Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 187, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1910 — NOTED LONDON HALL [ARTICLE]

NOTED LONDON HALL

Where English Journalists Entertained Roosevelt Important In Former Days When All British Publications Had to be Entered for Copyright Purposes. London.—Stationers’ hall, where Mr. Roosevelt was the guest of the Institute of Jouranlism on his recent visit to London, was ereeted in 1671, and In the hall Itself are hung the shields on which are painted the arms of the members of the court of assistants. It was customary in bygone times for the freemen of the company on state occasions to carry the shields from the hall to Blackfriars, which journey was made by way of the river, and then on embarkation the shields were hung over the barge’s Bide. The freemen were clad in long gowns of light-blue flannel, with yellow facings, being the proper livery color of the company according to its heraldic bearings. The Worshipful Company of Stationers keeps the registers of copyright works from the date of its incorporation in 1557 until the passing of the copyright act in 1842 the jeompany possessed an absolute monopoly, as all printers were obliged to serve an apprenticeship to a member of the company, and every publication, from a Bible to a ballad, was required to be "entered at Stationers’ hall.” In their interesting collection Is a notice of the first translation into English in 1569 of a "boke intitutled Ewclide.” Mention Is also made In the register for 1688 of Sir Philip Sidney’s “Acadia,” written to please his sister, the countess of Pembroke. There is an entry in 1562 of the following comprehensive work: “An abstracte of the Ceneologe and Race of all the Kynges of Englonde from the floude of Noe Unto Brute.” As a compliment to Mr. Roosevelt the composing stick used by Benjamin Franklin when working at a case in London and resting upon a pedestal

draped with the stars and stripes was placed upon the table immediately in front of him. One of the most notable features of the supper to Mr. Roosevelt at Stationers’ hall was the speech of E. T. Cook, a prominent London newspaper man. It was he who retired from the editorship of the London Daily News because, in his judgment, the management sided with the Boers rather than the rßitish in the late war In South Africa. The speech was full of humor and friendliness to America and repeatedly stirred the audience to shouts of laughter and applause. Mr. Cook was scarcely less happy and successful at Stationers’ hall than was Lord Curzon attheSfaeidonlan th eateiV Gxford. lEord Curzon can be rigid and frigid in his public appearance. Welcoming and eulogizing Mr. Roosevelt, he was flexible, graceful, genial and delightfully eloquent. He spoke without notes and handled his Latin as if he, like the audience and especially the undergraduates, thoroughly appreciated the joke.