The Express.
London, England, 1847-07-07 00:00:00

TIMES VERSUS CHRONICLE.

WE certainly never, at any time, expected that the
Tunes would be greatly enamoured of our "cheap
paper" project, or its progress; but we gave "the
leading journal" credit for worldly wisdom enough
to make it avoid any very extravagant or childish
display of its mortification and affect the indiffer-
ence which we know it could not feel. Self-pos-
session is a quality so important to a cause
artificially and falsely constructed, and the Timex
had already suffered so seriously in the way of
exposure by a former yielding to the temptation of
its own dishonest temper, that we had calculated on
greater caution for the future in the management of
its own weak points, and a more careful affectation of
the dignity which is essentially wanting to its cause.
But the Times is grievously beset. No man or corpora-
tion learns with equanimity the secret of its own
powerlessness ;—still less that its want of discretion
has helped to betray the secret to others. The absolute
failure of the Times, with the aid of all the
forces it could rally round it, to arrest our
steady encroachment on the ground which 'it
had so much interest in maintaining, was alresuly
a sore sufficiently irritating to a vain and brag-
gart influence ; —which the overt confession of that
failure on the part of an ally has driven into madness.
The defection of the Morning Chronicle, concurrently
with the setting in of sultry weather, has induced a fit
of raving before which common newspaper humanity
shudders. The Jove of newspapers, who will not
"thunder" under fivepence, tau up, on this occa-
sion, a rattle for his thunderbolt, and so,
forfeits for the nonce his last argument for
high prices. Jupiter becomes " a very foolish,
fond old man"—" and, to deal plainly, we fear he is
not in his perfect mind." "The first journal in the
world" feels the influence of the dog days: and, seeing
that we care not for its barking, turns on its less
fortunate comrade in the spirit of a cur, and tries to
worry it.
Seen in that peculiar moral atmosphere with which
the Times surrounds itself, how strange and anomalous
are the relations of its cause and effect ! What great
consequences flow, with it, from what little things !
In no world that we know of are the accidents of the
ground so various and the atmospheric changes so
sudden. The standard of measure, like all things
else in that not very reputable world, is a curious one.
A penny difference, for instance, has converted an old
and. "respected contemporary"—the " fivepenny"
friend who had clungto the 7Ymes and to high prices—
the worthy ally in its honourable warfare and co-heir
to its golden dreams:—into a twaddler dealing in "an-
saleable wares,"and offering what, since ho declines to
shame fivepenee for them, are insinuated to be
unworth fourpence. "Ingeniously fabricated as they
undoubtedly are," says the Times, with playful irony,
they have ceased to " take with es,"—ever since the
day before yesterday! " We can conceive that we
might perhaps want them, or might relish them, in
some other [threepenny or fourpenny] state of being
than that [fivepenny] one in which it is our fortune,
or misfortune, to live."—ln a word, the "good shop"
has suddenly become a " cheap shop, says the
Times, with the soul of a shopkeeper in the
meanest sense—and can have nothing good to offer
since it has ceased to overcharge. " A first-rate ma-
nufactory " the figure by Which the Times describes
papers in its own category—has soddenly taken to
" dealing in second-hand goods" in the person of this
seceder; and one of the Great Combined has turned
honest and become, it avers, a "Cheap John."—ls it
possible that a nation which prides itself on intelligence
and emamon-sense can be mystified and galled
after so poor and profligate a fashion? Why
should the Morning Chronicle—which for half •
century has been conducted on principles higher
and purer than were ever contemplated by the
Times—change its character, hey presto, because it
lowers its price, and besome, in a rattle of the than-
derer's money-box, as mean and unprincipled a thing
as the paper which thus sordidly denounces it ? The
virtue and intelligence of the Morning Chronicle, it
should seem, ra.. in the dropped penny. It were
to wrong at once the common sense and morality of the
age to suppose that jugglery like this can much
longer be practised with success ! The Times is most
unfortunate in the perpetual betrayal of its meanness
even where it purposes to be most dignified. The dirt
is for ever showing through the tinsel—the motive
peeping over the boast. What, says the Times
with great insinuated majesty, is the true ideal
of an independent press—in contradistinction
to a " poverty-stricken journal ?"—A press that
can " rebuke and expose kings, lords, commons,
bishops, clergy, magistrates, functionaries of all
sorts, landlords, manufacturers, farmers, mar-
-1 chants, railway directors, speculators, and every
other class" at fivepence a copy, "while by its adver-
tising columns it can turn their folly or their wicked-
flees into gold." But the Times is as unfortunate as
it is mean. The " advertising columns" which it
forgot to mention where honesty required it,
have here avenged themselves by making their
mischievous appearance in the paragraph only
to convert a piece of grandiloquence into bathos and
a vaunt of magnificence into an exposure of avarice.
It is an instance of judicial blindness. We are reminded
of the madman playing king in a crown of filthy straws.
If the Times were a paper which it could ever be
safe to interpret strictly, it would not be unfair to infer
from its argument that some virtue is supposed to
reside in the particular fivepenoe—that there is no
salvation for • newspaper out of that exact amount of
per contra—that fivepence is a principle with it rather
than a price. At any rate, however, the Times repeats, as
an axiom, that "there can be no doabt that a really
good paper cannot be published for leas than five-
pence." This it delivers easily—jauntily, as an
accepted truth ; without betraying the slightest con-
sciousness of that being the vei proposition which in-
volved it before in such irretrievable perplexity and
ruined its character for arithmetic. The Times
cannot afford thus wantonly to sport with its cha-

