e
"Gazette" for substitute work. He retained but fifteen dollars and
gave the rest to his father, with whom he had moved from Vermont to
Western Pennsylvania, and for whom he had camped out many a night to
guard the sheep from wolves. He was nearly twenty-one; and, although
tall and gawky, with tow-colored hair, a pale face and whining voice,
he resolved to seek his fortune in New York City. Slinging his bundle
of clothes on a stick over his shoulder, he walked sixty miles through
the woods to Buffalo, rode on a canal boat to Albany, descended the
Hudson in a barge, and reached New York, just as the sun was rising,
August 18, 1831.

He found board over a saloon at two dollars and a half a week. His
journey of six hundred miles had cost him but five dollars. For days
Horace wandered up and down the streets, going into scores of buildings
and asking if they wanted "a hand"; but "no" was the invariable reply.
His quaint appearance led many to think he was an escaped apprentice.
One Sunday at his boarding-place he heard that printers were wanted at
"West's Printing-office." He was at the door at five o'clock Monday
morning, and asked the foreman for a job at seven. The latter had no
idea that a country greenhorn could set type for the Polyglot Testament
on which help was needed, but said: "Fix up a case for him and we'll
see if he _can_ do anything." When the proprietor came in, he objected
to the new-comer and told the foreman to let him go when his first
day's work was done. That night Horace showed a proof of the largest
and most correct day's work that had then been done.

In ten years he was a partner in a small printing-office. He founded
the "New Yorker," the best weekly paper in the United States, but it
was not profitable. When Harrison was nominated for President in 1840,
Greeley started "The Log-Cabin," which reached the then fabulous
circulation of ninety thousand. But on this paper at a penny per copy
he made no money. His next venture was "The New York Tribune," price
one cent. To start it he borrowed a thousand dollars and printed five
thousand copies of the first number. It was difficult to give them all
away. He began with six hundred subscribers, and increased the list to
eleven thousand in six weeks. The demand for the "Tribune" grew faster
than new machinery could be obtained to print it. It was a paper whose
editor, whatever his mistakes, always tried to be right.

James Gordon Benn