newspaper history. The troubled summer of 1848, when thrones went down, and blood flowed like water, and men strove breast to breast with pitiless energy, gave rise to many false rumors of successes and defeats. But none became so notable as the Tribune's exclusive intelligence of the Irish battle of Slievenamon. On the morning of March 28, 1848, the readers of the morning journals of New York were startled by a flourish of large type, which announced "The Abdication of Louis Philippe "-"A Republic Proclaimed "-"Assault on the Palais Royal"-"Great Loss of Life." It was a time to stir the blood. Crowns cracked-in two senses; the people came uppermost, and then, not knowing how to stay up, went down again. The general purgation was salutary; but the medicine was the bayonet; and the remedy was cruel, and, in the sequel, ineffective. However, the train had been touched, and the flame of revolt leaped over the Channel, and fell upon the bundle of inflammable tow called Ireland. In August, news came that Ireland was "up." As in the days of the Rapparees, bog and mountain bristled with pike and gun. Some bloody fights occurred, but the disciplined valor of the English bore down the ragged Celt. Then the Irish element in Amer

ica rushed to the rescue; a " Directory of the Friends of Ireland" was organized in New York, and Horace Greeley accepted a leading position in it. It was natural, therefore, that his journal should become the centre of intelligence for all that related to the Irish struggle.

One day in August the despatches received at the Tribune office contained letters from Dublin, dated August 3, announcing the battle of Slievenamon in the following terms:

"No newspaper here [Dublin] dare tell the truth concerning the battle of Slievenamon; but, from all we can learn, the people have had a great victory. General Macdonald, the commander of the British forces, is killed, and six thousand troops are killed and wounded. The road for three miles is covered with the dead. We also have the inspiring intelligence that Kilkenny and Limerick have been taken by the people. The people of Dublin have gone in thousands to assist in the country. Mr. John B. Dillon was wounded in both legs. Mr. Meagher was also wounded in both arms. It is generally expected that Dublin will rise and attack the jails on Sunday night (August 6)."

There was not a word of truth in this. The mountain of Slievenamon remained unstained by blood; General Macdonald and his six thousand veterans still possessed unpunctured skins; Thomas Francis Meagher lived, to break his parole and then challenge Henry J. Raymond to fight a duel, because he charged him with it; and Horace Greeley was innocent of the hoax, because he was at the time exploring the shores of Lake Superior. But the deception did its work, and money came rapidly into the treasury of the "Directory."

As a matter of course, Bennett pooh-pooh'd the story, and travestied the name of the hard-won battle into "Slievegammon," by which title it has since been generally known. Had the Herald received the news exclusively, instead of the Tribune, the complexion of the affair would have been changed, and that sheet would have preserved a decorous silence as soon as the hoax became apparent.

And this was the end of the battle of Slievenamon.

The dingy building, in which the early years of the Tribune were passed, was burned in February, 1845, and the reappearance of the paper on the following morning, although at the time the proprietors did not know but they were irretrievably ruined, was regarded by its admirers and opponents alike as an example of enterprise deserving the warmest praise. It was a profitable fire for the Tribune. Mr. Greeley and Mr. McElrath stood musing upon the ruins only for a brief period, and then turned to their work as naturally as if nothing had happened. The paper appeared on the following morning, only an hour behind its usual time; and its patrons vied with the conductors of the opposition journals, in extending a helping hand.*

* Mr. Greeley's "Reflections over the Fire," which appeared in the columns of the Tribune on the morning after the catastrophe, deserve to be recorded. He wrote in this good-humored strain:

"We would not indulge in unnecessary sentiment, but even the old desk at which we sat, the ponderous inkstand, the familiar faces of files of correspondence, the choice collection of pamphlets, the unfinished essay, the charts by which we steered, can they all have vanished, never more to be seen? Truly, your fire makes clean work, and is, of all executive officers, super

Upon the site of the old building rose the present one, Slamm's Plebeian disappearing from the little gore of land upon the corner which it had occupied, and in the ensuing autumn, the Tribune was fully reinstated, having added strength to its editorial force, and improved its facilities for conducting business. A year or two later it passed from the sole proprietorship of Greeley & McElrath, into the management of a jointstock company, which has since controlled its fortunes.

