up, and was off at eleven o'clock. His projected route lay through Trieste, but he landed at Dwino, twelve miles nearer London; and hurried through Austria, Prussia, Baden, and Bavaria, with passports already prepared and vised; reached Mannheim in eighty-four hours, took special steamer to Cologne, and special train, all prepared and waiting for him, to Ostend; was on board a fast special steamer and off for Dover in a few minutes, and, taking the train there, arrived in London at half-past four o'clock on the morning of the 31st, thus performing the distance from Suez to London in ten days and a few hours. Meanwhile the regular mail, helped onward by all the resources of the two greatest nations of the world, who were alive. to the rivalry and exerted their utmost efforts to defeat it, came toiling on, making its way painfully and laboriously for Marseilles. It did not reach Alexandria even-the end of its first stage, as it were-till half-past eight o'clock on the evening of the 21st, and did not leave till ten o'clock on the morning of the 22d, or forty-seven hours after Waghorn - unencumbered by the machinery of Government-had been off and away. And, before the mail had got to Paris on its way to London, the Times had made its appearance FROM London, with a full summary thus expressed of the news which that mail was bringing, and which did not get to London till eleven o'clock on Sunday night. This put the French Government on its mettle; and, placing fleet steamers and special trains at the service of the courier of the Morning Herald, it enabled that journal to publish its news, expressed through Marseilles, forty-eight hours before the Times could give its express brought through Trieste. This was a sad blow to the Times, after all the expense it had gone to, but there was nothing for it but to quote the news from the Herald, and make a dash for the next or December mail. Another Government was now looking on at the struggle with interest; Austria could not but see at once the great advantage to be derived by turning the stream of the traffic from the East through its territory, and accordingly gave its support to the Times' scheme, and placed a special and powerful steamer at its service to express its despatches from Alexandria to Trieste. The result was favourable to the Times to a remarkable but accidental extent. Fearful storms swept the Mediterranean, and the mailsteamer, exposed to their influence, could not make Marseilles, whilst the Austrian steamer with the Times' express went, snugly sheltered, up the Adriatic, and thus the Times was enabled to publish its news an entire fortnight before the mail arrived! But this did not settle the question of the relative merits of the two routes; and, after a fair trial and a sharp struggle, the Trieste line was found expensive and not at all times practicable, and was abandoned; but we never heard of the Times' despatches being trifled with afterwards. We wonder what old John Walter, "the logographic printer," would have thought of his son's achievements, or of the world-wide renown of that paper which he had started and carried on with only the humble hope of realising by its sale a small addition to a small income! The circulation of the newspapers, after ten years of decreased duty, was getting enormous. From January 1st, 1842, to January 1st, 1843, the number of penny stamps issued to newspapers was 63,591,156, of which England took 50,145,914 for papers, and 1,473,664 for supplements: Wales, 440,200 penny, and 10,830 halfpenny or supplement stamps: Scotland, 4,977,344 penny and 443,550 halfpenny stamps: and Ireland, 6,063,906 penny and 35,750 halfpenny stamps. From 1843 to 1844, the numbers were, England, 51,282,900 penny and 1,893,682 halfpenny stamps: Wales, 456,925 penny and only 2,000 halfpenny; Scotland, 5,293,726 penny and 243,150 halfpenny; and Ireland, 6,452,072 penny and 142,580 halfpenny stamps; the grand total for the United Kingdom being 64,767,035. Next year it had got up to 71,222,498, and the increase was spread over the entire kingdom. England took, in the year ending January 1st, 1845, 53,933,848 penny and 3,738,128 halfpenny stamps: Wales, 479,700 penny and 7,000 halfpenny: Scotland, 5,727,585 penny and 317,620 halfpenny and Ireland, 6,769,067 penny and 249,550 halfpenny stamps. Some hundred and fifty thousand newspapers annually went astray in the course of transmission through the post, either through the loss of the address label, or from illegible writing-at least, a Post-office return for 1845, shows that three or four thousand newspapers a week often lay at the Dead Letter Office, delayed from one or other of those causes. CHAPTER XV. 66 THE RAILWAY MADNESS-ITS EFFECTS UPON THE NEWSPAPERS-THE RAILWAY 66 GREGORY-ENTERPRISE 66 CHRONICLE"- -ITS COMMISSIONERS OF INQUIRY INTO THE STATE OF THE POOR-HENRY MAYHEW-SHIRLEY 66 66 BROOKS EDWARD MAYHEW OF THE MORNING POST"-HAYWARD AND THE "MORNING CHRONICLE"-G. H. LEWES-THE LEADER "ALBANY FONBLANQUE RESIGNS THE EXAMINER -J. L. MACKINTOSH-LOUIS KOSSUTH-THE "FONETIC NUZ"-ALEXANDER ELLIS, B.A. JOHN O'CONNELL-LAST ATTEMPT TO EXCLUDE THE REPORTERS FROM THE HOUSE OF COMMONS-ASTOUNDING IMPUDENCE-CLOSED DOORS. THE railway mania was now arrived at its height of absurdity and madness. Impossible lines over impracticable country; lines to connect places without trade or inhabitants; colonial lines, foreign lines-anything that could be called a railway, were eagerly subscribed to by the public, which was just then in one of its periodical fits of excitement, when any impostor can do what he likes with it. Old ladies, spinsters, clergymen, and country gentlemen were particularly affected by it: and only too grateful to be relieved of their money. Railway directors were as plentiful as blackberries: you saw "stags" standing at every corner, awaiting the passing by of the postman to get hold of that letter of allotment which they could run off and sell at a high premium. This feverish excitement had set everyone buying, consequently the prices of shares had been constantly going up, and no one had lost-at present. Never had a rage or mania been so universal since the South Sea bubble: even Mississippi Law would have held up his hands in amazement. The newspaper press-that great index of public opinion-soon showed, in its own characteristic way, the extent to which the fever had spread. Newspapers were set up exclusively treating of new or projected railway schemes: weekly at first; but the impatient public could not wait through such a long interval-twice-thrice a week-then daily. The railway press of 1845-6 is the most significant feature of that mad time. If some thirty sixpenny newspapers could get a living-and a very good one it was for a time -in London alone by publishing railway news, how many hundreds of thousands of persons must there have been interested in the schemes of new lines (real and sham the prices of shares, reports of committees, and the other information which they gave out? We have preserved a list of co-existent newspapers devoted to railway matters in London, in 1845-6, which will be in itself a record of one of the greatest extravagances into which a nation. ever fell. |