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NEWSPAPER ADDRESSES.

97

amount of patient attention. These addresses are all printed in Water Street, and preserved in proof-books, of which there are no less than fiftysix requiring to be gone through carefully every day. If a customer writes directing the discontinuance of a journal which he has been receiving, and the address is not at once removed from the proof-book, it may be that the newspaper will continue to go to him for years at the expense of the firm. One such instance was lately discovered, where the Field' had been sent to some one in the country for more than twenty years after he had countermanded it.

6

It is well remembered by men still employed in the business how, when the younger Smith entered the firm, he excelled in this department, and had the reputation of being only second to his father in dexterity of folding papers for the post.

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there is a source of bitterness among the postal hands here. embossed postage on the newspaper covers had, for many years, the name of Messrs W. H. Smith & Son tastefully woven round it in a wreath, and the staff were proud of this distinction, which was shared by no other firm. When the late Mr Cecil Raikes became PostmasterGeneral, he laid his veto on the continuance of

VOL. I.

G

this custom, which had forthwith to be discontinued. Mr Smith, at that time First Lord of the Treasury, could of course offer no remonstrance against his colleague's scrupulousness. If it had been an enemy that had done this-but it was the act of a Conservative minister!

There is a scrap-book kept in the office containing some literary curiosities flotsam and jetsam of the long history of the firm. One of these is an envelope, on which the London postmark shows the date 1864, and the only indication of its destination is contained in the cryptogram

thisel log,

near abseelengly.

It almost implies that the Post-office officials were gifted with second-sight or thought-reading power, which enabled them to convey this missive to

Cecil Lodge,

near Abbots Langley,

where Mr Smith resided at that time.

Another envelope, dated 1888, is addressed to

Mr W. H. Smith,

The Stationer,

Downing Street,

London.

CHAPTER IV.

1855-1865.

SMITH IS ELECTED TO METROPOLITAN

BOARD OF WORKS
OLD MR SMITH RE-

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MARRIAGE IN 1858 TO MRS LEACH

TIRES FROM BUSINESS-PHILANTHROPIC WORK-THE BISHOP
OF LONDON'S FUND-FRIENDSHIP WITH LORD SANDON-SMITH
CONTEMPLATES STANDING AS A LIBERAL FOR BOSTON-AND
FOR EXETER-IS BLACKBALLED FOR REFORM CLUB-BECOMES
CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE FOR WESTMINSTER-HIS ADDRESS
TO THE ELECTORS-THE ELECTION-AND ITS RESULT.

SMITH'S first connection with public business seems to have been in 1855, when he was elected a member of the Metropolitan Board of Works. But before this date he had entered upon undertakings quite disconnected with his professional work in the Strand, and, among other duties, he performed those of a member of the managing committee of King's College Hospital from 1849 onwards. Except his autumn holidays, which were generally spent abroad, he allowed nothing to interfere with the routine of attendance in the Strand, and was always ready to devote such

intervals of leisure as it afforded to useful or philanthropic schemes. His duties in connection with King's College Hospital brought him acquainted with Mr Robert Cheere, one of those most in the management of that institution, and it was that gentleman who introduced him to the family of Mr Danvers, who had been clerk to the council of the Duchy of Lancaster since the days of George IV. Mr Danvers had several daughters. Smith was received on friendly terms by the Danvers family; and a friend of his, Mr Auber Leach, who held an appointment in the old India House, used also to visit them in Lancaster Place, and, becoming engaged to Miss Emily Danvers, married her in 1854. Miss Emily Danvers and her younger sister were married on the same day in the Chapel of the Savoy. But the wedded life of the elder sister was tragically short, for Mr Leach died in January 1855. The young widow then returned to live with her parents in Lancaster Place, where her baby, a girl, was born.

Smith continued on most friendly terms with the Danvers family, and, as time went on, it became evident that he was much more susceptible to the attractions of Mrs Leach than

1 Now the Hon. Mrs Codrington, widow of Rear Admiral Codrington.

A.D. 1855.]

FALLING IN LOVE.

101

to those of her unmarried sisters. In short, it soon appeared, not only to himself but to others, that he was becoming deeply attached to the young widow.

Never was there a more com

plete refutation of the seer's mournful pronouncement in A Midsummer Night's Dream' :

"Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth:

But either it was different in blood,

Or else misgraffed in respect of years,

Or else it stood upon the choice of friends;

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,

Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That in a spleen enfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'

The jaws of darkness do devour it up;

So quick bright things come to confusion."

Smith's life had hitherto been useful, dutiful, and successful; it had been warmed with the steady glow of domestic affection, but it had also been almost painfully laborious and lacking in that relief which can only be conferred by something more ardent than sisterly affectionsomething more inspiring than devotion to aged parents. It was now to receive the complement essential to happy human circumstance; and in

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