STEAM EXPEESSES OF " THE SUN"
In running steam expresses to obtain early news possibly The New York Sun stood first. Its publisher once asserted that the secret of its success was mainly due to its enterprise in this direc- tion. From 1842 to 1847 it spent over twenty thousand dollars in running such expresses a large sum for the time when finan- cial returns from advertising were not large. In justice to other Gotham papers it must be said that The Sun was not infre- quently eclipsed in this field by The Herald or by The Tribune. A whole chapter could be devoted to interesting accounts of races between newspaper expresses. On one occasion to get the Euro- pean news which was coming by way of Boston both The Sun and The Herald had a locomotive, but on rival tracks. The reporter of The Sun was the first to leave Boston, but he was no sooner out of sight than the reporter of The Herald sent his loco- motive to the round-house and got out a special edition of The Herald in Boston on the press of The Mail. This special edition of The Herald, sent by train to New York, was the first to give the news, for The Sun, thinking that the express of The Herald had been wrecked when it did not arrive, had not rushed the news into type as rapidly as usual. On another occasion a representative of The Tribune, in order to have the exclusive use of an important item of news, deliberately stole an engine especially chartered by The Herald and then ran away with it to New York. In those days newspapers did not bother their heads with the nice questions of newspaper ethics : it was simply a fight to get the news and to get it first in print.
EDITOKIAL COMBATS
During the days of personal journalism a large amount of editorial space was frequently given to abuse of rival editors. Some of these tilts between editors, though often unmannerly, were very interesting.
James Watson Webb, of The Courier and Enquirer, once took revenge upon Horace Greeley, of The Tribune, by attacking what he thought were some of the eccentricities of the latter. Greeley came back with the rejoinder in The Tribune which completely
