Sergeant Glover's hands, he made an arrangement with the Government of Louis Napoleon to become the strenuous and daily supporter of the Imperial régime, in return for which he was not only to receive an important and lucrative concession for a telegraphic line of communication over a great part of France, but certain sums of money of large amount. The Imperial Government, however, failed to fulfil their engagement as regarded the telegraphic concession, and though he received several thousand pounds for his advocacy of Imperialism in the Morning Chronicle, yet he was not satisfied with that amount, while he complained energetically to the French Government of the breach of their covenant with him in the matter of the telegraphic concession. The result was a quarrel between Mr. Glover and Imperialism, and he then published to the world the fact that the identification of the Morning Chronicle with the dynasty of Louis Napoleon had almost commercially ruined the paper. Actions were brought by him in the French Courts to recover sums which he maintained were due to him by the French Government, and also for damages for the breach of their engagements in the matter of the telegraphic concessions; but they were unsuccessful, and Mr. Glover then disposed of the paper to Mr. Stiff, at the time proprietor of the London Journal and other publications of the cheap class. Mr. Glover, during the few years of his proprietorship, had a succession of editors, but none of them were men of any note. Mr. Stiff, soon

after becoming possessed of the Morning Chronicle, reduced the price from threepence to a penny; but the experiment did not succeed. The whole thing, on the contrary, proved a disastrous speculation. In two or three years the Morning Chronicle, after an existence of upwards of ninety years, was discontinued, and as the records of the Bankruptcy Court showed soon after, not a day too soon; for it was proved in that Court that during the last year of Mr. Stiff's proprietorship, and the last of the paper's existence, the losses were not less than 12,0007.

PAST

CHAPTER XIII.

METROPOLITAN DAILY PAPERS.

THE MORNING HERALD-THE SUN.

Historical Notices and Anecdotes in Connexion with both these Journals.

BESIDES the two journals I have here mentioned, there were other two, both evening papers, which have within the last few years made their exit from the newspaper world. But there is nothing in either of them which requires a special notice. One was the Express, which being an offshoot from the Daily News partook, politically and otherwise, essentially of its character. The other was the Glowworm; but it did not embrace all the features which are necessary to constitute a newspaper, in the more comprehensive sense of the term. The Express promised well for the first few years of its existence, but soon began to fall off in circulation, and died after a life extending to eight or nine years. The Glowworm only lived four or five years.

The next of the past Metropolitan daily papers which has a claim on our attention is the Morning Herald. It has not long left the world, having been among us until 1869. It was started in the year 1780,

not in 1782, as stated by some writers on the Newspaper Press. Its originator was a Rev. Henry Bate, who had been previously editor of the Morning Post, but having quarrelled with some of those who were associated with him in the latter journal, he started the Morning Herald, in opposition to it, which he brought out on Liberal principles. This Rev. Mr. Bate was rector of a small church, with a limited living, at Smallridge, Essex, but being fond of fashionable society, he came to reside in London, where he not only wrote largely for the Morning Post, but became author of a number of plays. His constant attendance at theatres showed that he deemed "the boxes," not the pulpit, his proper place.

He was a very excitable man, and was consequently often involved in personal quarrels, which in several instances ended in duels.

Yet this erratic clergyman and editor having defended in the Morning Herald, the Prince of Wales of that period, when his extravagant habits and immoral conduct were assailed alike in Parliament and out of it, he obtained through the combined influence of the Prince and the Duke of Clarence-afterwards respectively George IV. and William IV-a lucrative Church living. This was in 1805, and through the same royal influence he received a baronetcy in 1812. Sir Henry Bate Dudley, who took the latter name in compliance with the will of a friend who left him a large fortune, lived twelve years to enjoy his new honours, having died at Cheltenham in 1824. But

though giving the tone to the politics of the Morning Herald and writing much for it, he was not all these years what is called "the conducting editor;" for a short time only elapsed after the commencement of the Morning Herald before its editorship was confided to Mr. Alexander Chalmers; but the exact date of his appointment to that office, and the length of time he remained in it, are points on which I am unable to furnish any information. Mr. Chalmers was a native of Aberdeen, and youngest son of Mr. James Chalmers, who was the originator and first proprietor of the Aberdeen Journal, which was started in 1745 two days after the battle of Culloden, and was the first newspaper to give an account of that battle,one of the greatest in its results; for it completely crushed the rebellion got up by the friends of the Pretender. The Aberdeen Journal not only still exists, after the lapse of more than a century and a quarter, but is as vigorous and prosperous as ever. What may be deemed still more surprising is the fact that, amidst all the changes since then of newspaper proprietorships, it is still in the possession of the same family. Two great-grandsons of the projector are now the sole proprietors. Mr. Alexander Chalmers, who was one of the earliest editors of the Morning Herald, was shortly before, or soon after, connected in a literary capacity with the General Advertiser, the St. James's Chronicle, and the Morning Chronicle. He was also a voluminous writer on subjects relating to general literature. His best known and most highly