were guilty of the folly of abusing the 'Times' correspondent for having done his duty, and how they went so far as to dub him 'Bull Run Russell;' as though, by linking his name with that of their own disgrace, they removed something of the shame from themselves. The war taught the Americans many excellent lessons, and among others it taught them the folly of that extreme sensitiveness to foreign opinion which had so long characterised them. Now-a-days they can bear with equanimity—or at least with as much equanimity as most people—the disagreeable truths which we are all so fond of telling about each other. But Dr. Russell's plain speaking was fatal to his success as a war correspondent in free America. He was threatened with assassination; one ruffian, who was on sentry duty at the time, actually presented a loaded rifle at him, and was probably only deterred from firing it through fear of the consequences to himself; in every quarter abuse was showered upon him of the foulest kind; and in the end, after a vigorous attempt to prosecute the work he had gone to perform, he was compelled to return to England. The loss was ours temporarily; but who can doubt that permanently it was that of the Americans? Where is such a history of their war, as that we have of the Crimean war?

The 'Times' had a correspondent in the Southern States all through the struggle—except during a brief interval, when the gentleman in question had succeeded in 'running the blockade,' and came. home upon a visit. Everybody remembers how close was the blockade of the Confederate sea-ports. Very rarely was it that a letter could be smuggled through and posted for Europe. Still, occasional letters were sent by the Times' correspondent; but even of these many never came to hand in London; and it was calculated, I believe on good authority, that the cost to the 'Times' of each of those which were published was just 140/., that is to say, at the rate of about 70l. a column !

It was during the American war that another gentleman, who had long been celebrated as a graceful and brilliant essayist, as well as a marvellously accurate delineator of scenes of English life, became permanently known as a war correspondent. Mr. Sala's letters, describing 'America during the War,' had a graphic vigour, and a picturesqueness which gave them immense popularity among all classes of readers at home. The humour of many of the descriptions will be remembered by all who read these letters, though there were many who objected to the humorous element being obtruded at all in connection with such a very serious thing

as the war in America. Nevertheless, his accounts of the leading actors in the struggle-such as his wonderful word-photograph of Mr. Benjamin Butler -and his sketches of social life in New York and Washington at that great crisis, gave his letters a real permanent value. It will not be out of place to say here that Mr. Sala has been one of the most widely-travelled of all our special correspondents. He has filled volumes with stories of his adventures. in Russia, France, Italy, Algiers, the United States and Mexico; and not very long ago he contributed to an English magazine an article on 'The Special Correspondent; his Life and Crimes,' which forcibly depicted some of the miseries and misfortunes it is the lot of the man who travels in this capacity to

encounter.

When the Seven Weeks War broke out between Prussia and Austria, Dr. Russell again took the field on behalf of the Times;' but it cannot be denied that the honours of the campaign, so far as special reporting was concerned, fell upon this occasion to another representative of the same journal. Stimulated by the admirable pictures of war which Dr. Russell and his fellow-reporters had given to the world, readers now began to demand, in addition, criticisms upon the art of war, not given by some learned professor years after the last shot

in a campaign had been fired, but written from day to day, as the very movements which they criticised were being made. Of course, only a man of special training, and special qualifications, could undertake to provide for this requirement on the part of the public. The Times' was, however, fortunate enough to get the special man in the case of the war in Bohemia; and the admirable letters in which Captain Hozier told the story of the campaign, not only gave the English public a knowledge of the movements greater than that enjoyed by the readers of any other nation, but led many who had hitherto looked upon the work of the war-reporters with something like contempt to form another opinion of the value of their arduous labours.

It is only too easy a jump from the war of 1866 to the war of 1870. The only case in which the services of the special correspondents were called into requisition in the meantime was the Abyssinian campaign. But that was in reality nothing more than a pleasant holiday. It afforded neither scope for the energies of the reporters, nor room for the display of their powers as painters of battlescenes. The case was very different with the Franco-Prussian War. When the world was suddenly agitated in July 1870, by the news that France had declared war against Prussia, and that

a struggle for the Rhine frontier was imminent, nowhere did the tidings cause greater excitement than in the London newspaper offices. Every editor was besieged by eager applicants for the post of special correspondent. Men who had not one of the requisite qualifications, who lacked experience, who knew no language save their own, who had never ridden after hounds in their life, and whose literary efforts had up to that moment been confined to their correspondence with their friends, suddenly jumped to the conclusion that they had only to go out into the field in the track of an army, in order to get the ability to describe the movements of that army in the clear and graphic style which the 'special' must above all things possess.

Poor innocents!

One or two of these inexperienced gentlemen did succeed in getting commissioned, and the story of their mishaps would bring tears to the eyes of the most hard-hearted reader. As it was, although there was such a demand for special correspondents as was never known before-for both the American and the English Provincial Press sent representatives to the two armies, most of whom were London journalists-the supply of really good men did not

fail.

Mistakes were of course made by all the newspapers; but these mistakes only showed how

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