Winter and summer he is at his desk at 6 a.m., at which hour, to a minute, he receives a copy of the "Daily News;" at 6-20 a copy of the "Times ;" and about 6-45 the rest of the Morning Papers. A messenger waits to take slips from him into the Instrument-room, and about 6-10 the transmission begins. It is sometimes finished at 7-15; but an effort is always made to have everything completed before 8. This is the "morning express," which varies from fourteen hundred words to fewer than four hundred. I have before me the second Edition of the "Liverpool Daily Post," dated October 13th, 9 a.m. The Telegraphic portion occupies about 150 lines of very close printing, and consists of five separate articles; namely, two from Reuter's Telegram, one headed "Mr. W. E. Gladstone in Lancashire," stating that the London Papers contain reports by telegraph of his speeches at Bolton and Liverpool the day before, and that most of them devote a leading article to the Lancashire visit. Of the leading articles of the "Times," the "Daily Telegraph," the "Daily News," and the "Star" we have then an abstract, which occupies more than a fourth of the whole despatch. Upon the Danish question there is an abstract of the “Times"" Paris Correspondent's letter. I am informed that the commercial part of this morning express is supplied direct by a City reporter, for the Telegraph Offices. The slightest consideration of the tact and promptitude required to deal in an hour, and sometimes less, with the complicated mass of the novel intelligence presented in the Morning Papers, and to interpret their lengthy opinions in brief sentences, so as to give a trustworthy notion of the leading points, must show that the intelligence

reporter works under a very grave responsibility. This morning express is sent direct to all the largest towns; from these central places the news is repeated to smaller towns in their respective districts.

The morning work is scarcely over before another stream of business messages is set flowing. In addition to the news from the early Daily Papers, a variety of intelligence is transmitted at irregular hours-two reports from the Stock Exchange, with copious quotations; two reports of the Colonial and Foreign Produce Markets; reports of Corn-markets, Tallow-markets, Cattle-markets, Wool-sales. All intelligence of value to men of business is posted immediately at the Exchanges of Liverpool and the other great towns. Reuter's Telegrams arrive at all hours, both of the day and night, and are instantly transmitted, if of great interest. Thus passes his ever-watchful forenoon for the Intelligence-reporter. But then the London Evening Papers come pouring in, and an “evening express" has to be prepared. The Gazettes of Tuesday and Friday furnish a variety of minute details, the accurate transmission of which as to figures and names is of the first importance. The electric dispatch of many of these matters of business does not of course require the presiding judgment of the Intelligence-reporter, but he can never stir from his post, for throughout the day there may be queries from different stations to answer.

To wait upon the mental operations which set the telegraph in motion, there are in the Instrumentgallery of the Electric Company no fewer than eighty or ninety young women employed during the day. But there are many youths who here, like the compositors of a daily paper, are compelled to per

VOL. III.

M

petual night-work. The untiring Reuter appears at all hours, as he does at the Newspaper Offices, with manifolded copies of his telegram, which has come through every sea beneath which there is the electric wire. The time may not be far distant when another cable, three thousand miles long, may not be irrecoverably sunk in the rocky bed of the Atlantic. But the present want of this direct communication is in some degree remedied by extraordinary vigilance and exertion. At midnight the New York Mail Steamer may have been intercepted by the small steamer belonging to the Telegraph Company, and the news being transmitted to every station in the United Kingdom, it is circulated almost universally before nine o'clock in the morning. The telegraph wires being carried to Cape Clear, the farthest western point of the Irish coast, this feat is accomplished. But the enthusiastic believers in what is to be effected by the telegraph, say that the United Kingdom is too small a country for the display of its feats. Hopes founded not upon vague generalities, but upon the most scientific calculations, point to the speedy realisation of plans that seem almost too vast to be admitted into the mind without a very strong alloy of incredulity. Man is achieving a victory over time and space of which the imperfect beginning called forth our wonder, but we scarcely know how to contemplate the possible end without something like

awe.

NOTE TO CHAPTER VIII.

AS AN illustration of the slowness, even in our times, with which Intelligence having no temporary interest—such intelligence as merely opens a question of literary history-excites public curiosity, if promulgated through unusual channels, I give an extract from my "Town and Country Newspaper" of July 21, 1855. Four years after my accidental acquaintance with a book which had been sent, fresh from the press of Sydney to be shown in the Paris Exhibition, the “Edinburgh Review" made the discovery of the same book; and produced an elaborate article which attracted universal notice. The Editor intimated, that if Mr. Croker had obtained the knowledge of such a treasure as had been hidden for many years in one of the offices of a law court in New South Wales, he would have made a voyage to the Antipodes to obtain such rare materials for a new edition of his " Boswell." No publisher or author took the least notice of my article. was in vain that I wrote of "Dr. Campbell's Diary,” “We earnestly trust that it may be reprinted in London, under the Copyright Act which gives protection to our colonial literature."

"NEW SUPPLEMENT TO BOSWELL'S LIFE OF

JOHNSON.

It

the

"We apprehend that our present notice will come as a surprise upon many of our readers. After the elaborate editions of Boswell's Life of Johnson (taken altogether, most amusing book in our language), with note upon note, collected from every public and private source, it was scarcely

to be expected that any new and extensive illustrations would turn up in our day. Such additions to literary or political history often come forth from hiding-places where nobody would have thought of looking for them. Who would expect that Australia should give to England a most curious and valuable Supplement to Boswell, of unquestionable authenticity? Yet such is the case. Searching carefully, in the discharge of our duty, for anything of interest connected with printing, exhibited in the Great Paris Exhibition, we came to a small space in the Colonial Department of the Annexe, where the products of Sydney were open to view. There were a few books, very neatly bound, three or four of which were printed in Sydney. One of these was a translation into blank verse of the prophet Isaiah. Another bore the following title:

"Diary of a Visit to England in 1775, by an Irishman (the Reverend Doctor Thomas Campbell, author of a Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland), and other papers by the same hand. With Notes by Samuel Raymond, M. A., Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Sydney: Waugh and Cox, Publishers, 1854.'

"The Secretary to the Exhibition Commissioners of New South Wales drew our attention particularly to this little book, as being unpublished when he left the colony, and consequently unknown in London; and he obligingly permitted us to borrow it for a few days. We earnestly trust that it may be reprinted in London under the Copyright Act which gives protection to our colonial literature. Meanwhile, we proceed to make our English public acquainted with this interesting work.

"In one of the offices of the Supreme Court of New South Wales was recently discovered, by Mr. David Bruce Hutchinson, a Manuscript, hidden behind an old press which had not been moved for years. This was a Diary, written in a clear bold hand, of which the first entry bears date February 23, 1775. It fortunately came into the possession of Mr. Raymond, who appears, from his notes, to have been well acquainted with the literary history of the period. The name of the writer does not appear in his own Diary; but there is