racier for shrewdness; for, that gone, what has it te
fall back upon but the fivepences ?—and they mat
fail. Every copy of " a really good paper,
says the nines, without the slightest baits-
tion or confusion, costs the proprietors 4td. ; so
that only three-eighths remain " out of the price of
a paper for the other expenses of its production."
What monstrous duplicity is this! Why is no men-
tion made of the 100,0001. a year received for the
advertisements—and for the sake of which the ma-
chinery is cheaply worked and the three-eighths in
question a needless surplusage ? The Times is
beyond all shame ; and repeats its facts and figures
as if their falsehood had not been already exposed
or was not so glaring as to expose itself.
Then, the Moss says,—" The cost of paper for
each copy of this day's publication" is two-
pence, —of the stamp three halfpence. Even
this simple statement is not true. Threepence
halfpenny is not the cost of paper and stamp—but of
papers and stamps: and why does the Times give
two papers and two stamps? Simply that it may find
room for that mine of wealth—its advertisements.

The cost, however, of these advertisements is thus to
be blazoned abroad,i and not a hint given of their
profit !—We have had the advertisements in yesterday's
Times calculated : and we suggest to the reader that to
the 3-tithe of a penny profit on each copy he should add
about 3201. for the forgotten profit upon the whole—
though the Times, shrewd in its own narrow kind,
has taken care to have fewer advertisements than usual

in "this day's paper." Three hundred and twenty
pounds is a tolerably large daily item—whose weight
alone can in any way explain its having slipped
out of the account : but we have thought it right
to pick this up again, for the comforting of our readers
against that painful and importunate cry of the limes
—" only three-eighths of a penny !"
The morality of the Times is worth a farther illus-
tration out of its own unconscious argument. That
journal, still seeking to enhance the cost at which its
columns are produced, till in its eagerness it forgets
the advertisements which pay it back—assures its
readers that not only has it to pay for talents and
industry, but it has also to buy its integrity. It
has no protection against the bribery of those whom
it employs but that of paying them liberally itself. It
makes its liberality a 'bribe—bribes its awn men not
to let themselves be bribed. According to the Times,
there can be no honesty unless men are highly paid.
A poor man must be corrupt. " To render the channels
of intelligence proof against continued attempts at
bribery " "the most liberal scale of payment is
required." We presume the Times has worked
out its own argument,—and has no objection to
the consequence. It is simply and logically
this :—bribe high enough, and you may bribe the
Times itself! Again, pay the Times less than five- I
pence, and it cannot answer for being incorrupt.
Every paper, the Times would insinuate, is open
to a bribe. Our safety (ours of the fivepenny school),
says the Times, consists in this,—that in proportion as
we pay highly the bribe must be higher that would
tempt our servants to betray us. Their dishonesty
is in the market,—and we (of the Myles) buy it up.
Now, we, of the Daily News, deny the troth of this
proposition—at least save in so far as the Times
claims an exception for itself and its servants: bat
we mean to assert that, had it been true, the
honesty could still have been purchased, with all
other n material, at the reduced price of
our paper. The gentlemen engaged on the Daily
News are as well paid as three on the Times:—
we will go further, and assert that they are better)
paid. The Times specifically refers to those who
contribute to its leading columns—editors, we pre-
sume—correspondents, and reporters. Now, in tome
instances it may be impossible to institute a compa-
rison ; but, in others the comparison may be made
without difficulty by a simple reference to the books
of the cashier. At once, then, we challenge the
Times to proof. The whole argument is ridiculous ;
and has been taken up by us simply that
the Times may not have the benefit of its falla-
cies even where they do not expose themselves. But
we challenge the Times to submit the facts to third
parties for their decision: and we affirm, for instance,
that the reporters on the Daily News have higher
salaries than those on the Times—and the Times
knows it.

