the telegraph did not, however, do away with the "exclusive special correspondents" of the chief morning papers; on the contrary, it allowed them more time to elaborate their information, and to go into detail. A dozen lines gave us the fact of the victory at Solferino; but the battle itself a week afterwards stood before the British public with all the photographic strength and completeness of the Times' special correspondent's pen.

The impartiality and accuracy by which Mr. Reuter's telegrams were characterized succeeded in procuring him the confidence of the press. The newspapers of the chief provincial towns were not long in availing themselves of his system, which ended in depriving the metropolis of the monopoly of early intelligence. The daily papers of the great towns of the north of England and of Ireland possess exactly the same early telegrams as the London daily papers, by means of Mr. Reuter's system, which posts England as well up in the news of the world, at her furthest extremities, as she is in the metropolis itself.

News from England is in the like manner conveyed by Mr. Reuter to all the chief continental cities. Thus the people of St. Petersburg may read every morning abstracts of the previous night's debate in the British Houses of Parliament.

What Mr. Reuter has already done for Europe, he is about to do for the other quarters of the globe. It will have been observed that all our earliest information from America, India, and China, the Cape, and even Australia, is derived from this gentleman's telegrams. In all these countries he has located agents, who transmit him news in anticipation of the mails. There being no direct telegraphic

communication between England and those countries, Mr. Reuter avails himself of every telegraphic line en route. Messages from America, for instance, are telegraphed up to the latest moment to the last port in the Atlantic where the steamer touches; they are then landed either at Queenstown, Londonderry, Galway, Liverpool, or Southampton, whence they are telegraphed to London. News from the East is received in an accelerated manner, by a similar method. All the telegrams first come into the hands of Mr. Reuter, whose day offices are near the Exchange, and whose night offices are in Finsbury Square -thus this gentleman is without doubt, as regards the affairs of the world, the best-informed man in it. He gives his political telegrams to the press alone, and never allows them on any account to be communicated beforehand to merchants and bankers for the purpose of speculation.

In order to make the separation between the political and commercial departments of his establishment the more complete, he has removed the former to Waterloo Place at the West End, whilst the latter remains at the city offices. These offices are open day and night; the day staff of clerks working from 10 A.M. till 6 P.M., and the night staff, a far more numerous one, in consequence of the far longer hours of work, being engaged, in relays, from 6 P.M. one evening till 10 A.M. next day. All the offices are connected together by the electric wire, and to still further facilitate the transmission of telegrams to the different newpapers, the wires are being continued from the West End Office right into the editor's room of each journal, who, by means of Wheatstone's universal telegraphic

apparatus, is enabled to read off his own messages instead of receiving them as heretofore, by messenger. The pedestrian, as he walks along Fleet Street and the Strand, will perceive high over head what might be termed the political spinal cord of the metropolis ; every here and there it gives off right and left fine filaments; these are going to the Globe, the Sun, the Morning Post, the Herald, the Standard, the Telegraph, and all the other daily papers which line this great thoroughfare. These are the lines by which Mr. Reuter puts the whole British public in possession of the thoughts, and records the actions of the rest of the world; and as we watch the wires ruling their sharp outlines against the sky, for all we know they are conveying words which may affect the destinies of millions yet unborn.

OUR MODERN MERCURY.

Ir is often the case that the history of a single firm, is the history of a great social revolution in a country of rapid development, such as Great Britain. What ages seem to separate us from the time, little more than a quarter of a century ago, when it took two days to convey any important item of intelligence between London and Liverpool. Then the Times in the north was fresh two days after date! In those days, say thirty-five years ago, all newspapers sent into the country passed through the Post-office. The clerks at country post-offices received subscriptions for them, and transmitted their orders to the heads of the divisions at St. Martin-le-Grand, with whom they corresponded; these again employed a Mr. Newcombe to procure the papers for them. This process interposed an unnatural delay, inasmuch as the papers never left but by the night mail, and matters of the utmost importance to the mercantile community often were delayed a full day later than were passengers themselves. Just before the establishment of railways, it will be remembered, the speed of coaches was greatly augmented. The journey to Birmingham of 110 miles was regularly accomplished in ten hours, and the coach that left the Saracen's Head at eight a.m., stood before the doors of the Hen and Chickens, in

the great toy-shop, with reeking horses, at six in the afternoon. It struck Mr. Smith, the father of the present head of the extensive firm near St. Clement's Danes Church, that instead of waiting for the night mail, the morning papers might be despatched by the quick morning coaches, thus enabling the community at Birmingham to read the London morning news, and the great cities of Liverpool, Manchester, and other neighbouring towns, to get the papers on the first instead of the second morning after publication. This was a simple idea, and destined to be of immense importance to the community, and one would have thought that its advantages would speedily have been taken advantage of. The experiment, however, was only another example of the length of time it takes to make the public leave their old ruts, but of the ultimate triumph of all good ideas if sufficiently persevered in. Mr. Smith laboured long and earnestly in this new direction before it began to tell. As the morning papers in those days made no editions expressly for early trains, it often happened that the coaches started before they were out-this was Mr. Smith's first difficulty, which he overcame by establishing express carts to overtake them. On great occasions, these express carts went the whole journey at a very heavy expense; but the prize was commensurate -the conveyance of important news before any other medium of communication. Thus Smith's express carried the news to Dublin of the death of George IV., before the government messenger arrived. Again, during the excitement of the Reform Bill, the craving for early intelligence made Smith's expresses famous throughout the north. Even at the latest period of the coaching time, however

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