BENNETT, JAMES G. 



65 



incidents of the conflagration, the struggles of 

 merchants to retrieve their losses, and the re- 

 building of the burned district. Of the edi- 

 tion of December 21st, miserably illustrated, 

 50,000 copies were printed. So absorbing and 

 profitable did this work prove, that Bennett 

 abandoned to find greater room for his de- 

 scriptions a burlesque which he begun and 

 promised to continue from day to day, of the 

 Congress reports which the Courier and En- 

 quirer was publishing a day ahead of all com- 

 petitors, through the Pony Express which Gen. 

 Webb had established to "beat the mails." 

 This method of relating in detail, and in famil- 

 iar style, events of purely local interest was a 

 new revelation in journalism, and Bennett 

 found that it repaid him handsomely. Shortly 

 after, in 1836, when Helen Jewett was myste- 

 riously murdered, he employed the same sys- 

 tem and described the scene of the murder, 

 the life of the woman and her surroundings, 

 with a faithfulness of detail which would put 

 to shame the Police Gazettes of the present 

 day. He did not hesitate to relate in like man- 

 ner the several castigations which he suffered, 

 nor even five years later to describe his own 

 marriage (June 6, 1840), in the same grotesque 

 style. 



In 1841 the income of the paper was at 

 least $100,000, and the circulation about 20,- 

 000 copies. The office was removed the same 

 year to Nassau and Fulton Streets. From that 

 time until the war, the Herald gradually in- 

 creased in circulation and value as a property. 

 During the civil war its circulation more than 

 doubled. Of one issue, during 1864, no less 

 than 132,000 copies were sold. It employed, 

 in addition to its regular force, 63 war corre- 

 spondents, at an expense for four years of 

 $525,000. Its annual expenditures for corre- 

 spondence and the collection of news have been, 

 for years, something immense, and altogether 

 disproportioned to its payment for editorial and 

 critical matter. It was as a collector of news 

 that Mr. Bennett shone conspicuous. He had 

 an unerring judgment of its pecuniary value. 

 He knew how to pick out of the events of the 

 day the subject which engrossed the interest of 

 the greatest number of people, and to give 

 them about that subject all they could read. 

 He had a method of impressing the importance 

 of news upon others in his employ, which in- 

 spired many who served him to energetic ac- 

 tion, some of them in a remarkable degree. 

 But he never tolerated defeat. He once re- 

 fused to pay the expenses, including one 

 item of a horse killed, of a correspondent 

 who was one day behind the World corre- 

 spondent, and added, in the half-humorous, 

 half-satirical manner in which he habitually 

 indulged, that "a horse which couldn't beat 

 the World wasn't worth paying for." He 

 never questioned or examined the account 

 of reporters who were in advance of their 

 rivals, and frequently paid contributors dou- 

 ble rates for welcome news when in ad- 



VOL. XII. 5 A 



vance of contemporaries. He once gave a re- 

 porter twenty-five dollars for a news-telegram 

 of three words, for which a bill of one dollar 

 had been rendered. At another time, he or- 

 dered one hundred dollars to be paid to a con- 

 tributor for an article of six columns, which 

 had been already contracted for at eight dol- 

 lars a column, adding by way of explanation 

 to the editor, " He may have something else 

 as good." In this instance, his judgment was 

 confirmed, and several valuable contributions 

 (relating to the secret history of the civil war) 

 followed from the same pen. He developed tho 

 capacities of journalism in a most wonderful 

 manner. His one object was the success of 

 the Herald; all aims and efforts tended to 

 that one end, which he sought regardless of 

 means or consequences, and he cared for no 

 good opinion save his own. " Since I knew 

 myself," he wrote as late as 1856, when his 

 success was fully confirmed, " all the real ap- 

 probation I sought for was my own. If my 

 conscience was satisfied on the score of morals,, 

 and my ambition on the matter of talent, I al- 

 ways felt easy. On this principle I have acted 

 from my youth up, and on this principle I 

 mean to die. Nothing can disturb my equa- 

 nimity. I know myself." 



Nothing could be truer than this; in the 

 passage he has told his whole character. He 

 was strictly temperate and virtuous. He had 

 neither low habits nor idle hours. He never 

 drank, even at dinner, and nothing stronger 

 than claret was ever displayed on his table. 

 The impression prevails that years ago he 

 withdrew from work on his paper, but this is 

 a great error. No exchange editor in the pro- 

 fession was so close and constant a reader as 

 he of the great papers of the country down to 

 within a few months of the close of his life. 

 Files of the principal journals were sent to him 

 daily, and all were religiously read. He often 

 clipped passages for insertion in the Herald, 

 but generally for texts for editorials or special 

 articles, and when he visited the office it was 

 to unpack his mind of the suggestions stored 

 there by reading the exchanges. He seldom 

 gave an editorial writer more than the sugges- 

 tions for an article, leaving him to fill up the 

 details. He required his editorial writers to 

 meet daily for consultation and the distribu- 

 tion of topics. When another person pre- 

 sided, the several editors made suggestions ; 

 when Bennett himself was present the editors 

 became mere listeners, and wrote, as it were, 

 at his dictation. In nothing more did his per- 

 sonality display itself than in these meetings, 

 and his manner of "consulting his editors," 

 by directing them what to do, and disregard- 

 ing suggestions from any one! Frequently,, 

 when a writer expressed his views on a subject,, 

 Mr. Bennett amused himself by ordering hiin 

 to write, taking precisely the opposite view. 



In personal appearance, Mr. Bennett was^ 

 in many respects, remarkable. He was con- 

 siderably over six feet in height, and down, to 



