"That is a rough piece of business!" said Dan.

"Fearful!" said Pete.

"That's durn queer work for a hoss now, ain't it?" said Levi, a tall, keen fellow intended by nature for a lawyer.

"It don't look like a hoss to me," said another.

And so they went on to comment and examine. It appeared that the rail under which Willie was jammed was dented and marked as if hammered by many blows. The three innocent boys who had originated the "hoss theory," as the men called it, accounted for the marks on the rail by saying that the horse pawed at Willie after he was under the fence.

The men said they knew better; they began to question the boys as if they entertained suspicions in regard to them, and the boys became very uncomfortable. The men asked repeatedly just how the body was lying when the boys had found it, and inquired again and again whether they had moved it at all. The lads felt these insinuations very keenly.

Men continued to come, and at length women came in groups, until quite an assembly was gathered there in the open field. Finally Walter returned slowly up the hill with a few friends, as if he were reluctant to come again to the place. Just as he reached the spot, good old Father Mosely, and his wife, a sharp, managing woman, came from the opposite direction and met Walter. Father and Mother Mosely lived down by the school-house at the other side of the settlement.

Mother Mosely at once seized hold of Walter, and while she wrung his hand exclaimed in a high voice, that seemed to the boys not a becoming or natural voice in which to express grief, "Oh, Walter! we can't give him up; no, no, no, oh dear!"

The gesticulation which accompanied this was tragic and stagey, and it was by far the most theatrical thing done upon that occasion.

Father Mosely spoke a few words which interested the people very much.

Hearing some allusion made to the "hoss theory" he said, —

"The little boy down at the school says it was a sheep that did it."

And then it came out that Willie's playmate, Charlie Sanders, was "the little boy down at the school," and that Charlie had cried all the forenoon and dared not tell the teacher what the matter was; but finally at the noon-spell he told a little girl that Willie did not come to school because a sheep in the lot had chased them and knocked Willie down, and he could not get up.

Here was light indeed, especially for the three lads, who had begun to feel, since the horse theory was criticised, as if they themselves were culprits unless they accounted for "the murder."

Across the lot the sheep were still feeding. A young farmer stepped out of the crowd and called "Nan, nan, nan," and the flock, raising their heads, responded with a multitude of ba-a-as, and came galloping over the grassy field. At their head was "the old ram," a fine "buck" with great horns curling in spirals around his ears.

The young farmer held Willie's basket in one hand, and making a brawny fist of the other, struck out toward the ram, offering him battle. The buck at once brought his head down in line of attack, squared himself for a big butt, and came on with a little run, and a charge that in an artistic point of view was quite beautiful. The farmer, stepping aside, caught him by his horns as he came, and that magnificent charge was his last.

There was a blood-thirsty feeling pervading the crowd, undoubtedly, but Buck had a fair trial. There on his white bold face and horns were the bright carmine drops of fresh blood. No other witnesses were needed. In a moment a glittering keen knife flashed from somebody's keeping into the bright sunshine, and in a moment more a purple stream dyed the white wool around Buck's throat, and there was a red pool upon the grass; and a little later, as Dan remarked, some tough mutton."

66

The excitement abated; for the mys

tery was cleared up and Justice had its due. Kind-hearted Joe, who superintended the Sabbath-school and led the religious element of the neighborhood, stepped forward and said to the crowd: "Well, boys, it is all right here, and no suspicion and no need of any ceremony; let us take him home."

And then Joe took Willie in his arms and held him closely with the little face against his own, as if he were still living, and started for the cottage. Some of the people followed in a picturesque procession, through the pasture lot and down the bank and along by the shore of the pond. When Walter's house was reached, a few of the women went in to soothe Mary; and Joe and the doctor went in also, and the people clustered about the door.

In the course of an hour it seemed that all had been done that could be done for Walter and Mary, and the people, except a few, who remained as watchers and helpers, dispersed to their homes.

The three days that followed were bright, sunny days. A strange stillness and unusual hush reigned in the neighborhood of the cottage. The harsh, grating sound of the saw-mill was not heard as at other times, for the mill was stopped in token of respect for the great sorrow. Only the softly flowing stream was heard, mingling its susurrus with the hum of the bees in the garden.

Now and then groups of children, dressed in their Sunday attire, would come down the bank, and with hushed voices and fearful looks steal up toward the cottage door. Then kind Joe would see them and would come out and take them in to see Willie; and after a few moments they would issue forth again, and walk sadly homeward, and as they went the sunlight dried their tears.

And farmers and hunters came from many miles away "to see the little boy that was killed by a sheep." Some of the rough men manifested their sympathy by exhibiting vindictive feelings. toward the ram. After going in and viewing the bruised corpse, they would come out with dark, determined looks, and grasping again the long rifles which they had brought with them and "stood up" by the door, they would inquire of any by-stander, with fierce emphasis, whether the ram that "did that" was dead. On being informed of his execution, they would say, "That will do," with an air that implied how much they would have enjoyed it to have had a shot at him. Indeed, it appeared that if the poor brute had been possessed of fifty or a hundred lives, so that each irate hunter might have taken one, it would have been a great relief and satisfaction.

