unprecedented success is due to many of its
quite unique peculiarities. Its originator, now a millionaire, is proud
of relating that he arrived in Madrid with two dollars in his pocket. He
it was who conceived the brilliant idea of founding a journal which
should be the special organ of all. "_Diario politico independiente, y
de noticias: Eco imparcial de la opinion y de la prensa_," he calls it,
and the fourth page, devoted to advertisements, would make the fortune
of ten others. His boast was that it had no editor, paid no writers, and
employed no correspondents. It simply possessed a certain number of
"caterers" for news, who thrust themselves everywhere, picking up
morsels of news--good, bad, and indifferent, for the most part scribbled
in pencil and thrown into a receptacle from which they are drawn in any
order, or none, and handed to the printer as "copy"; coming out in
short, detached paragraphs of uneven length, ranging from three lines to
twenty. Extracts from foreign newspapers, official news, provincial
reports, money matters, religious announcements, accidents, everything
comes out pell-mell--absolutely all "the voices of the flying day," in
Madrid and everywhere else, in one jumble, without order or sequence,
one paragraph frequently being a direct contradiction to another in the
same sheet. There are three editions during the day, but the
"Night-cap," which sums up them all, appears about ten o'clock or later,
and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that it is bought by almost
every householder in the city.

The nature of the _Correspondencia_ has changed very little since its
earliest days. It is a little more dignified, condescends even to short
articles on current subjects of interest, but it is the same universal
provider of news and gossip as ever. It goes with the times; so far as
it has any leanings at all, it is with the Government of the hour; but
it is for the most part quite impersonal, and it makes itself agreeable
to all parties alike. Santa Ana, the clever initiator of this new and
highly successful adventure in journalism, has two other very prosperous
commercial enterprises in his hands--the manufacture of paper for
printing and the supply of natural flowers. He himself is an enormous
and indefatigable worker, personally looks after his various businesses,
especially the _Correspondencia_, and, mindful of his own early
difficulties, he has created benefit societies for his workmen.

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