than the sword, the pistol, or the walking-stick. They filled their
columns with malicious squibs and furious diatribes against
each other. The vituperation of the press knew no bounds. By
way of illustration the following epithets used by Park Benjamin
in The Signal, by James Watson Webb in The Courier and
Enquirer, and by M. M. Noah in The Evening Star may be
given: "Obscene vagabond," " Loathsome and leprous slanderer
and libeler," "Unprincipled conductor," "Rascal," "Rogue,"
"Cheat," "Veteran blackguard," "Habitual Liar," "Polluted
wretch," "Foreign vagabond," " Foreign imposter," "Monster,"
"Daring infidel," "Pestilential scoundrel," "Venomous reptile,"
ad infinitum.
In answer to the charge that he was once a pedler in the streets of Glasgow, Bennett once replied in his paper as follows:
I am, and have been, a pedler and part of my name is Gordon. This I admit. From my youth up I have been a pedler, not of tapes and laces, but of thoughts, feelings, lofty principles, and intellectual truths. I am now a wholesale dealer in the same line of business, and people generally believe I have quite a run, and what is better, no dread of suspension. I was educated and intended for a religious sect, but the Almighty, in his wisdom, meant me for truth and mankind, and I will fulfil my destiny in spite of all the opposition made to me either in the old or new hemisphere. Yes, I have been a pedler, and am still a pedler of the thoughts, and feelings, and high imaginings of the past and present ages. I peddle my wares as Homer did his as Shakespeare did his as every great intellectual and mighty pedler of the past did and when I shall have finished my peddling in this world, I trust I shall be per- mitted to peddle in a better and happier region for ever and ever.
Much has been made of two articles which appeared in The British Foreign Quarterly Review and which attacked most bit- terly the newspapers of the United States in general and The New York Herald in particular. The Westminster Review an- swered these charges sufficiently when it remarked that Ameri- can journalism was no worse than English. There is every reason to believe that the articles in The Foreign Quarterly Review were not written in good faith.
INNOVATIONS OF
What really made The New York Herald, however, yet remains to be outlined. In the second number a Wall Street feature was
