revision; he revolts against it as the mothers of Egypt revolted against the slaughter of their firstborn. But no expressions of disgust or indignation have any effect upon the ruthless editor; and should the victim complain of the manner in which his productions are treated, he is most probably told that he has been paid for what he wrote, and that he has no longer any interest in or control over an article which has become the property of another. Indeed, it is hard to see how, under our present system of leader-writing, this revision could be avoided. If every writer signed his articles, the case would be different; but where all the articles in one journal are put forth as emanating from the same source, it is absolutely necessary to secure their consistency by a severe and rigorous system of revision and alteration. Whether the anonymous system is an advantage or not, is a question upon which I do not pretend to enter here. Of the extent of the alterations made by the editor and his colleague in the leader before it is allowed to go forth to the world, some idea may be gained from the fact, that the corrections in the type rendered necessary by these alterations cost the proprietors of one daily newspaper alone a thousand pounds a year!

On some of the morning papers the manner in

M

which the leaders are produced differs from that which I have described, and a much larger amount of independence is allowed to the individual leaderwriters. On one great journal, the daily council about the leaders is not attended by the leaderwriters at all. The editor and his assistant draw up between them a list of the subjects to be treated, and the sketch is sent out to the house of the trusted contributor to whom each particular theme has been allotted. The writers for this journal are required to leave notice at all times where they may be found; and it has happened to some of them, not seldom, to be roused at midnight, or still later, by a manager who has placed in their hands a telegram containing important news just brought to hand, on which a leader has been needed for the next issue of the paper. Some idea of the qualifications required by a leader-writer must be gained from this fact.

How many men are there who could thus sit down at a minute's notice, in the middle of the night, and write an article worthy of the subject and of the great journal to which I allude? On at least one other morning paper, the council is dispensed with altogether; the leader-writers communicate personally and separately with the editor, and their articles are seldom interfered with. In

this way the most honest expression of personal opinion, and the greatest amount of originality are obtained; but it may be doubted whether these advantages make up for the loss which is sustained by not following the practice I have described with respect to the council and its accompaniments.

Where a regular council is held, it will be seen that the leader has to go through almost as many processes as a needle, before it is fit for the eyes of the reader, and that its authorship is divided among many different hands or heads. There are, of course, exceptional cases, in which men who have attained high positions on the press are allowed to write their own thoughts in their own language; and on the provincial press, where, in general, only one leader-writer is employed, and where the audience appealed to is not so critical as that before which a London newspaper must appear, the writer usually has much greater scope and freedom than his brother of the metropolis. But, so far as the London journals are concerned, a leading article may generally be taken as expressing the views of more than one person.

CIAL

'OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.

THE Franco-German war brought the public into closer intimacy with 'Our Special Correspondent' than had ever been the case before. Everybody, of course, has laughed at the eminent Jefferson Brick,' the 'own War Correspondent' of the American editor, with whom Mr. Martin Chuzzlewit was brought in contact; but when we were introduced to that celebrity there were few among us who supposed that he was only the prototype of a very numerous and very important class of newspaper writers. It is true, that during the siege of Rome in 1848, the Morning Chronicle' had a correspondent of its own in the capital, and that some very clever letters were written from Spain, during the Carlist struggle; but, at the time when Mr. Dickens wrote, the regular War Correspondent was still a being to whom the English public had to be introduced.

The Crimean war formed the occasion of the

introduction. England, at that time, had not been engaged in any great European war for forty years, and all of us who are old enough can remember the wonderful thrill of enthusiasm which ran through the country when it was announced that the sword which had so long rested in the scabbard was about to be drawn. Between 1815 and 1854 the English press had made great advances in influence, reputation, wealth, and enterprise; and as soon as it was decided that our English army should go to the Crimea, more than one newspaper resolved that it would have its own reporter there to chronicle the battles and victories which awaited the Allies. The Times,' of course, took the initiative. It had fixed, I believe, upon a gentleman who was to represent it in the Crimea, when that gentleman fell ill. Now-a-days if, on the eve of a campaign, the representative of the 'Times' or of any great London journal were to be laid aside, there would be at least a hundred applicants for his post. But, in 1854, we had not learned to look upon an expedition with an army exactly in the light of a pleasant holiday tour, nor had newspaper reporters struck out for themselves that new path in which so many of them have since made brilliant reputations. The first who did this was the gentleman to whom the conductors of the 'Times' applied when the