences. So, no doubt, our present provincial dialects have altered much. They have gone on ageing, according to the great laws that regulate organic lingual life, that appoint and order its perpetual metamorphosis. They have perchance lost vigour, grown dimeyed and grey-haired, and sadly feeble in all their limbs. They have almost been improved away in many places, in others have been strangely' translated' or transmuted. A singular example of the latter change is afforded by the dialect of Kent. When in King Lear, in the fields near Dover,' Oswald, Goneril's steward, attempts to attack poor eyeless Gloucester, Edgar, dressed as a peasant, and on occasion talking like one, interposes: Dar'st thou support a publish'd traitor? Hence ; Lest that the infection of his fortune take Like hold on thee. Let go his arm. EDGAR. Ch'ill not let go, zir, without varther 'casion. EDGAR. Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volk pass. And chud ha' been zwagger'd out of my life, 'twould not ha' been zo long as 'tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not near the old man; keep out, che vor'ye, or ise try whether your costard or my batton be the harder; ch'ill be plain with you. OSWALD. Out, dunghill ! EDGAR. Ch'ill pick your teeth, zir; come, no matter, vor your foins. There are easily recognisable in the speeches of Edgar here peculiarities that now distinguish rather the dialects of the more western counties of Southern England. We might be apt to set them down to Shakespeare's ignorance, if we did not find them in undoubtedly genuine specimens of the genuine old Kentish dialect, as The Ayenbite of Inwyt, for example. We see then how greatly the dialect of the county has changed since Shakespeare's time. If any county might be mentioned as especially liable to dialectic VOL. XCVII-No. 575] H change, that county would manifestly be Kent. Elsewhere great changes, though perhaps not so considerable as in Kent, have passed over the common speech. I have said that when one dialect became supreme the literary age of the others passed away. And so, with a few exceptions, it did. But the Scottish variety of the northern dialect-for, with all due deference to the shades of Pinkerton and Jamieson, Scottish too is an English dialect-flourished as a literary language long after the close of the fifteenth century, the most glorious user of it being Burns. And in England, too, the dialects have found their patrons, Waugh and Barnes, no mean poets; the former wrote in the Lancashire dialect (a variety of the old Mercian or midland), Barnes in the Dorsetshire (a variety of the old West Saxon or southern). Several counties are justly proud of their traditional dialects, as evidenced by county and London associations. One of the first and strongest of these societies, of which the Earl of Shaftesbury and Mr. Thomas Hardy are members, grows more vigorous each year, and is known as the Society of Dorset Men. The Dorset Year-book, printed for the most part in the 'local accent,' is certainly one of the best dialectic magazines published, and is immensely popular. In conclusion, those who regard dialect with supercilious scorn are often apt to think that those who speak it are deficient in intelligence. Those who have lived in Devon and in other country districts know how untrue this is. The speaker of dialect is generally employed in agricultural work, which requires skill, and is of national importance. I think I have said enough to show that our provincial dialects deserve more respect and attention than they generally receive. If we remember, in addition, their influence upon many of our great writers, who, writing in the standard dialect, yet, brought up amongst them, show signs of their early associations and their influence consequently upon our standard English; if we remember, too, their influence upon many varieties of our language that are now spoken in distant countries-in America, in Australia, and elsewhere-I think that everybody will allow the real dignity and importance of dialects that are too often stigmatised as miserable barbarisms, and that those who speak them are not lacking in intelligence. H. J. GUBBINS. THE PRESS ASSOCIATION AND ITS WORK FAMILIAR as may be the name of the Press Association to the millions of newspaper readers, who see it quoted from time to time in the news columns, probably few people outside the journalistic profession know much of its origin and work, for, although so closely concerned with the publicity which results from the ceaseless circulation of news, it has rarely had occasion to say anything about itself. Yet the P.A., as it is usually called throughout 'newspaperdom,' possesses a by no means uninteresting history. Its foundation was the outcome of an important piece of State Socialism nearly sixty years ago, namely, the taking over and working of the telegraphs of the country by the Government, a step which in course of development led also to the Post Office monopoly of the telephone. When Parliament, in 1868, was considering the Bill for the acquisition of the two existing electric telegraphs companies, which-like the National Telephone Company in later days-embodied the efforts of private enterprise to work with more or less success the scientific discoveries in methods of communication by electrically energised lines, the Government had found it essential to consult the Press of the country on an important point. The existing companies not only transmitted but collected news. They organised and supplied parliamentary, commercial, and other services, and also reports of leading speeches, and in particular did a good deal for the provincial papers. As it seemed undesirable that the State should continue this function, the promoters of the measure recognising the obvious disadvantages, not to say impropriety, of the Post Office-a Government department-becoming responsible for news collection, the representatives of the provincial Press in the negotiations with the heads of the Post Office prior to the passing of the