The journals of Paris and oar private letters
of Monday have arrived, but contain nothing of in-
terest to the English public.
A letter received from oar own correspondent at
Bayonne, dated the 2nd inst., says that government has
pdsitive information that the Carlist General Arrays
has not yet left France. Ho adds that the report
circulated at Madrid that this chiefs in Old Castille
at the head of a body of cavalry is without founda-
tion. On the lst four companies of the 60th regi-
ment, in garrison at Bayonne, were suddenly marched
for St. Jean pied de port. The cattle of the French
farmers were seized and driven over the frontier by
the Spaniards, and a general conflict was expected to
ensue between the border populations. On the 2nd
another battalion was marched to reinforce those sent
on the preceding day.

MADRID, Jona 30.
St. Peter's Eve (28th) is a famous festival at
Madrid, and the Prado is crowded all night with
parties dancing, frying and eating borauelos, and toss-
ing off 'rasqtatae. On Monday a full moon, with a
bland and serene sky, favoured the amusements of
the people. All Madrid turned out—the simple folk
with guitar and castanets, the gentle looking on. The
Queen drove up and down in an open carriage,
attended by one of her ladies and a chamberlain. She
remained from half-past 12 till past one. Next morn-
ing the following paragraph appeared in large print
at the end of the Erpectador, under the head of ‘, A
ultima ora ."

" It u t o'clock in the morning, and her Majesty is retir-
ing from the Prado, where she has been driving up and
down in an open carriage, drawn by six hones, attended only
by a footman, from half-past 12 to about 1 ; at which hour
three officers of the palace, who followed the carriage, began
to escort her home. Among the persons who excited most at.
tendon, wu a gentleman in a frock-coat, with white trowsers,
who retired, at the same time as her Majesty, ins brougham,
which was drawn up opposite the fountain of Cybele."
The gross outrage against the Queen, conveyed by
this creeping insinuation, excited universal iad*nation.
To-day the E.rpectador has not been published. But
a little notice bas been printed instead, signed by the
two editors of the Expectador, Manuel Ruiz de
Quevedo, and Ambrosio Gonzales, which informs the
public that they have read with the greatest surprise
and indignation the paragraph in question, which was
i presented in the office without their knowledge by a
person completely foreign to the establishment, and
admitted in spite of the repeated orders Mated t• pre-
vent similar abuses. The editors have, in consequence,
entirely dissolved their connexion with the printing
establishment of Hernandez de Fuentes and CO., and
cannot allow a single copy more of their paper to
issue from the same press.
The Commandant-General of Cadiz, on the 24th,
sent to order General Prim to leave that town imme-
diately. The general, whose passport was en rigk,
and who bad been despatched by the government,
refused to comply with this order, or to leave the
place till he received commands from the Queen or
from the minister of war so to do.
Those who have undertaken to act as pacificators
in the royal family of Spain must be rather sa-
tisfied with the success of their endeavours. There
is Maria Christina at Malmaison, the king Consort at
the Pardo, Don Enrique at Tolosa, the Duchess of
Montpensier at Paris, and now Don Francisco de
Paula and his danshter are going to the baths, while
Isabel 11. is alone in her palace at Madrid.