For up and down through the breadth of the | And then of voices asking for more
land

Were rout and disaster on every hand.
We fought with a stern and stubborn will
The redcoats, Indians, Tories; still,
Fighting each foot, we were driven back,
Like the stag at bay with the hounds on its
track.

But the quaint old town lay fast asleep,
All wrapped around with a silence deep;
Only the watch, with his lantern and bill,
Stops as he walks the streets all still,
And gives, with a quavering, sing-song call,
The hours: ""Tis two o' the clock, and all
Is well in the morning." The voice rings near
And loud in the silence; then, faint and clear,
Another voice like an echo fell:
""Tis two o' the clock, and all is well
In the morning." Another, another, till
They die in the distance, and all is still,
And the watchman resumes his lonely beat
With swaying light down the silent street.
Then suddenly falls another sound
On the heavy silence that broods around,
Of galloping feet on the stony ground.
With a clatter of iron hoofs, and a spark
Struck now and then from a stone in the dark,
Past the gleam of the corner light,

839

Of the news; then the sound of a banging
door,

And footsteps hurrying here and there.
Then a cheer rang out on the frosty air.
It is taken up, and around, about,
It is echoed again with lusty shout.
Then the seal of silence is broken, and out--
Where the empty night was just before-
Bursts the pent-up life with a mighty roar.
Then, rolling down through the darkness,
fell

The deep-toned bay of the State-house bell,
With a clash and a loud vibrating tone
That speak of a joy; and, one by one,
The others join in a swell of sound
Of exultation that roars around;
While bonfires, blazing up and down
Through the length and breadth of the shout-
ing town,

Throw a ruddy light, that blazes high
To meet the light of the eastern sky.
The volleys of cannon at break of day
With their loud concussions seem to say,
"We greet you at Yorktown, far away."

And so, as the dawn of that day grew bright, Was the dawn that followed the dreary night

He rides, with a flash through the shadows of Of trouble and woe and gloom and fear, night

Of steel and buckle and sabre bright.

The President's house stood grim and black,
Where the rider leaped from the horse's back,
And with a hitch of the strap or rein

He knocked at the door and he shouted amain,
With so loud a knock and so brave a shout
That the watch came crowding around, about,
And thought to arrest him out and out
For a tipsy rake on a drunken bout.

But the voices without, and the noise and
din

Through the stilly night, wake the sleepers

within.

The door is opened, a stream of light
Throws a sudden glare on the inky night
That shines on the watch, and a stranger

there

All stained with dust, in the flickering glare,
While their breaths go up on the frosty air.
Then he tells his news, in the ruddy glow:
"Cornwallis is taken at York below."

When the watchmen have heard the news,
they cry

It out with the hours, and far and nigh
It is taken up, until, one by one,
They carry it out through the sleeping town:
"Three o' the clock, and all is well.
Oh, hear the news that I have to tell:
Cornwallis is taken. The news to-day
Was brought from Yorktown, far away."

At first 'twas the gleam of a single light
That flickered across the dusk of night;
Then presently others began to flash;
Then came the sound of a rising sash,

That broke at last to a morning clear,
The first bright news of the coming day,
Brought by Tilghman, over away
From Yorktown and Gloucester, far below
To the south, a hundred years ago.

66

JOURNALISTIC LONDON.
Second Paper.

HE TIMES" has often been called the
"TH
As emblem-
Jupiter of the Press.
atic of its power, the title is well chosen.
Among all the newspapers of the world,
none has wielded so wide and extensive
an influence as this great English paper.
If buildings have a physiognomical char-
Face to face
acter of their own, those of The Times are
peculiarly representative.

with The Times office, you confront a
Enter
sturdy, immovable institution.
and make a tour of the premises, and you
are impressed with the air of order and
repose that pervades every department.
There is no hurry in The Times office.
Even when the last "forms" go down to
press, they go in a calm, systematic fash-
ion. No rushing, no calling, no noisy
hammering, accompanies the operation.
Now and then something nearly approach-
ing a fuss attends the insertion of the wea-
ther chart or a war map into the latest
It is
pages, but this is of rare occurrence.
as if the entire establishment, with its em-

