the War Department, to urge upon the Commander of the Forces to let us have every day some informaation of what is passing at the seat of war." Every day! perhaps every hour! Hot from the terrible siege, rushes the lightning spark over land and sea. The bell tinkles in a quiet room at Whitehall; the needles move; the mind at the other end of the wire is telling its wondrous tale through a medium as marvellous as ever was conceived of magic communication by the wildest Eastern fancy.

Universally known as were our administrative errors, I heard in Paris no sarcasms about our presumed incapacity for war. The French saw, not without admiration, how a people more given to trade than to fighting could, out of the appliances of their commerce, remedy the evils which long habits of peace had engendered. Never in the history of man did the productive forces of a nation so instantly concentrate themselves upon the supply of urgent and sudden necessities as in the second stage of the war in the Crimea. As remarkable, too, was the patriotism of the collective nation, and the self-devotion of individuals, in adopting the most practical means to repair what was manifestly the consequence of official incapacity or negligence. In a few months the dismal scene of the winter was changed altogether, not more by a change of season than by a change of policy. Whilst I was in Paris there were some gloomy forebodings of the issue of the siege of Sebastopol. The French had attacked the Malakhoff, and the English the Redan, but were repulsed by the Russians with severe loss. Within six weeks after I had left Paris in July, Sebastopol had fallen. England was wild with the news brought by the Electric Telegraph. I

was in London in the morning, was examining the old Roman walls of Colchester in the afternoon, and was supping at Norwich. All at once the great market-place of that city was lighted up as by a tremendous conflagration; tar-barrels were blazing till midnight; the bells were ringing; the townbands were playing; the people were shouting. I certainly never in the war against the first Napoleon saw such a vigorous demonstration of national feeling. We became soberer in a few weeks, when we learned how large a share the French had in this exploit, and how our own efforts, great as they were, had been to a certain extent unsuccessful. The newspaper readers began to be critical. We disdained the French praises of our bravery. We fancied we knew all about the matter when we read Mr. Russell's correspondence. But nine or ten years have opened new sources of information, French, English, and Russian. To compare and to judge impartially will be the business of another generation, and perhaps even of this in a few years, when all shall agree that the truth is not likely to be developed by keeping alive national jealousies by the pens of picturesque writers, and that the sober records of one who was opposed both to the French and English-General Todleben-are of far more permanent value than all the fascinations of brilliant authorship.

I

CHAPTER VIII.

IN the Session of 1854, a Committee of the House of Commons was sitting to examine witnesses upon that question of the aboli

tion of the Newspaper Stamp, which had occupied the attention of the Legislature twenty years before. After the Meeting of Parliament in 1855, a very general opinion prevailed that the then Penny-stamp would be entirely abolished, except for the purpose of transmitting a newspaper by post. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, through his private Secretary, Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, requested me to inform him what was the greatest circulation of each number of the Penny Magazine at any time. In giving this information I referred him to a little book which Mr. Murray had just published for me "The Old Printer and the Modern Press,"-in which I had taken a rapid view of the circulation and character of penny periodicals at the beginning of 1854. I had stated that of four of these a million sheets were then sold weekly. In my letter, I thought it right to convey fully my opinion upon the question of the abolition of the Stamp, and in support of that opinion I mentioned that Dr. Arnold was strongly impressed with the notion that a Newspaper was the best vehicle for communicating knowledge to the people; the events of the day, he maintained, were a definite

subject to which instruction could be attached in the best possible manner. An extract from the letter thus written by me may fitly introduce the general subject of the extension of the Newspaper Press during the last eight or nine years, upon which I propose to treat in this chapter. "The change in the character of the Penny Periodicals during the last five or six years, from the lowest ribaldry and positive indecency to a certain propriety-and of which frivolity is the chief blemish-is an assurance to me that the cheapening of Newspapers by the removal of the Stamp will not let in that flood of sedition and blasphemy which some appear to dread. The character of the mass of readers is improved. In my little book I have opposed the removal of the Stamp, chiefly on the ground that a quantity of local papers would start up, that would be devoted to mere parish politics, and sectarian squabbles, instead of being national in their objects; and that would huddle together the worst of criminal trials and police cases, without attempting to suggest any sound principles of politics, or furnish any useful information. To provide a corrective to this, I have devised the plan detailed in the circular, which I left with you. I sent out an intelligent traveller into the Midland districts last week, confidentially to explain this plan to active printers in towns that had no local paper; and his report shows that the principle will be eagerly adopted."

The plan which I had devised was founded upon my old newspaper experience, during which, for several years, three-fourths of the local Paper of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire were printed at the

Express" Office at Windsor, and one-fourth at a branch office at Aylesbury. In connection with a highly respectable printing firm, I commenced the publication of the "Town and Country Newspaper immediately upon the repeal of the Stamp-duty in 1855. There were many elements of success in this plan, but it was defeated by the complex and expensive organization necessary to supply small adventurers into the new world of journalism with the very few impressions each required at first to meet his local demand. Nor was my belief that this sort of publication might be made the vehicle for combining, not only a well digested body of news, but sound practical information upon many subjects of public interest, destined to be realized. The readers in very small towns, in which the one printer was generally the first to make the experiment which I proposed, did not very anxiously desire to see the newspaper made an instrument of education, or for the advancement of objects of public improvement. The undertaking was not remunerative, and I had no desire to press upon my partners the continuance of a scheme that did not pay as quickly as was expected. The plan became very extensively adopted after the establishment of penny local Journals had created a demand, and they were found to supply a public want. Four hundred such provincial Papers are said to be now partly printed in London; but I am informed by a friend, who is perfectly well-acquainted with the curious facts connected with the present state of local and other Newspapers, that the plan of printing one side of a weekly sheet in London is now going out of use. There is another mode adopted, of making the same information, and the same labour of