tor does the paste-and-scissors work. But let us return
to the daily paper;--outside of the office of which we have been so rude
as to leave the reader standing all this while.

At present there is no sign of life. It is true, already the postman has
delivered innumerable letters from all quarters of the globe--that the
electric telegraph has sent its messages--that the railways have brought
their despatches--that the publishers have furnished books of all sorts
and sizes for review--and that tickets from all the London exhibitions
are soliciting a friendly notice. There let them lie unheeded, till the
coming man appears. Even the publisher, who was here at five o'clock in
the morning, has gone home: only a few clerks, connected with the
financial department of the paper, or to receive advertisements, are on
the spot. We may suppose that somewhere between one and two the first
editorial visit will be paid, and that then this chaos is reduced to
order; and that the ideas, which are to be represented in the paper of
to-morrow, are discussed, and the daily organs received, and gossip of
all sorts from the clubs--from the house--from the city--collected and
condensed; a little later perhaps assistants arrive--one to cull all the
sweets from the provincial journals--another to look over the files of
foreign papers--another it may be to translate important documents. The
great machine is now getting steadily at work. Up in the composing-room
are printers already fingering their types.

In the law-courts, a briefless barrister is taking notes--in the
police-courts, reporters are at work, and far away in the city, "our city
correspondent" is collecting the commercial news of the hour--and in all
parts of London penny-a-liners, like eagles scenting carrion, are
ferreting out for the particulars of the last "extraordinary elopement,"
or "romantic suicide." The later it grows the more gigantic becomes the
pressure. The parliamentary reporters are now furnishing their quota;
gentlemen who have been assisting at public-dinners come redolent of
post-prandial eloquence, which has to be reduced to sense and grammar.
It is now midnight, and yet we have to wait the arrival of the close of
the parliamentary debate, on which the editor must write a leader before
he leaves; and the theatrical critic's verdict on the new play. In the
meanwhile the foreman of the printers takes stock, being perfectly aware
that he cannot perform the