The machine-room of my journal is a vast
whitewashed hall, with three enormous clanging
plunging, whirling metal demons in the
midst of it, attended by priests and devotees,
half of whom are employed in administering to
their idols' appetites by feeding them with
virgin paper, while the other half wrenches from
them the offering after it has passed through
the ordeal. In plainer language, the demons
are three of Hoe's most powerful printing
machines, containing together twenty-six cylinders,
and in attendance upon them are eighty men
and boys, half of whom feed the machines with
fresh paper, while the other half receive the
sheets after they have passed under the cylinders.
The cylinders in these machines make one
million, four hundred and five thousand
revolutions in the course of one night, and, for
a single day's circulation, travel at the rate of
nearly nine hundred and eighty-five miles. When
its machines are in full swing, my journal is
produced at the rate of eight hundred and eighty-
four copies per minute. The length of paper
used in one day in my journal, will make a path
one yard wide and nearly one hundred and
sixteen miles long; one day's circulation placed
edge to edge would closely cover a piece of
land of nearly forty-three acres; one week's
circulation, placed one on the top of the other,
would make a column three hundred and nineteen
feet high. The weight of paper used in
one day's circulation of my journal is seven
tons thirteen hundred-weight two quarters and
twenty pounds; there are also three hundred
and ninety-six pounds of ink consumed in one
night's printing; and the length of tape used
upon the machines is a little over four miles.
In the midst of all this whirling dazzling
confusion, accidents very seldom occur; the ringing
of a bell, the movement of a handle, and the
rotation of the engine ceases instantaneously.
To a stranger, the vast room, with its glare of
gas, its smell of oil and steam, and its whirring
engines, is a kind of orderly Pandemonium.
There are galleries whence he can survey all
that passes; but a few minutes must elapse
before his eyes become accustomed to the
tearing of the engine, and his ears to the clanging
discord; though those employed seem
thoroughly habituated, and pursue their avocations
as though they were in the quiet composing-
room itself. Indeed, the head engineer, who
acted as my guide in this department, took such
interest in his work, that he told me he seldom
took a holiday or absented himself from his post.
He evidently regarded those who did not
ordinarily spend their evenings in the company
of his machines as inferior beings.

So the demons go clanging through the night
until they are supposed to have had as much as
is good for them, and their fires are raked out,
their steam let is off, and machinists and feeding-
boys go home to bed, whither the compositors
and the sub-editor have long since preceded
them. Then, the advanced guard of the day
establishment, in the persons of the publisher and
his staff, appear upon the scene. The street
outside is lined with light spring carts, with
those peculiarly bony horses which always seem
to come into newsvendors' hands; crowds of
men and boys fight up the passage to the
publishing office, while inside there is a hullabaloo
compared to which the howling at an
Irish wake is silence, and the parrot-house at
the Zoological Gardens a quiet retreat. Right
has very little chance against might in such a
medley as this, and the weakest usually goes to
the wall; but eventually the big wooden tables
are cleared, the last load has been carried to
the van, the last boy has rushed off with his
arms full of damp literature, and the starters by
the Parliamentary for Liverpool at seven have my
journal on their knees, while merchant princes
resident at Brighton, and coming thence by the
"daily bread" express at a quarter to ten, find it
on their breakfast-tables at half-past eight.

Taking such things into consideration, is
it wonderful that I regard my newspaper as a
marvel, and that I from time to time lay it
down, to ponder over the capital, talent, and
energy involved in its production?

THE POISON CHAMBER OF PARIS.

SETTING aside all reference to the political
crimes committed during the long reign of
Louis the Fourteenth the "grand monarque"
of worn-out tradition—there were many social
stains which sadly dimmed its reputed splendour.
Amongst these, the series of events which
French writers call "L'affaire des poisons," is
undoubtedly the most remarkable, though it has
been made—at least in modern times—no very
prominent subject of discussion. The trial of
the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, for poisoning
her father, her brothers, and other victims, has
usually absorbed public attention, as if she and
her immediate accomplices were simply
associated in guilt that was special to themselves;
but this Brinvilliers case was far from being an
isolated one. On the contrary, it was but the
precursor of a general system of poisoning.
Society, tainted by the very worst vices, was
widely infected by the desire which prompted
La Brinvilliers to her many murders. It was
even believed that secret laboratories existed
in Paris, where ruined spendthrifts, members
of disunited families, and impatient heritors,
might obtain the untraceable poison that was
to make them rich, by removing the objects
of their hate. This belief, or the apprehension
arising from it, was not confined to the
vulgar, but was shared by the very judges
who condemned La Brinvilliers, as may be seen
by the directions given to the priest who
confessed her before her execution, by the First
President, Lamoignon, who said: "It is in the
interest of the public that her crimes should
perish with her, and that she should forearm us,
by the declaration of all she knows, against the
consequences which may arise from that
knowledge." In this expectation the judges were
disappointed.