hich he has
contributed at various times to other journals and newspapers are of a
similar character.

In so far as he is writing, as he is in these articles, on general
topics of the day for the public of the day, Mr. Belloc is a journalist.
In its former restricted meaning the word "journalist" expressed this.
To-day, however, we include under the designation of journalist all
those workers in the editorial departments of newspaper offices who,
though skilled in various ways, are not necessarily writers at all. In
referring, then, to Mr. Belloc as a journalist we are using the term in
its older and more restricted sense: in the sense in which the term was
employed when journalism was a profession and not a trade, when the
newspaper was not merely an instrument to further the ends of a
capitalist or syndicate, but a means of communicating to the public the
views of an individual or group of individuals, each of whom was
prepared to accept personal responsibility for the views he expressed.

The journalist in this sense is a rare figure to-day: so rare, indeed,
that we have forgotten he is a journalist and invented a new name for
him. In the field of journalism as it is at the present time it is
possible to count on the fingers of one hand the number of men who write
constantly on general topics of the day and sign what they write, thus
accepting personal responsibility for the views they express and not
leaving that responsibility with the newspaper in which their views
appear. Every weekly or monthly journal as well as the greater number of
daily newspapers contain, it is true, signed articles. The leader-pages
of the halfpenny dailies make a feature nearly every day of one or more
signed articles. But these articles, in the main, deal only with
subjects on which the writer who signs his name is a specialist. They
are written by men who happen to possess special knowledge of some
subject which is of pronounced interest to the public owing to the
course of events at the moment. For instance, when the Germans were on
the point of entering Warsaw, articles dealing with various aspects of
the city, its history, character and buildings, appeared in nearly every
newspaper: and the better articles of this nature were written and
signed by men who possessed an intimate knowledge of the subject on
which they were writing. In the same way, all signed criticism,
literary, dramatic or musical, which appears in the columns of the