On the fourth day Willie was buried. Mary continued inconsolable. All of the social influences which the neighborhood could command were put in operation from the time of the funeral onward, in order to cheer her and bind up her wounded spirit. Social meetings were held and pleasant little gatherings made for her. Wherever there was enjoyment Mary must be. She gratefully submitted herself to all their kindness, and tried to please her friends. But it seemed to do her little good. She remained pale, weak, and dispirited.

After a few months Walter and Mary discovered that somehow they were not suited with their farm. They sold the place at the first opportunity, and returned to their former home in New England, the remains of little Willie having been forwarded in advance to a cemetery there, with which they in their early days had been familiar.

P. Deming.

الات

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THE readers of Mr. Frederic Hudson's entertaining history of Journalism in the United States from 1690 to 1872 —that is, from the birth of Franklin to the death of Greeley — have learned therefrom, long since, what the modern newspaper is, how it originated, and whither it is tending. It is a common saying in England that America is governed by newspapers, and this by way of sneer, according to the charming fashion of Englishmen. But long ago Jefferson anticipated and met this reproach, when he said, "I would rather live in a country with newspapers and without a government, than in a country with a government but without newspapers." The alternative is seldom presented nowadays; indeed, it has been found easier to overthrow a government at Paris, Madrid, Mexico, or Rome, than to stop a well-managed newspaper. The steam-press, the electric telegraph, the enormous development of commerce and industry in the last half-century, accompanied as they have been by the swift growth of democratic ideas and institutions, social as well as political, have given newspapers a position and a responsibility which is but imperfectly understood, even by those who have the most to do with them. Journalism has been called the Fourth Estate (though what the other three are in America, it might puzzle us to tell), and certainly it is somewhat in the attitude of the Third Estate of France, as described by the Abbé Sieyès in his brief catechism: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it hitherto been? Nothing. What does it aspire to be? Something." Journalism in America is something, has been nothing, and aspires to be everything. There are no limits, in the ambition of enterprising editors, to the future power of the American newspaper. It is not only to make and unmake presidents and par

ties, institutions and reputations; but it must regulate the minutest details of our daily lives, and be school-master, preacher, lawgiver, judge, jury, executioner, and policeman, in one grand combination. We find it intruding and interfering everywhere. It reports everything, has an espionage as universal and active as any despot ever established, and makes its comments with that species of boldness which the undiscriminating call impudence, on all that happens, or is imagined to happen or to be about to happen. It scorns to confine itself to the realm of the past and the present, but deals largely with the future. A German play represents in one of its scenes "Adam crossing the stage on his way to be created;" and much of the news gathered by our dailies is of this anticipative sort; imposing upon these active journals the necessity of contradicting on Tuesday the intelligence they have given on Monday.

Sydney Smith was fond of dating events before or after the invention of common-sense;" and certainly the common-sense that contrived the modern newspaper does not go back many centuries. It is traditional to speak of newspapers as first originating in Venice early in the fifteenth century; but this Venetian gazzetta (whence our gazette) was only a monthly government bulletin, and unworthy of the name of newspaper. Dr. Johnson, in his life of Addison, asserts that "this mode of conveying cheap and easy knowledge began among us in the Civil War," that is, in Cromwell's time; but Cleveland, the loyal poet, affirms in his Character of a London Diurnal, that "the original sinner of this kind was Dutch; Gallo-Belgicus the Protoplas, and the modern Mercuries but Hans en Kelders." Fabricius, the German contemporary of Addison, gives the date of this Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus as from

1555 to 1632, and mentions that it had been collected into eighteen octavo volumes, and published at Frankfort. Carew's Survey of Cornwall, published in 1602, quotes some news from this Flemish newspaper. Its title of Mercury was copied by the real founder of English newspapers, Marchamont Nedham, whose Mercurius Britannicus did good service against King Charles and the prelates in the early years of the Long Parliament. As Captain Nedham is not only historically but typically the first representative of the modern "able editor," it may be well to speak of him more at length.

Disraeli the elder (whose account of the origin of newspapers, it must be said, is very inaccurate) calls Nedham "the great patriarch of newspaper writers, a man of versatile talents and more versatile politics; a bold adventurer, and the most successful, because the most profligate, of his tribe." Some account of his life is given by old Anthony à Wood in his Athenæ Oxonienses, from which we learn that he was a student of Oxford about the time that Milton was studying at Cambridge; and that, like Milton, he came afterwards to London and was a school-master there. Then he dabbled in law and was an under clerk at Gray's Inn; afterwards "studied physic and practised chymestry;" and finally, he became a soldier and was known as Captain Nedham of Gray's Inn. By this time we have got to the year 1643, when he began the publication of his weekly "newsbook," Mercurius Britannicus. Then, says the Tory Anthony, "siding with the rout and scum of the people, he made them weekly sport by railing at all that was noble in his Intelligence, called Mercurius Britannicus, wherein his endeavors were to sacrifice the fame of some lord, or any person of quality, and of the king himself, to the beast with many heads." He soon became popular, and "whatever he wrote was deemed oracular." In 1647, however, either because he thought the Presbyterian party were going too far, or for a worse reason, he went on his knees to King Charles, was

