the correspondent to be called upon to decide whether such and such an item of intelligence, as it transpired, was or was not worth the expense of a special courier or a flight of pigeons to London. Now-a-days, of course, the couriers are being superseded by the railways, and the use of pigeons, over one part of the journey at all events, by the electric telegraph. Nor will the most casual student of the daily newspapers fail to perceive how much more copious is the letter of the Paris correspondent than it used to be. Of the many in France who curse the late revolution, none have more cause to do so than " our own correspondent." The "war" reporters form quite a new class, which has of course risen with the exigences of the times. More than one of the gentlemen, however, who are now enlightening the English public upon the chances and changes of the Italian and Hungarian wars, have seen hot work in the Carlist campaigns in Spain, and have had a few tolerably narrow escapes from being shot or hung as spies. Indeed, not later than last summer, a friend of ours, who was in the thick of the first SchleswigHolstein dispute, found himself placed, by the arrest of a courier whom he had dispatched, in an extremely awkward situation, from which he only escaped by a most liberal expenditure of horse flesh, and by ultimately seizing the open boat of a fisherman, in which he crossed the Little Belt, and at last contrived to conceal himself in Copenhagen. It is quite evident, then, that the situation of a correspondent at the seat of war is by no means suited to those gentlemen of England who love safety and ease. Adequately to perform the duties of the post, a man must be a thorough linguist, even to the extent of understanding the patois of the district in which he is placed. He must possess, moreover, a good and plausible address, be a man of enterprise and resource, one who can cook his own dinner, and make a comfortable bivouac on the lee side of a tree. Above all, he must have the pen of a ready writer, and have enough of nerve, without needlessly or recklessly exposing himself to danger, to make up his dispatches coolly and collectedly, even should a stray shot occasionally make its appearance in his vicinity. Good folks who do not like sleeping out of their own beds, who wink at the crack of a pistol, and who catch colds in thorough drafts, had better not undertake to write a contemporary history of a war.

We have now come to the editorial department of the London daily journal. By

| the editorial, however, is by no means to be understood the leader-writing department: we speak of the actual working visible editors. In respect to the leader-writing corps, the strictest secrecy is, as we have said, preserved. If its members ever come to the office, they do not come officially; and though their business may be guessed at, it is never avowed. The actual acknowledged editorial body generally consists of a sub-editor and his assistant, a foreign editor; sometimes, but not always, a business editor, as we may call him, whose functions are half literary, half commercial; and an editor-in-chief, who represents the proprietors, and keeps a watchful eye over all the departments, and whose executive power is despotic. The money-article writer has an establishment of his own in the city, and generally sends the result of his labors every evening.

Let us begin with the two sub-editors. They are at their posts by eight or nine o'clock P. M., and the labors of one of them at least do not cease until four o'clock next morning. To their care is confided the mass of penny-a-line matter, from which they select what is considered as of interest or importance-often abridging or grammatizing it, as the case may require. They have frequently to attend to the literary and political correspondence of the paper, picking out from the mass of "Constant Readers" and "Regular Subscribers" those lucubrations which seem worthy of the notice of the editor-inchief. To them is also confided the task of looking over the multitudes of provincial papers which every day arrive, and extracting from them all the paragraphs which may appear to deserve the honor. The principal sub-editor is also in continued and close correspondence with the printer's room, from which he receives regular bulletins of the amount of matter "set up," and of the space which remains to be filled. In many of the London papers, the rule is, that every line which is printed must go through the hands of the sub-editor. He is thus enabled to preserve a general idea of the hourly progress of the newspaper toward completion. Another part of the sub's duty is a general supervision of the reporter's room. of any failure in this part of the duty, occasioned perhaps by sudden illness, he puts himself in correspondence with another paper, so as to obtain the means of supplying the gap. He grants interviews to the less important class of business visitors; makes the minor arrangements for having public meetings, dinners, and so forth, reported;

In case

ceive and register the advertisements. At four o'clock or so, a couple of the editors arrive; the letters which may have been re

The duties of the foreign editor will be obvious from his title. He performs for foreign intelligence what the sub-editor does for home news. He receives and arranges foreign expresses, summarizes the intelligence contained in them, and has frequently a great deal of hard translating work upon his shoulders. Of course the foreign editor must be an accomplished linguist.

We have reserved the editor-in-chief until the last. His is a situation of great power, and consequently of great responsibility. To him all matters of doubt arising in the inferior departments are referred. The sub-editor is his aid-de-camp, who brings him information of what every body is doing, and how every body is doing it. Printed slips of everything reckoned important in the paper are from time to time laid before him. He makes all the arrangements of magnitude, respecting the engagement of correspondents, reporters, &c., and gives audiences to those whose business is of great importance, or who, from their situation in public or private life, cannot well be handed over to a subordinate. The peculiar department of the editor-in-chief is, however, that of the leading articles. He may either write himself or not. In general, an editor has plenty to do without the composition of brilliant or profound political essays. But he probably suggests subjects to his writers, hints at the tone to be adopted, carefully revises the leaders when written, and generally takes care to communicate to the whole executive the peculiar views as to business or politics entertained by the unseen proprietary body whom he represents. The editor-in-chief usually transacts business in the office in the course of the afternoon. He makes his appearance again about ten o'clock or eleven o'clock P. M., and frequently remains until the paper is actually published, about five o'clock in the morning. We have now set before our readers a tolerably full account of the constituent parts of the machinery of a London newspaper. It only remains that we briefly dash off a sketch of the machine as it appears in its usual rapid motion. Nearly all day long the establishment is almost deserted; only the clerks in the counting-house ply their tasks, and re

ments for "leaders" for next day are probably made and communicated to the writers thereof; and such communications from regular or casual correspondents as may be selected from the mass are sent up to the printer's room, in readiness for the compositors when they arrive. By seven o'clock P. M. the work is beginning in earnest. Three or four parliamentary reporters have already set to at their desks, and the porters are laying huge masses of "flimsy" and packets from the country upon the sub-editors' tables Meanwhile the compositors above have also commenced operations. By ten o'clock the work is in full swing. Perhaps a dozen columns of parliamentary debate have been written; the sub-editors are actively engaged in prepariug for the printer the occasional and penny-a-line intelligence, and two or three writers in different parts of London are deep in "leaders." Hardly a train now arrives in town which does not convey packets of country news and country newspapers wet from the press, to the great centre of intelligence. "Express parcels" from abroad drop in, and are submitted to the foreign editor. All the office is one blaze of light and activity. By midnight the great mass of intelligence has arrived. The porters carry away from the sub-editorial rooms basketfuls of rejected contributions; the master-printer reports as to the length of "matter" in his hands; the editor-in-chief communicates with the sub, and finds that everything is working smoothly. The reporters are still at it might and main. Perhaps the House of Commons does not rise until two o'clock, so every quarter of an hour sets a fresh hand to work, As three o'clock approaches, the master-printer gets nervous, and begins to think of the early trains; the gentlemen of the gallery are directed to cut down at all hazards, and close up their reports: the last selection is made of the "matter" which must be flung over either until next day, or entirely, Shortly after three the outside half of the sheet is at press, for the machine-men have been getting up the steam on the engine for the last couple of hours: the last touches are hurriedly given to the "leaders" and the "latest intelligence;" and by half after five o'clock, fast express carts are flying with the reeking sheets to the terminus of every railway to be scattered over Britain as fast as panting steam can earry them!