News and the Muse: Press Sources for Some of Kipling's Early Verse

NEWS AND THE MUSE: PRESS SOURCES FOR SOME OF KIPLING'S EARLY VERSE By Andrew Rutherford (Goldsmiths' College, University of London) The Anglo-Indian newspapers for which Kipling worked from 1882 to 1889 have been strangely neglected as background to and source material for his own creative work, yet they constitute a rich field of enquiry. Toiling as journalist and sub-editor for nearly seven years, first on the Civil and Military Gazette, then on the Pioneer, he shared responsibility for the news and commentary these papers carried, and they in turn document the world that he inhabited—its preoccupations, its ideals, its customs, and its prejudices. They also provided him with copy. In my edition of Early Verse by Rudyard Kipling 1879-18891 I show how many poems excluded from the self-styled "Definitive Edition" of his verse refer to topics of the day and derive from items in the news columns of the papers in which the poems themselves appeared. But the same is true of many verses included in the Definitive Edition—verses collected in Departmental Ditties and Barrack-Room Ballads, and familiar to innumerable readers unaware or only partially aware of their specific reference to contemporary events, issues or personalities. Edward Kay Robinson, who succeeded Stephen Wheeler as editor of the Civil and Military Gazette in 1886, started a false hare with his suggestion that many of these early poems are based on now forgotten scandals: The poems that made up his "Departmental Ditties" were personal and topical in their origin, and gained tenfold in force for readers who could supply the names and places. There have been Davids and Uriahs in all ages and countries; and the poem "lack Barrett went to Quetta" may be taken as applicable to all. But those who had known the real "Jack Barrett,' good fellow that he was, and the vile superior and faithless wife who sent him "on duty" to his death, felt the heat of the spirit which inspired Kipling's verse in a way that gave these few lines an imperishable force. "Jack Barrett" was the type of Kipling's most successful earlier verse.2 Robinson is right to see Kipling's main achievement as satiric in this early work, but wrong to suggest that the Departmental Ditties should be regarded as romans-à -clef. Many are light-hearted inventions alluding not to individual cases but to the general mores of Simla society, and when references are more specific they are to items of public knowledge, most of which had been reported in the press. Sometimes these allusions to contemporary circumstance are overt and easily identifiable, as in "One Viceroy Resigns" (Departmental Ditties) in which Lord Dufferin discourses, Blougram-like, to his successor. Yet even here many details are elusive unless we turn to the contemporary records, as in the lines "Shall I write letters answering Hunter—fawn / With Ripon on the Yorkshire frocers? Ugh!" To take these two instances: in the early summer of 1888 Sir /illiam Wilson Hunter, formerly a member of the Viceroy's Council but now retired, had contributed a controversial series of letters to The Times, expounding his views on Indian politics and praising the Indian National Congress—these letters were widely noticed in the Anglo-Indian press. Lord Ripon, Dufferin's predecessor, had alienated the Anglo-Indian community by his aggressively Liberal policies, and resigning before his appointment as Viceroy had come to an end he returned to his role as one of the leaders of the Liberal Party in England. He had strong Yorkshire connections: before succeeding to his title he had held parliamentary seats for Huddersfield and the West Riding; his family estate was at Studley Royal in Yorkshire; and he often spoke in the area. Apart from such specific references, the poem is given additional point by a comment in the Pioneer two days before it was published. Lord Lansdowne was to arrive in Calcutta on 8 December 1888; Lord Dufferin was to depart on 10 December; and on 5 December the Pioneer speculated on what might pass between them: the world has never yet learned what Viceroys say to each other in the sanctity of their private...