A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I | Page 9

the writer of reviews of some of the very books noticed here. The following remarks will explain the way in which they may be right, and in which they may be wrong. {15}
* * * * *
THE EDITORIAL SYSTEM.
"Sir,--I have reason to think that many persons have a very inaccurate notion of the Editorial System. What I call by this name has grown up in the last centenary--a word I may use to signify the hundred years now ending, and to avoid the ambiguity of century. It cannot conveniently be explained by editors themselves, and edited journals generally do not like to say much about it. In your paper perhaps, in which editorial duties differ somewhat from those of ordinary journals, the common system may be freely spoken of.
"When a reviewed author, as very often happens, writes to the editor of the reviewing journal to complain of what has been said of him, he frequently--even more often than not--complains of 'your reviewer.' He sometimes presumes that 'you' have, 'through inadvertence' in this instance, 'allowed some incompetent person to lower the character of your usually accurate pages.' Sometimes he talks of 'your scribe,' and, in extreme cases, even of 'your hack.' All this shows perfect ignorance of the journal system, except where it is done under the notion of letting the editor down easy. But the editor never accepts the mercy.
"All that is in a journal, except what is marked as from a correspondent, either by the editor himself or by the correspondent's real or fictitious signature, is published entirely on editorial responsibility, as much as if the editor had written it himself. The editor, therefore, may claim, and does claim and exercise, unlimited right of omission, addition, and alteration. This is so well understood that the editor performs his last function on the last revise without the 'contributor' knowing what is done. The word contributor is the proper one; it implies that he furnishes materials without stating what he furnishes or how much of it is accepted, or whether he be the only contributor. All this applies both to political and literary journals. No editor acknowledges {16} the right of a contributor to withdraw an article, if he should find alterations in the proof sent to him for correction which would make him wish that the article should not appear. If the demand for suppression were made--I say nothing about what might be granted to request--the answer would be, 'It is not your article, but mine; I have all the responsibility; if it should contain a libel, I could not give you up, even at your own desire. You have furnished me with materials, on the known and common understanding that I was to use them at my discretion, and you have no right to impede my operations by making the appearance of the article depend on your approbation of my use of your materials.'
"There is something to be said for this system, and something against it--I mean simply on its own merits. But the all-conquering argument in its favor is, that the only practicable alternative is the modern French plan of no articles without the signature of the writers. I need not discuss this plan; there is no collective party in favor of it. Some may think it is not the only alternative; they have not produced any intermediate proposal in which any dozen of persons have concurred. Many will say, Is not all this, though perfectly correct, well known to be matter of form? Is it not practically the course of events that an engaged contributor writes the article, and sends it to the editor, who admits it as written--substantially, at least? And is it not often very well known, by style and in other ways, who it was wrote the article? This system is matter of form just as much as loaded pistols are matter of form so long as the wearer is not assailed; but matter of form takes the form of matter in the pulling of a trigger, so soon as the need arises. Editors and contributors who can work together find each other out by elective affinity, so that the common run of events settles down into most articles appearing much as they are written. And there are two safety-valves; that is, when judicious persons come together. In the first place, the editor himself, when he has selected his contributor, feels that {17} the contributor is likely to know his business better than an editor can teach him; in fact, it is on that principle that the selection is made. But he feels that he is more competent than the writer to judge questions of strength and of tone, especially when the general purpose of the journal is considered, of which the editor is