Year: 1868

numitical ssWhat Is It"-of the Supreme Court
bench.


The Herald and the Abyssinian Expedition


Newspaper Revolution In England.


The legislators, stockholders, newspaper
men and people of England generally have ex-
perienced a new and intensely exciting sensa-
tion by the publication in the London Times
Of special telegram from the New York
HERALD correspondent attached to the British
military expedition in Abyssinia, forwarded to
our general news agent in London and fur
nished in copy to the editors in Printing House
square through the courtesy of that gentleman
when in ransitu for transmission by the Allan
tic cable to New York.


This telegraphic war report Of the HERALD,
dated at Antalo on the 18th Of February, con-
tanned highly important intelligence to the
effect that although Major General Napier was
engaged in negotiating an alliance with the
powerful native chief Kassai, of Tigre, peace
was doubtful; that the British advance was
then in the enemy's country or within his lines,
that all stragglers from the corps were killed,
that three British officers were missing, that
Theodorus was advancing at the head
of thirty thousand men, and that
the Abyssnians mutilated the bodies of the
dead-as is customary with them in time Of
war-in q horrible manner. In fact, our
special correspondent conveyed in this des-
patch the very first distinct indication which
was had in Europe of the assurance that
the Abyssinian king will fight before he surren-
ders his prisoners, and that General Napier's
army is engaged in very hazardous duty in
the prosecution of critical enterprise. The
London Times printed the skeleton despatch
or telegram stenographic notes, as we may call
them-of our correspondent in its issue of the
9TH of March, simultaneous with its appearance
in this city copied in full from the abbrevia-
tions in the columns of the HERALD, prefacing
the matter thus =" We have been favored by
the correspondent of the New YORK HERALD
in London with the following despatch"


By our enterprise and professional compli-


ment the HERALD placed the London Times


ahead of the British government, the British
War Office and other London papers, and
elevated that journal in the matter of early
news, for that one occasion, to the same posi-
tion which the HERALD has SO long occupied
over its contemporaries on this side of the At
lantic. Horse Guards did not know of the
situation in Abyssinia, Parliament had not


heard Of 1t, the Stock Exchange could not turn
penny on Theodorus, the people were ignorant
of what they were likely to get in return for
the expenditure of the first four out of twenty
millions of pounds sterling and as for the
Queen, of course her Majesty could not be
better informed than the Commander in Chief
and the London Times.


When England sat down to breakfast on the
morning of the 9Th of March the case was en-
tirely different. The nation had experienced
quiet and healthy revolution in the all-im-
portant matter of newspaper conduct and the
effects produced by the working of really live
newspaper. The Head of the Church
saw at once that her missionaries were


in q truly apostolic danger, and that
the evangelization of the Abyssinians was
likely to prove almost as costly and tedious as
the Christianizing of Britain. Horse Guards
was informed from General Napier's camp that
fighting on the banks of the Sutlej was quite


different work from fighting at the base Of the


Mountains of the Moon and in the ravines


around Magdala The income tax collectors
ruled their columns for the collection of that
extra penny war tax; the Parliamentary
opposition became more bold, and the Stock


Exchange experienced regular truck" of ups
and downs. The agitation extended, and it
may be fairly claimed that Great Britain was
just as completely reused by the publication of
this single special telegram to the HERALD in
the columns of the London Times as it was
few days before when Queen Victoria sent for
Mr.. Disraeli and commissioned the literary
Israelite to form a Cabinet, thus proclaiming
from the throne that the blood of the Norman
barons had failed, and that henceforth she
would not have hereditary Premiers any more
than she would have hereditary costumers or
tion; the one revolution in the science of
government, and the other revolution in the
cognate science of conducting q newspaper.
John Bull proper did not, however, under
stand all this; perhaps does not comprehend it
even now. "Alf and 'alf and pipe" fire.
quently repeated, failed to enlighten the old
fogies of the London press. Some Of the
writers, as win be seen by the extracts from
the London press which we publish to-day,
would not believe the HERALD's report; the
| aristocratic organ, the London Post, sneered
slightly at the intelligence; others thought it


serious, if true, and all of them appear to have
forgotten that the day of carrier pigeons, spe-
cial briggs from Calais, and couriers from fields


like Waterloo have been superseded by steam


and electricity, by those who have the intelli-
gence and spirit to render these agents subsi-


diary to the spread Of intelligence and their
own business purposes.


/ Mr. Qisraeli the new Premier estimated the