Evidence of William Edward Hickson to Select Committee on Newspaper stamps: "I formed in the village where I am now living, when I first went there, an evening class of adult labourers, and as I was then very much interested in some very able articles that were being published in the 'Times', I thought I would read them to them in the evening; but I found that we did not get on at all; and upon cross-examination of some of my auditors afterwards, I discovered, to my surprise, that I could not read 20 lines of the leading article of the 'Times' without finding that there were 20 words in it which none of my auditors understood. I remember one passage which not one of the agricultural labourers to whom I was reading understood at all. The editor was speaking of some operation of our fleet in the channel; the word 'operations' puzzled them, the word 'fleet' puzzled them; they did not know what a fleet was, and they had not the slightest idea of what the channel meant."