The Sun.
London, England, 1867-08-14 00:00:00

THE LONDON 7131E5."

There is an article in the new monthly magazine,
The Broadway, on the Times, in which the great in-
fluence of that newspaper is attributed to its won-
derful machinery for obtaining news, on the perfect
reliability of which, the success of the journal has
been founded. In our opinion the Times is by no
means a good newspaper. It is inferior to the penny
papers the Standard and the telegraph, that is, in
reports of every-day occurrences over the world.
Where the Times is superior is in its ability to
obtain the very best information when great events
are occurring in any part of the globe. Its wealth
iemploy
yassport to the best pens. Its
prestigeswthat it
h can
that em
its p
is greatso high
correspon-
dents is an open sesame, therefore its news on such
h
occasions is not only reliable, but Conveyed in the
most captivating form. As a newspaper we believe
it to be behind some of its daily contemporaries in
London, and to be beyond comparison behind the
New York Herald, whose columns are almost made

up of telegraph despatches, and whose agent in
Europe in less than a year disbursed for the trans •
mission of messages £20,000. If the meagre tele-
graph reports of the London daily papers be compared
with those of New York the assertion of some
Americans will be shown to have foundation, that
New York is the headquarters of news. Scarcely
an event of any importance occurs in Europe that
is not reported as early and as fully in New York
as iu London. The Times in no way aids in mak-
ing London the great centre of news, and in this
we consider it unfair to the people who give it
so liberal a support. Where the real influ-
ence of the Times is seen is in its decisions
on various public questions on which Parliament
may be divided, and the Cabinet split. It is then
that the Times steps in as a self-constituted umpire
with an irresistible weight of argument, with au
earnest and clear exposition of the circumstances,
with
a judgment so conclusive and reasonable that
the matter is at once disposed of, and nothing more
is heard of the subject. On Tuesday night the Houseof Commons decided that Captain JERvis should
not be reinstated—at least by
any action of theirs ;
the ground being, that, though acquitted, he was
,
not honourably acquitted of the charge of pecula-
tion. On Thursday morning the Times discussed
the subject
showing that the minority were right,
the majority wrong; therefore the Government,
backed by the Ilouse of Commons, is opposed in
this question to the Times, and we venture to pre-
dict that the 1 imes will win. Nor will it win only,
but it will exactly reverse the present position.
Captain JERVIS will return to India, and Sir WIL-
LIAM MANSFIELD will return to England. Ilad the
Times witten in this style before the division, Mr.
Ilurri;; motion Would have been carried. When
the great bell-wether is envelopc....l in a fog or hht.hni
by scrub, the sheep scatter, Hot hnowing the way
to go; but when the bell of the wether rings de-
cisively, and the direction is clearly indicated, there
is no hesitation or distraction in the woolly flock.
They get the cue for which the innocent things so
earnestly look, they are relieved from doubt, and
are enabled to act wisely and well. The fact is
that a great part of the English people have placed
their public conscience in the safe keeping of this
journal. It saves them from all trouble of think-
ing out a subject for themselves, and furnishes them
with admirable arguments in favour of the conclusion
which it puts into their minds ; they go into each
other's society primed and loaded, almost uncon-
sciously reproducing the opinions they had just
read. it is often anaughig to be old geD4olacil