ActX saw that they would have to look elsewhere for their news once the State began to work the telegraphs. They were assured that, as regards telegraphic transmission, they would be treated at least as well as, and at no higher cost than, under the old companies; indeed, there was a confident expectation that in both respects. they would be served better. Thereupon they decided to form their own news-collecting organisation, and under the guiding hand of their most prominent men, including such notable figures of the time as Mr. John Edward Taylor, of the Manchester Guardian, Sir John Jaffray, Bart., of the Birmingham Post, and Mr. Frederick Clifford, Q.C., of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, the Press Association came into being in the same year as the Act was passed. The agency thus set up in such new and unique circumstances was endowed with a carefully thought-out constitution resting on a co-operative basis and designed to make it representative of every class of newspaper, morning, evening and weekly. That the men who started it on these lines possessed great faith, large vision, and sound business instincts is shown by the fact that, although the articles of association were brought up to date four years ago in order to meet the changes in company law of the last half-century, the principles originally laid down for the government of the Association are, broadly speaking, those still followed to-day with, one ventures to claim, considerable success. In order to qualify for membership a paper must own a fixed number of shares, according to whether it is a morning, evening, tri-weekly, bi-weekly, or weekly issue. A morning paper requires twice as many as an evening, and six times as many as a weekly. The morning paper qualification also covers-without extra shares-an evening paper published by the same proprietary at the same office. No paper can acquire more or less than the prescribed total. No dividends are paid, because the underlying idea is that the members, having provided the capital, prefer their news at cost price instead of receiving a dividend. The members of the governing body are not styled directors, but are known as the committee of management. The committee at first numbered five, and each member served for five years, one retiring automatically at the end of his term, and not being eligible for immediate re-election. Now the number is seven, and the term seven years, so that the same effect is still produced-the entrance of a new man every year; in other words, the regular infusion of new blood. The chairmanship is an annual appointment, each member becoming deputy chairman at the beginning of his fourth year of office and chairman during his fifth year. At the conclusion of the seven years' term an extremely interesting and, it is believed, unparalleled system in a limited liability company comes into play. The retiring member passes to a body known as the consultative board, again for a fixed term; and the members of the board-corresponding in a way to the Elder Statesmen of Japan -sit with the committee regularly twice a year, or at other times as well if desired by the committee, in an advisory and consulta tive capacity. This feature in the Association's constitution introduces an element of stability and usefulness which has frequently proved of the highest value. The Telegraphs Act was passed in 1868 by Mr. Disraeli's Administration, but it did not come into effective operation until February 5, 1870, when at 5 a.m. the Post Office opened its door for the transmission of private and press-rate telegrams. Simultaneously, on the stroke of the hour, the Association handed in the first Press message handled by the Post Office, this having been prepared by the late Mr. (afterwards Sir) Edmund Robbins, who, starting as one of a very small staff of sub-editors, was later secretary of the Association for a few years, and from 1880 to 1917 manager. It would be an affectation on the part of the writer, his son, to ignore the work done by Sir Edmund during his thirty-seven years as manager in building up the reputation and extending the scope and usefulness of the Association. His name is held in high honour in the newspaper world, and a bronze tablet to his memory, which Lord Burnham unveiled in 1923, in St. Bride's, the parish church of Fleet Street, was a tribute from his fellow-journalists in London and the country. While created and owned by the provincial Press, the Press Association has, from the first, supplied its services to the London papers, which have always been very large customers. Its London service is taken by every metropolitan morning, evening, and Sunday paper, and is one of the most remarkable news supplies ever brought into existence. Reports of happenings, meetings, conferences, deputations, and verbatim reports of all the principal political speeches in London are comprised in this service, as well as a vast amount of miscellaneous matter, including interviews, the result of special inquiries by a large staff; and a glance through a single day's 'copy,' which frequently aggregates many columns, every slip typed on a greenish-hued paper, reveals how much is continually going on in the capital, even in what are considered quiet times. The founders of the Association were called upon to settle many important questions, and their decision had a powerful influence on its subsequent career. One of them was in regard to foreign news. Should it appoint correspondents abroad and obtain its own intelligence, or should it ally itself with the already existing and successful organisation started in London in 1851 by the late Baron Julius de Reuter, perhaps the most famous figure in the history of agency enterprise in the Victorian era, and the pioneer in a new and little-understood branch of journalism, in which he lived to see his own venture become the greatest of the kind in the world? Mr. de Reuter, as he then was, made proposals to the Association to hand over to it his service of foreign telegrams for |