lly have been the popular side. But when
the actor retorted by going to the office of the Herald and committing
upon its proprietor a most violent and aggravated assault,
accompanying his blows with acts of peculiar indecency, it plainly
appeared, that the sympathies of the public were wholly with the
actor,--not with the champion of an injured woman. His hand had been
against every man, and in his hour of need, when he was greatly in the
right, every heart was closed against him. Not the less, however, did
the same public buy his paper, because it contained what the public
wanted, i.e. the news of the day, vividly exhibited.

The course of this curious specimen of our kind during the late war
was perfectly characteristic. During the first two years of the war he
was inclined to think that the Rebels would be successful so far as to
win over the Democratic party to their side, and thus constitute
Jefferson Davis President of the United States. If he had any
preference as to the result of the contest, it was probably this. If
the flag of the United States had been trailed in the mud of Nassau
Street, followed by hooting ruffians from the Sixth Ward, and the
symbol of the Rebellion had floated in its stead from the cupola of
the City Hall, saluted by Captain Rynders's gun, it would not have
cost this isolated alien one pang,--unless, perchance, a rival
newspaper had been the first to announce the fact. _That_ indeed,
would have cut him to the heart. Acting upon the impression that the
Rebellion, in some way, would triumph, he gave it all the support
possible, and continued to do so until it appeared certain that,
whatever the issue of the strife, the South was lost for a long time
as a patron of New York papers.

The key to most of the political vagaries of this paper is given in a
single sentence of one of its first numbers: "_We have never been in a
minority, and we never shall be_" In his endeavors to act upon this
lofty principle, he was sadly puzzled during the war,--so difficult
was it to determine which way the cat would finally jump. He held
himself ready, however, to jump with it, whichever side the dubious
animal might select. At the same time, he never for an instant relaxed
his endeavors to obtain the earliest and fullest intelligence from the
seat of war. Never perhaps did any journal in any country maintain so
great an expenditure for news. Every man in the field representing
that paper was more than autho