reconciled to the royalists, and, to quote Wood again, "he soon after wrote Mercurius Pragmaticus, which, being very witty, satirical against the Presbyterians, and full of loyalty, made him known to and admired by the bravadoes and wits of those times." He began this second newspaper in September, 1647, when the king was intriguing with Cromwell and with the Presbyterian party, to see which would offer him the best terms; he seems to have continued it till the king's cause became hopeless; when, persuaded by Bradshaw and Speaker Lenthall, as Woods says, "he changed his style once more in favor of the Independents." This was early in 1649; and now he again christened his Mercury, and called it Mercurius Politicus, under which name it continued for more than ten years, and through the whole of Cromwell's reign. "He was then the Goliath of the Philistines," says Wood, "the great champion of the late usurper; and his pen, in comparison with others, was as a weaver's beam." In 1659 the government ceased to make his "weekly newsbook" their official organ, and, on the restoration of Charles II. in 1660, Nedham fled to Holland, fearing for his life. After a while he was pardoned by the king and allowed to return, but forbidden to continue his newspaper; and, instead of him, the servile wit, Roger L'Estrange, became the official editor.

The career of Marchamont Nedham has been repeated in every generation since his day, by some able man, in every country where newspapers have flourished. His first successor was De Foe, the novelist, who began to publish his Review in 1704, and continued it through nearly the whole reign of Queen Anne, supporting sometimes one side in politics, and sometimes the other, but always with spirit, and with an eye to the good of his country. His advice to editors, based, as he says, upon his own experience, is as good now as when he wrote it: If a writer resolves to venture upon the dangerous precipice of telling unbiased truth, let him proclaim war with mankind, neither to give nor

take quarter. If he tells the crimes of great men, they fall upon him with the iron hands of the law; if he tells their virtues (when they have any), then the mob attack him with slander.

But if he regards truth, let him expect martyrdom on both sides, and then he may go on fearless; and this is the course I take myself."

If De Foe meant to say that he had been martyred for his truth-telling, he was right, for he began his newspaper, as his contemporary, Bunyan, did his sacred romance, in jail, after he had been set in the pillory by Queen Anne's government for writing satires on the high church party. He was thrown into Newgate in 1703, and pardoned out by the queen, at the request of Harley and Godolphin, in the latter part of 1704, when his semi-weekly Review had been in course of publication for eight or ten months. In March, 1705, he made it tri-weekly, and it so continued till May, 1713, when he was again imprisoned, fined, and compelled by his misfortunes to suspend the publication of his newspaper. He was a second time pardoned out by the queen, but she died the next year, and he was left with no powerful protector against the malice of his enemies. The persecutions to which he was exposed, along with other causes, now induced De Foe to accept a situation from which most men of honor would have shrunk, and which must be regarded as a blemish on his character, in spite of the arguments used in his behalf by his latest biographer, Mr. Lee. He became connected with the Tory newspaper, Mist's Journal, and was concerned in its management for several years, during the reign of George I., all the while acting as a spy on its contributors, and in correspondence with the Whig ministry, who were glad to make this use of his services. De Foe's contributions to this and other newspapers, during the last fifteen years of his life,1 have been culled from them by Mr. Lee and published in two large volumes. They show with what zeal and industry he followed

1 He died in 1731, at the age of seventy-one. The misfortunes of his last years are believed by Mr.

the profession of journalism, at an advanced age, and when he had become a famous and popular author.

As Nedham and De Foe are good examples of public journalists discussing politics, so Addison is the earliest instance of journalistic success, apart from political or religious controversy. The Spectator, though a daily, could hardly be called a newspaper. Its predecessor, the Tatler, had increased its circulation by publishing news from the Continent; but when Steele gave up the Tatler in 1710, and joined his friend, Addison, in beginning the Spectator (March 1, 1711), he ceased to make news any part of his plan, and devoted the new journal solely to literature. At first it was somewhat colored with the liberal politics of its editors, but this was gradually changed, until it became equally popular with all parties. But Steele, who was a warm patriot and partisan, soon grew weary of this neutrality, and in his Guardian (1713), and Englishman (1714), returned to political writing, in consequence of which he was censured and expelled from the House of Commons in 1714. Nor did he take any share in the revived Spectator of 1714, which was managed by Addison alone, without any meddling with politics.

The success of the Spectator was something extraordinary for that period. It was printed on a half sheet "of the vilest paper of which any specimens have descended to posterity," says Chalmers, and sold at first for a penny, at which price it had a daily sale of from three to ten thousand. When the stamp duty was first imposed (August 1, 1712) the additional half penny thus exacted reduced the sale one half, for the price was raised to two pence. This tax eventually killed the Spectator, as it did Swift's Examiner; and no doubt it had something to do with the failure of De Foe's Review. Occasional issues of the Spectator seem to have sold as many as fourteen thousand copies; a very large number when we consider that the London Morning Post, nearly Lee to have been in some way connected with his unhandsome behavior towards Mist and the Tories.