duct in a rich and powerful man was no more than decent. The men
accepted his terms with alacrity.

A great secret of "The Times'" popularity has been its occasional
advocacy of the public interest to its own temporary loss. Early in its
history it ridiculed the advertisers of quack medicines, and has never
hesitated to expose unsound projects though ever so profusely
advertised. During the railroad mania of 1845, when the railroad
advertisements in "The Times" averaged sixty thousand dollars a week, it
earnestly, eloquently, and every day, week after week, exposed the empty
and ruinous nature of the railway schemes. It continued this course
until the mighty collapse came which fulfilled its own prophecies, and
paralyzed for a time the business of the country.

Was this pure philanthropy? It was something much rarer than that--it
was good sense. It was sound judgment. It was _not_ killing the goose
that laid the golden egg.

Old readers of the London "Times" were a little surprised, perhaps, to
see the honors paid by that journal to its late editor-in-chief. An
obituary notice of several columns was surrounded by black lines; a mark
of respect which the paper would pay only to members of the royal
family, or to some public man of universal renown. Never before, I
believe, did this newspaper avow to the world that its editor had a
name; and the editor himself usually affected to conceal his
professional character. Former editors, in fact, would flatly deny their
connection with the paper, and made a great secret of a fact which was
no secret at all.

Mr. Carlyle, in his "Life of Sterling," gives a curious illustration of
this. Sir Robert Peel, in 1835, upon resigning his ministry, wrote a
letter to the editor of "The Times," thanking him for the powerful
support which his administration had received from that journal. Sir
Robert Peel did not presume to address this letter to any individual by
name, and he declared in this letter that the editor was unknown to him
even by sight. Edward Sterling replied in a lofty tone, very much as one
king might reply to another, and signed the letter simply "The Editor of
'The Times.'"

But all this is changed. The affectation of secrecy, long felt to be
ridiculous, has been abandoned, and the editor now circulates freely
among his countrymen in his true character, as the conductor of the
first journal in Europe. At his death he receives the honors due to the
office he holds and t