Year: 1871

TIE "SPECI1Lp AND THE HIGH COM


MISSION.


The Especial correspondent" has hard time
of it just now in Washington. The whole
country is eager to know the result of the de-
alterations of the Joint High Commission, aud
for once the Especial" is at loss to satisfy
the public wants. The ravenous reporters who
attacked the Commissioners on board the
steamer at Jersey City, dOgged them on the
dock hung behind their carriage, followed
them into the hotel wash-roOm, and diligently
pumped their secretaries and their valets; who
pushed into Sir Stafford Northcote's compart-
ment in the railway-car and made minute
inventory Of his features and apparel; who
drew differences from the aspect OF a mans
eyeglasses and the expression of his nose {;
published elaborate accounts of their failure
to make Earl de Grey talk to them; and, un-
conscious of their own exquisite absurdity,
amused the town with their vulgarity and
folly these pattern journalists Of the period
are now, we say, in desperately unhappy
situation. A subject of the most sensational
character tantalizes them night and day with
their utter inability to get at it, The sessions
of the High Commission have been conducted
with a secrecy which even Ncw-York
Especial" cannot penetrate. The key-holes
have been tried, but they are all closed. The
secretaries have been fattcTed and cajOled
but they wont speak. Sudden irruptiOns have
been made into the bosom of diplomatic
families, but the ladies are rs reticent as their
lords. The English Commissioners civily de-
cline the honor of an interview with the
scribes whom they don't know and don't want
r1,, ,ipci.., For
wonder, keep their own counsel. Officials at
the State Department and the White House
won't blab-perhaps because they are not in
the secret. The President has been assailed !;
but anybody who can make him talk when he
does MT want to must be great deal smarter
than any interviewer who has yet appeared.


Nothing accordingly is left for the CORE
spondents who have orders to get, at any cost
of money or decency, the substance of the
international settlement, except to invent IT..
In the performance Of this task we are bound
to admit that they have shown mbOunded
industry and q courage and versatility worthy
of all praise. A great many distinct and
irrec0ncilable arrangements, all resting upon the
unsubstantial authority of nothing at all, have
been telegraphcd to The Herald and few other





among them. If we can believe the cOrre-
spOndents, they must all have had access to
the secret minutes of the Commission, and
all drawn from them different statements
of the result. Such variations are enter
tanning to the intellect and soothing
to the feelings, but do not inspire that con-
fidence we should be glad to feel in whatever
is printed by New-York newspaper.
Neither is it reassuring to notice that when
ever the correspondents depart from the safe
ebscurity of vague generalities they startle us
with some stupendous absurdity, an impos-
sibe claim, or an inconceivable concession,
entirely beyond any reasonable mans powers
of belief. One has discovered that the British
Government wants to be paid for property in
slaves; and another assures mankind that ue
are to pay Great Britain for the depredations
of the Alabama!


Is 1t uncharitable to suggest that certain po-
litical gentlemen in Washington may have been
cramming" our friends the special cOrre-
spOndents 1t is curious coincidence that
whenever particularly fwild cock-and-bull
story about the doings of the Joint High
Commission is fed out TO the press there comes
an announcement about the same time that