parties adopting this medium as the best for giving publicity to their opinions.” 1 Somewhat similar conditions were found in America during the same period . Newspapers were small, unattractive, and in
adequate, and the overworked editor, who probably was also the
printer, at important times had the assistance of unpaid contrib utors; the clergyman , the lawyer , the scholar were glad to
write special letters to the press and thus have a channel for the expression of their individual opinions.?
If at an early period it was the special correspondent that de veloped into the pamphleteer , at a later period it was the reporter
that developed into the special correspondent, - a fact recorded
in the term " grand reportage” applied in France to special cor respondence. Again , it has been the interview that has grown into special correspondence , as on the other hand special cor respondence leads to the interview .
The functions of special correspondence have come to be even more various than have been its origins. Special correspondence has given rise to war correspondence that during war overshadows that branch of the press from which it has been developed . In
time of peace, the ebb and flow of the tide brings again special correspondence into the more important place, and its various
branches are distinctly classified. The staff correspondent is the regularly appointed resident representative of the press at home and foreign capitals. He lives in the shadow of foreign courts and
describes the events in the daily life of high potentates or of those
below stairs. He lives at national capitals and reports political policies and conditions.3
“ Our own correspondent” travels
hither and yon and describes great public functions, as coro nations, royalmarriages , christenings, or funerals, and the general pageantry of life ; the inaugurationsofpresidents of great republics
or of small colleges ; the national meetings of bankers, dry goods merchants, or of learned societies ; the calamities in the wake of
fire, flood and earthquake. He travels abroad and describes the unusual scenes, customs, and habits of countries little known to 1 Letters of Junius, edited by John Wade, II, iii. 2 M . C . Tyler , The Literary History of the American Revolution , I, 19.
3 T. C . Crawford, “ Special Correspondents at Washington,” Cosmopoli tan, January, 1892, 12: 351 -360 .
