Toe disagreeable incident which has resulted in the dismissal of one of the Daily Telegraph's most famous War Correspondents is one on which we may be permitted to say a few words in the interest of both the public and the press, As our ronders are well aware, Mr. Drow Gay, whose book about the Prince of Wales in India some years ago was sosoverely handled by the critics, telegraphed to his om. ployers a eeusatioual account of an alleged act of gross cowardice on the part of a picket of British troops, and the news not anuatucally wade pretty stir. It can only be with extreme re-Tuctanco that anybody would over credit Lnglishmou, however mercenary, with wish to trade in their countrymen's disgrace, and the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph must be acquitted on this score; still the policy of that paper has always been so strongly marked in on particular that it has come in for a good deal of censure, which we will hope was undeserved, The leading characteristic of the Daily Telegraph is, beyond question, a love of sensationalism, combined with efforts to increase what is already "the largest circulation in the world" that have not always been made with perfect scrupulousness, If a paper once acquires a reputation of this sort, it is not to be wondered at that, when it i betrayed into selling a largo edition on the strength of what turns out to be an unfounded libel, it should come in for considerable amount of tion. But there is of course another side to the question, The Duily Telegraph is not the only journal which has been made the vehicle of equally false ro-ports. Ihe Correspondent of the Limes, for instance, accused the British sol-diary of looting at Ramleb, and the charge was subsequently shown to be groundless. It is probublo that in this instance it was the uniformly sober and impartial character of the Times which saved it from the howl of indignation to which the same blunder has given rise against the Daily Telegraph. But in other cases the accusation has been made nud substantiated. The character of our troops for bravery is precious in the eyes of every Englishman, but there is no doubt that English goldiers have now and then been scared.
Sir Evelyn Wood went the length of inflicting a severe flogging upon certain men who ran away in Zulaland, "trampling upon their comrades," to uso the words of an English paper, "in their mad fright." The fact was duly published and commented on with approval by Mr. Archibald Forbes in the Nineteenth Century. The same paper reminds us of an article published as Into as Juno Inst in the Fortnightly by Mr. Matthew Arnold, in which he describes "the desperate funk which seized some of our troops at Gingilhova. The poor fellows could not hold their guns straight, and the story of their terror was told by the apostle of Eye. glassism and Culture." hose of course are isolated instances, and constitute the exceptions which prove the rule. Bat if such sorry exhibitions had occurred before, there was no natural impossibility in their occurring again, and the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph ace certainly entitled Lo such exoneration on this account as the public may be disposed to tender to them. In any case they lave ntoved for their mistake by dismissing their untrustworthy correspondent, and poetic justice should be satisfied. Even the offending corres. pondent is not altogether without some claim on public sympathy. It is absurd to suppose that a man would deliberately telegraph a piece of news which he knew or believed to be false.
A war correspondent—or velary of what Punch uow calls the Gay science—is specially apt to be taken ab a disadvantage. The wish to be first with his information and the difficulty of verifying details daring the heat and turmoil of war should be accepted, we think, as constituting a valid excuse we consider the extreme Correspondents which not unnaturally perhaps characterises milliary commanders, and their consequent reluct tance to give the press-men full faci lities for procuring information. At the same time the public should remember the extreme difficulty of the position occupied by an editor ander such circamstauces. Ho receives an important telegram, which it is his interest and duty to make public with as little delay us possible. OF course there is a chuuce of its being untrue; but it bears all the marks of genuineness, it comes from his own paid correspondent, and, above all, he has really neither time nor opportunity to judge of its absulate accuracy or otherwise. In plain words, a newspaper editor is almost entirely at the merey of his correspondents in these matters, and the most he can do is to select his contributors to the best of his own judgment in the first instance. No one, in fact, suffers more severely than the editor himself if ho finds he has been the means of spreading unfounded reports. The subject of the repute, whoever he may be, is speedily consoled by their contradiction, and the amount of public sympathy be receives, The readers of the press should realise the fact that a respect= able editor's first desire is to provide them with as large a quantity of teresting and trustworthy information as he can procure, and judge him lightly if unfortunately he has been misled by ill-informed or venal corres pondents, hoy may safely leave him, in his own interests, to see that his correspondents are above reproach in the matter of trustworthiness. They may be sure that he, and not they, will be the greatest sufferer if his paper is made the vehicle of unjust aspersions on deserving mov, or of rumours so une founded as to injure its reputation for reliability and fair play.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.