The Sun.
London, England, 1850-08-23 00:00:00

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF NEWSPAPER LIFE.

"A sketch of twenty-your hours of newspaper life will
give some idea of how the complex and expensive ma-
ekinery moves for the collection, preparation, and publi-
cation of a daily paper. Perhaps the earliest contributor
at work is the Dublin Correspondent. By the present
Post-office arrangements, via Holyhead, a steamer leaves
Kingston harbour, soon after eight in the morning, fer
Holyhead, and special dispatches sent by that convey-
ance reach London the same day. By this mode we
have news at night in London dated Dublin the same
morning. To prepare this the correspondent must be up
betimes, get early copies of the morning papers, write
his dispatch, and be off by railway to meet the steamer
by breakfast hour. He is then free till evening, whilst his
copy is making its way across the Channel towards the
London uffice. The French Correspondent, meanwhile.
has risen, dressed, and is deeply immersed in the Debate,
the Constitutionnel. and the Moniteur. Flimsy paper and
rapid translators are in requisition; a brick drive to the
Hotel de Ville, or to the house of a brother journalist, or
a call at some other point where additional information,
or a confirmation, or contradiction of current rumours
may be gained, and then ' Our Paris Correspondent' sits
don to complete his dispatch. quick pens and quicker
thoughts speed on the work, and when all has en said,
a capacious envelope receives the slips; it is sea'ed, and
away to the post•cffice in the Rue J. J. Rousseau before
eleven. The day is yet early, and a stroll through the
city, a call upon friends, a gossip at some public office,
and in a cafe, another glance through the newspapers,
an overhaul of the letters from Rome, from Naples,
from Turin, from Madrid, which the post has brought,
and the correspondent is ready to prepare his more
elaborate dispatch for the five o'clock past. This is a
matter of importance, and takes time. If the Chambers
are sitting, a rvporter has been placed there to give the
proceedings, an(4, as the hour of five draws near, the
• copy' accumulates. The di patch is written; extracts
from the leading Parisian papers have been made; Ga-
lignani has been laid under contribution; some digests of
French ate tistical papers have been summarised into
readable and valuable pars ; the report of the Paris
Bourse, and of the Madrid Bolsa, come is, followed
quickly by that from the Chambers, delayed till the last
half-minute, that the proceedings might be brought up
till the la•est possible moment before the words left
sitting' closed the copy. Again the capacious envelope,
with its printed address, is ready, and the abundant con-
tributions of Paris towards the London stock of news
finds its way to the post just two seconds and a quarter
before the bureau closes. Whilst these French and
Irish ambassadors of the Fourth Estate are thus em-
ployed, their brethren at Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, and
elsewhere are occupied much in the same way, each col-
lecting his batch of news and commentary in time f. r
the mails. Special correspondents, meanwhile, are less
systematic. One, it may be, is vibrating between con-
tending armies, as in the recent cases ot Radetsky and
Charles Albert, or of Bem and Wiudischgratz; another
is an attach to the fallen fortunes of Kossuth at Widdin;
another hovers about the Golden Horn, to learn where
the English fleet will really make a warlike demonste a-
don against Russia ; another is gathering maws cf
California amongst the Wall-street sp culators of the
we stern worli; whilst another chronicles the doings of
the Sooloo pirates in the suffocating atmosphere ot the
East.

" The reporters at home are as busy as the correspon-
dents
abroad. Amongst the earliest afoot in the morn
ing, is one noting at Smithfield the prices of cattle;
others, at Wakefield and Mark-lane, the price of corn;
another, in Southwark, the prices of hops; and in Minc-
ing-lane, the qualities and rates of coffees and sugarsF,
At Liverpool, the cotton; at Manchester, the yarns; and
at Leeds, the woollens, are being watched, their prices
jotted down, and the tone of the markets noted. Stocks
and shares, also, are being iaquired about in all these
and many other town.; whilst corn prices, and supplies,
are equally attenchd to. Where large ocal meetings
occur, there also the reporters are to be seen taking up
their places on the platform to note the thrice-told tales
of agricultoral distress; and the equally familiar pro-
mis( s of prosperity to conte from flee trade. In one
part of the country a railway collision is being reported;
in another, an it quest on a mine explosion; in a third,
an assemblage of perions favourable to church extension;
in a fourth, a lecture on separation of Church and State;
in a fifth, some terrible accident or appalling murder,—
be it where it may, tt ere is a busy pen at work for the
London paper. Post hour has less importance for the
newspaper man in Eeglard than abroad. The last train
is the point of Interest here. As the hour for that ap-
proaches the names of the sufferers by the collision, of
the speakers for church extension and for church disrup-
tion; the described horrors of the fatal choke damp; an
equal account of the murderous to ks and deeds are all
quietly packed up together in little brown paper parcels,
and steam-power is bearing them away towards the sub-
editor's table. Before this London is contributing its
quota. In each law court there is a pencil busy in a
note-hot k, or on the back of a brief; in each police-
court the reporter's box is occupied; in each coroner's
court the ' highly respectable jury' look with surprise
upon the often tattered habiimeats of the penny-a-line
representatives of • The Pavers.' Dues an engine rattle
through the alarmed streets? there goes a reporter with
it; does a gentleman fall down in an apoplectic fit? a
surgeon and a reporter are sure to be ready,—the one
to ' use every means that medical skill could afford,' and
the other to earn a few shillings by writing a paragraph.
The Court Circular is chronicling the Queen's proceed-

digs; the Morniny Post has its fas—hionabie friendbuazn g
about Gunter's to hear of fashionable routs, or about
Banting's to learn full particulars of a fashionable
funeral. Every district has its penny-a-liner; every dis-
aster its historian.

" These minor contributors are ;tot more active than
their sullerior officers. The editor has been reading
over the morning papers of London and Penis ; ha,
&need at the debates; and mentally arranged many of
his topics for the night's leaders. He has written to
a me of his literary aids, and received an article from
one, a review from another, a suggestion from a this d,
and he fiuiahes his breakfast, and goes off to call at his
club or on a political friend—his mind the while shadow-
ing forth the arguments to be employed; the illustrations
to he used; and thei points to ho made, in the paper of
to-night. The sub•editor, if any remarkable meetings,
or other reports, are expected to come, has been to the
office to consult with the editor, secretary, or other exe-
cutive daylight dikter of the paper, about, s xpres es or
telegraphs; to talk over the character and usefulness of
candidates for employment; to discuss sugeestions; to
decide who shall attend various meetings in London and
the provinces, and settle the various points which con-
stantly arise in the progress of working a daily journal.
"If Parliament is sitting, another large miss of manu-
script is now growing up under the pens of the re-
porters. Fourteen or sixteen of these gentlemen each
in his turn' sits iu the gallery of the House, and fit
three-quarters of au hour, or an hour, according to ar-
rangement, takes kis note of the debate. When the
time of one is up, and his seat at St. Stephen's has been
compied by a successor, he hastens to write out in