The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-04 00:00:00

JAMES GORDON BENNETT.

This was an invitation that Mr. Bennett gave to very
few people of the tens of thousands that ha came in con-
tact with then and in after years.
This scene in a Nassau-street boarding-house occurred a
quarter of a century ago. That editor was as conscious
of power at that time as he is now. He cared nothing
for money then, save to serve the great purpose of his life,
the establishment of a great independent daily journal,
modelled after his own ideas of what a daily journal should be.
He worked then with brain and hands—mentally and phy-
sically to achieve saec?.ss, and he succeeded. He had com-
menced with a partner, a stupid jackass, in Anna-street.
After the fire, which had burned out his establishment, Mr,
Bennett started again, alone, with a solemn determination
that for his natural life he would have no more to do with
partners. He planted upon the Herald its imprint, " James
Gordon Bennett, Editor and Proprietor," and it has never
been changed to this day. His old partner started an op-
position paper, another Herald, but that soon died out, and
Mr, Bennett was in the field alone. He was not inexperi-
enced in journalism in .he city of New York, for as early
as 1827 he started in Chatham-square a small daily, which
he sold for one cent. It did not last long. Later he started
a Sunday paper. He was for a long time connected with
a paper that the celebrated Henry Eckford owned, called
the National Advocate. His connection with Webb and
Noah is well known. He made these men famous, and when
he left the Courier and Enquirer it was to connect himself
with a daily journal inPhiladelphia. From thence he cams to
New York and soon after the Herald sprang into existence.
Mr. Bennett was then what he has been in more mature
age, quiet, reserved, and thoughtful. Words may escape
his memory, but never an idea, or a new idea. Few men
can distinguish so readily the difference between mere words,
however prettily expressed, and words that convey ideas,
He has ever used a small memorandum book. In it he
writes a catch word to a thought er an idea. This book is
the key to the editorials in hie paper of that or the ensuing
day, or used to recall an idea, a fact, or the heading for an
article weeks or months after it was noted, and eventually
become the subject matter for a " leader" or a series of edi-
torials of a thundering or startling character.
He is both shy and extremely sensitive. He admits few
to any degree of intimacy with him. Those that he so se•
lects must be originai men, who are able to suggest new
ideas, or strike out new and startling subjects—men who
have travelled, and who can give him information upon
subjects that he did not know before. All is fish that comes
to his net. He values men as they contribute to the t,nc-
cess of his journal. Personally he is as cold as an icicle.
With a man of information, he will talk out an editorial in
the very presence of the man who has originated the ideas
or facts upon which it is based. Ho will enlarge upon the
emanation of the minds of others so that when they read
the very editorial a few clays afterwards, and recognise its
groundwork or base, they will be perfectly astounded
at the beauty and symmetry of its appearance, its
ornamellto) and the geuitts of the entire editorial structure.

If a statesman calls npon him, and he possesses genius
originality, or information of any kind, past, preqz. _ r
future, that is unknown to Mr. Bennett, the eyes of 'the
latter sparkle—he moves uneasily in his chair, or rouses
himself if reclining on a sofa, and leads cif in conversation
until he draws his man out, and has drained him dry.
Then perhaps he will talk on for his own practice, or to
impress the subject more fully upon his own memory, or
to shape it for an editorial. Some editors write out their
thoughts—Mr. Bennett thinks them out in his solitary
hours, and is as ready to dictate a complete editorial from
his tongue as others were to writo one. Some days a gentle-
man will see in the next day's Herald an analysis of his
own conversation with the editor of the evening previous.
What he acquires from anybody goes into the editorial
mind and mill, and the editorial miller grinds it and adopts
it as his own, and forgets where it came from ; and so
comp'etely doss it become a part of himse4 that he will use
the identical idea or fact to the very man who gave it to hires
unless perhaps he has previously used it in the Hereld edi-
torials.

And here is a specimen of Mr. Bennett's editorial
labours, which nye.y be entitled—

EDITING BY STEAM.

His mind is unceasing in its activity. It is never idle.
He comes to his office charged with matter for his editorials.
He calls in one reporter to his private sanctum. Dictating
a column, perhaps, upon one subject, the reporter takes it
down in short hand in five or ten minutes, and goes out to
his desk to write it out. Another reporter succeeds him.
➢lr. Bennett is perhaps ten minutes more in dictating another
column upon another subject. So it goes on for an hour,
until editorial articles of the highest importance are dic-
tated. The reporters write out these articles. They are
sent up to the printing office, and all the force is put on
them. Mr. Bennett, if he chooses, can read the corrected
proof, and not be detained more than an hour at the
office from the time he arrived. Such are the inner work-
ings of the Herald office,

Marion soon afterwards has practical experience of
the objectionable character of his friend's editorial
practices when he finds some of his own secrets
conspicuous in the columns of the Herald :
lt was in those days actually considered a horrible mat-
ter to get into a newspaper. Marion so regarded it. Not
83 Mr. Bennett. He regarded those matters which became
talked of among a set or circle, as legitimate articles for a
newspaper. So they were ; and now, that the ica is broken,
half the people in the land are only too anxious to get their
names into the newapapers, attached to anything.

At the close of the third volume Mr. Bennett takes
leave of Marion with the following valedictory re-
marks, in which we find an echo of the predictions
recorded in the dedication :