shipwreck off Cornwall, execution at Preston,
closing quotations of pig iron, follow each
other in careless and comical sequence,
unbroken by colon or period; and have to be
separated and tabulated by the sub-editor. A
brief speech of Mr. Bright's on the Irish question
will arrive embedded in strata of favourites
for the Derby and the funeral of Bob Chambers
at Newcastle. Four children will suddenly
lose their lives by drowning, at the
close of a touching peroration in a sermon by
the Rev. Charles Kingsley at the Chapel Royal.
The political gossip will wind up with the
stations of the British army, which will again slide
into the return of her Majesty to Osborne. If
a train go over a steep embankment, it is pretty
sure to land in a goldsmith's shop pilfered of its
valuables, which in their turn will be swallowed
up in a quicksand off the Scilly Islands, or a bog
of unintelligibility respecting the proceedings of
the Reform League. If a clergyman drown
himself in a pond in Devonshire, heavy falls of
rain are general throughout the country, and
wheat will promise to be a fair average crop,
as if in consequence of the sad transaction.
Does Mr. Disraeli celebrate harvest home in
Buckinghamshire, a new comet will be
discovered in America, and a large prairie fire will
consume three thousand wandering buffaloes.
Thus reads the "copy" as it comes from the
wire, inconsequential as the wanderings of a
sick man.

The matter is further complicated by the
necessity of transmitting private newspaper
messages at intervals. Thus Mr. Gladstone, in the
full heat of his denunciation of the Irish church,
will suddenly descend from the high ground of
justice and equity, to tell the sub-editor to
"keep himself open for two columns of minion
upon the Board of Trade inquiry into the loss
of the Solent." A glowing and graphic
description of the naval review at Spithead will
have its pleasant continuity cut short in the
middle, by an advertisement relating to cast-off
clothing, which it is necessary to get through as
soon as possible, in order not to delay the
putting of the first side of the newspaper to
press. The money market statistics will
occasionally have their aridity relieved by a statement
that General Peel has seceded from the
ministry. When any piece of news of more
than ordinary interest arrives, whatever maybe
in course of transmission at the time is stopped
until the important message is despatched. It
accordingly often happens that a ministerial
crisis, or a loss of twenty lives, or the death of
a great potentate, is wedged into the midst of a
report upon the weather and crops, or a prolix
wool circular. Hence, apart altogether from
considerations of punctuation and correction,
the necessity for the most careful revision of
the manuscript.

In spite, however, of the greatest care on the
part of the sub-editor, mishaps occur, some of
which must sorely perplex the reflective
newspaper reader. For instance, in the parliamentary
intelligence, between the speeches of Mr.
Horsman and Mr. Mill, he will find a distinct
and prominent line running thus: "Take
Beresford Hope from Ordinary," as if the genial
member for the potteries had been attending a
farmers' club, dining, and was unable to return
home. The real meaning is, that Mill's and
Horsman's speeches have been reported
specially and verbatim; but the reporter not
attaching the same weight to the utterances of
Mr. Hope, advises the sub-editor to take the
summary of his speech from the manuscript
supplied by the ordinary telegraph company.
On other occasions, when the hour of going to
press is nigh, and there is no time either for
revision or correction, readers of the first edition
may get the following nut to crack: "It is
almost certain that the Bribery Bill will pass this
session. New par. I hear that parliament is
likely to be prorogued on the twenty-fourth.
New par. The hot weather is sensibly
diminishing the attendance of members at the house.
New par." The latter words mean "new
paragraph," this beiing the mode by which the
writer of the parliamentary gossip intimates
from London to the sub-editor in Glasgow that
he wishes each separate paragraph to commence
with a new line.

Considerable feats are performed by the
special wire during the parliamentary session.
As many as seven columns of a debate have, in
the course of an evening, been reported at
Westminster, been transcribed, been sent to
the telegraph office in Threadneedle-street, been
transmitted to Glasgow, been re-transcribed
there for the press, and set up into type,
corrected, and printed in next morning's newspaper.
During the dead season, however, when parliament
is on the moors and at the sea-side, when
Belgravia is desolate, when the clubs are
deserted, politics extinct and rumours moribund,
the wire might as well be abolished too. Even
the vast maelstrom of London, with all its
magnetic and attracting influence that draws
all things into it, is no place for the collection
of news.

The newspapers which do not depend upon
"sensation," and titles of eight lines in large
type, after the fashion of our American cousins,
are then content to allow their energies to rust
unused for a space. Those of the "go-ahead"
class, however, telegraph at all hazards,
every scrap of information that can be clipped
out of the London evening papers. The
consequence is that paragraphs are frequently
sent four hundred miles and are honoured with
the dignity of leaded type, which would be
rejected, were they quietly, and at no expense,
handed into a newspaper office at Edinburgh.
For two months together the public is treated
with the remainder biscuit of the year.

When things are working smoothly, the large
instrument room at Threadneedle-street is all
order and decorum. There are about thirty
instruments altogether, fitted up with the bell
apparatus. Between five and six of these are
kept gonig simultaneously, despatching and
receiving "messages. The head clerk sits at an