of the Newspaper Press,' vol. ii. pp. 414-15, states that Gordon Bennett calculated that "by these means his infant paper [The New York Herald] would be brought into notice.'" So fierce were Bennett's attacks on other editors that there was nothing for them to do but to thrash their assailant. General Webb, editor of The New York Courier, was the first who resorted to this method of reply. The following day Bennett's own paper came out with a contents bill printed in the largest type the office could produce, announcing "Mr. James Gordon Bennett Publicly Horsewhipped." Passers-by could hardly believe the evidence of their own eyes, and they were obliged to buy the paper to get convinced. In a few days another contents bill appeared: "Mr. James Gordon Bennett Horsewhipped a Second Time." Bennett's contention in what he wrote of the affair was that the editorial world of New York were jealous of his high position, &c.
As an instance of a specially sensational poster the following from America would be difficult to beat:—
A Family Poisoned.
An Alleged Murderer Arrested.
A Brother Shoots a Sister.
A Phildelphian's Pocket Picked of 8,000 Dollars.
A Swindler Arrested.
Wanton Murder by a Young Man in Philadelphia.
A Bostonian Beats his Mother's Brains out.
A Policeman Fatally Shot by Burglars in Washington.
Sentence on a Wife-Killer.
An United States Soldier Shot.
A Pack Proprietor Shot at a Race.
Counterfeiters Nabbed in St. Louis.
Two Murders in Nashville.
A Forger arrested in Washington.
Desperate Attempt of a Convicted Murderer to Escape.
Man Murdered in Richmond.
Lynch Law in Minnesota.
A Man cuts his Wife's Throat.
A Coroner Shot.
Murder by a Negress.
Was it not a fact that The Times, The Morning Post, and The Morning Advertiser did not issue contents bills until many years after other papers had done so regularly?
Among my books, I have a paper-covered volume for which I paid a penny at a second-hand stall. It is called 'Progress of British Newspapers in the Nineteenth Century.' On p. 195 of this book there is a passage, in the final lines of which I think may be detected the origin of the contents bill as we now know it:—
"The gathering in and transmission of news was attended with extraordinary cost and trouble in the thirties and before the electric telegraph came into vogue. Mounted men, with relays of horses, brought intelligence of important events from distant parts of the kingdom, and if, as was sometimes the case, a good rider got over the ground at the rate of twelve miles an hour, the circumstance was regarded as being worthy of special mention in the columns of the journal served by him. On the Derby Day it was one of the sights of London to see the couriers of The Globe, The Sun, or Bell's Life ride across Waterloo Bridge into the Strand, with the names of the first three horses, and a brief comment on the incidents of the race, in a sealed pouch slung round their necks. Thousands of people paid the penny toll to go across the bridge and witness 'the straight run in' of the mounted messengers. Loud were the cries of the throng as the gates were thrown wide open, and the men were seen riding furiously up the Waterloo Road. The rivalry was very great, and under the stimulating influences of the hour, the excitement on the Downs fifteen miles away was, in a measure, transferred to London. Placards, already partly prepared, were then filled up, with the names of the first, second, and third horses, and pasted on the windows, while tumultuous throngs of sporting men surged up, struggling, fighting, roaring, pencil and notebook in hand to copy them."
187 Piccadilly, W.
An Epigram by J. C. Scalinger (12 S. i. 67).—It is rather surprising to meet with the false quantity Vasconia in the verse of so famous a scholar. His son would hardly have been guilty of forgetting his Juvenal in this way. I have somewhere seen the saying "Apud Biscayos bibere et vivere idem est" attributed to an emperor. This looks like the original of Scaliger's epigram, but I cannot remember where I found it. Can any one furnish the reference? Henry Bradley.
Oxford.
Patterson Family (11 S. xii. 221, 289, 308).—A thin volume, I think 8vo, is published on the history of this family. I presented a copy to one of the name twenty or twenty-five years ago, but cannot recall author or publisher. Second-hand booksellers will readily do so. J. K.
Cape of Good Hope.
Duchesses who have married Commoners (11 S. xii. 501; 12 S. i. 36, 57, 96).—In The Genealogical Magazine, vol. vii. p. 259, will be found reproduced, from 'The Blood Royal of Britain,' a picture of Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, elder daughter of the Princess Mary (Tudor) by Charles (Brandon), Duke of Suffolk, with her second husband, Adrian Stokes. Nicolas's 'Synopsis' relates that her husband, Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset and Duke of Suffolk, was attainted and beheaded in 1554, when all his honours became forfeited. John Livesey.