In the period of ten years from 1840 to 1850, therefore, four important events in New York journalism had occurred. First, the heavy old papers had been startled, and their power shaken, by the advent of the Herald; secondly, a spirit of eager rivalry had been awakened, which ensured the prompt collection of the news of the day; thirdly, the Tribune had become the established organ of the respectable part of the community, appealing directly to, and receiving ample support from, a large class which had long forsaken Bennett, on account of his indecency; and, fourthly, it had been proved that a cheap paper could exist in New York without pandering to the criminal, or attempting to please the vulgar. To Bennett must be given the credit of effecting a revolution in the meth

eminent. Perhaps that last choice batch of letters may be somewhere on file; we are almost tempted to cry, Devil! find it up!' Poh! it is a mere cinder now; some

"Fathoms deep my letter lies;
Of its lines is tinder made.'

"No Arabian tale can cradle a wilder fiction, or show better how altogether illusory life is. Those solid walls of brick; those five decent stories; those steep and difficult stairs; the swing doors; the sanctum, scene of many a deep political drama, of many a pathetic tale, utterly whiffed out, as one summarily snuffs out a spermaceti on retiring for the night. And all perfectly true.

One always has some private satisfaction in his own particular misery. Consider what a night it was that burnt us out, that we were conquered by the elements, went up in flames heroically on the wildest, windiest, stormiest night these dozen years, not by any fault of human enterprise, but fairly conquered by stress of weather; there was a great flourish of trumpets, at all events.

"And consider, above all, that salamander safe; how, after all, the fire, assisted by the elements, only came off second best, not being able to reduce that safe into ashes. That is the streak of sunshine through the dun wreaths of smoke; the combat of human ingenuity against the desperate encounter of the seething heat. But those boots, and Webster's Dictionary - well! we were handsomely whipped there, we acknowledge."

ods of news-getting; but to Greeley the higher praise of improving upon Bennett's invention. James Gordon Bennett and Horace Greeley were, in fact, the John Fitch and Robert Fulton of New York journalism.

When the tide began to change, the stream of journalistic life began to broaden, and from this point onward the record covers a larger field.

CHAPTER VI.

PROGRESS OF JOURNALISM IN NEW YORK.-CONTINUED.

PERIODS IN JOURNALISM -THE EXPANSION OF THE PRESS AND THE PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION-THE PIONEER FOLLOWED BY THE PRINTER USELESS PAPERS DEAD CONDITION OF THE NEW YORK PRESS TWENTY YEARS AGO HOW THE HERALD AND THE TRIBUNE FELL INTO DISREPUTE - HENRY J. RAYMOND CREATING A NEW ERA IN JOURNALISM -THE GERM OF HIS FUTURE SUCCESS.

THERE are periods in Journalism, as in art, science, trade, commerce, and the whole range of literature. The rapid growth of knowledge, and the continual increase of the facilities of travel and intercommunication, are followed in regular order by the expansion of the Press and by the enlargement of its legitimate power. Two centuries ago the world's pace was moderate, and its wants were few; ships spread their canvas only to favoring winds; stage-coaches rumbled slowly over ill-made roads; mail-bags conveyed to distant places tidings of events which had occurred three months, six months, or a year before; kings were acknowledged to rule by a right called divine; discoveries were rare, inventions rarer, and the great mass of the population of the world sodden. Newspapers especially were stupid, for the excellent reason that there were few readers who cared to receive them; or, receiving, were able to understand them. Macaulay has written of the English Press at the close of the seventeenth century, and the English Press then was the best in the world, that the leading papers were wretchedly printed, and that" what is now called a leading article seldom appeared, except when there was a scarcity of intelligence, when the Dutch mails were detained by the west wind, when the Rapparees were quiet in the Bog of Allen, when no stage-coach had been stopped by highwaymen,