ployés, belonged to a machine manipu- | and regularity in Printing-house Square lated by unseen hands. Another source of surprise is that there appear to be but few people in the place. You might reasonably expect to meet an army of compositors, stereotypers, machinists, clerks, reporters, messengers; you only see a few persons going about their work with a quiet unobtrusiveness, though The Times does employ quite an army of men. They are disciplined, however, as carefully as an army should be, and they go about as if they were always conscious of the responsibility of serving" The Thunderer." Just as the artists and "supers" at the Lyceum Theatre seem to move as if under the constant eye of the presiding genius of the theatre, so the persons employed in The Times office always appear to feel that they are in an exceptional and distinguished service. This sense of order

is not disturbed, even though the proprietors invariably occupy the van of mechanical progress in regard to the production of a newspaper. The first to use machine presses, the first to drive them by steam, the first to introduce type-setters, the first to adopt the telephone and the electric light, there is no proposed change or improvement in connection with their business that, seeming to them worthy of consideration, the proprietors of The Times have not tested, and adopted when experience has approved the change. Mr. John C. Macdonald, a capable gentleman, with the natural shrewdness and perseverance of his nationality, has for many years been the practical manager of the paper. Most of the changes and improvements have been carried out under his supervision; many of them have been inau

gurated by him. With his permission, | tion of men and means and machinery little as this is to say, we may not have necessary to the daily journal's producsaid it, for it is hard to tell which most tion. Apart from the correspondents, the predominates in Mr. Macdonald's charac- telegraphists, the steamers, the railway ter, the wisdom of practical experience or trains, that are engaged in its service the unostentation of native modesty. A abroad, there are at home the editors, few weeks since, when I took my friend leader-writers, critics, reviewers, reportMr. Ridley to make a pictorial sketch of ers, messengers, a multitude of persons, Printing-house Square, and the old door- men of the highest culture and learning, way with the well-known testimonial in- down to the nimblest of chroniclers, telescription over it, the square, the doorway, graph clerks, and messengers. These,

the whole place, had been trans-
formed. The Times offices had
been rebuilt. The change was
not in any way typical of the
phoenix rising from the ashes of
a conflagration (as at Chicago,
where the very site of The Times
office there was lost in the flames),
for there was no suggestion of
ashes, no débris of fire, no track of de-
struction. Cleanliness and order reigned
as before. Calm, steady-looking compos-
itors were setting up types near the new
windows, as they were doing near the old
ones years before; though, in place of
the old grimy bricks, new offices, spick
and span, looked down upon us on all
sides through plate-glass windows. The
English sentiment in regard to the pre-
servation of trees is touchingly illustrated
in the new square by the presence of a
smoke-grimed trunk, which in the winter
stretches withered-looking arms toward
the new building, and in the summer puts
forth a few green leaves that whisper to
the printers, as they come and go, sugges-
tions of woods and meadows and quiet
rural landscapes.

The ordinary public that reads its morning newspaper over breakfast has a very vague idea of the tremendous organiza

formidable as is their power, simply supply the pabulum, the manuscript, the material for manufacture. How great and how little all this is an outsider can hardly appreciate until he has seen a leading newspaper establishment at work. The Times office is a vast machine-shop and factory. Everything in the place, except the paper, is made on the spot. The Walter machines, which are shown at work in the illustration on page 844, were made here, as were also those which print The Daily News, The Scotsman, the Liverpool Post, the New York Times, and other papers. Indeed, the whole of the appliances in the printing of the paper and lighting of the rooms (even the electric lamps) are manufactured on the premises, which embrace machineshops, type, stereotype, and electrotype foundries, electricians' laboratories, etc. The whole of the new buildings were

would have made the reconstruction of | Cloak-rooms are provided for the men, an establishment like The Times during each article of clothing being checked by its business hours almost an impossibility. The top floor of the building is devoted to the bound files of the paper. Descending to the next, you come to dining-rooms and kitchens-one department for the clerks, another for the compositors and workmen generally. The service is conducted on canteen principles, and as a rule all the employés are glad to have the opportunity of taking their meals here. The kitchens are fitted up with every modern appliance. The meats are not baked, all kinds of joints together, in one oven, as is the case in most English restaurants, to the utter destruction of their individual char

an attendant after the manner of New York club-houses. Here and there are quiet offices, with telephonic and other machines in use and on trial. One room is devoted to the special Paris wire. By the side of the telegraph, which reels off its message on the now quite familiar roll of paper, is a type-setter, so that the Paris letter is put into type, hot as it comes in, from the slips themselves. In another apartment are telephones connected with the reporters' rooms at the Houses of Parliament. During last session all the night reports were sent to the office through this medium. The stenographer