AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN-CONNECTED- WITH-THE-PRESS.
A NEW corps has been brought upon the field of battle—the gen- tlemen " connected with the press" have appeared there. They had put in an appearance, hitherto only by one or few mem- bers of their body—our "special correspondent" of the Times being the mover. But we might have made sure that the push- ing fraternity would not suffer the post of honour to be so exclu- sively occupied; others are there already ; and not long hence we may expect that no important battle will pass without a due num- ber of black note-books being opened as soon as the engagement commences. The season for hostilities will be as regularly marked by the newspaper-reader as the opening of the session ; and an im- portant engagement will be expected as punctually at breakfast- time as an important debate, and almost as soon. We have before lied letters from the field, more or leas ably written, more or less full of life and vigour ; but this is the first occasion, we imagine, dir which the power of reporting, as it has been developed amongst us, has been extended from Parliament and public meeting to the battle-field; and the results cannot fail to be very important for cur own country, and for the world at large. Not that we expect perfect aecaracy, or entire comprehensive- ness, in the accounts from "the gallery." We know that often the close atmosphere and cross echoes of " the House " have suf.--- Iced as excuses for very imperfect and very erroneous reports; how much more must it be so when the smell of gunpowder and a cross fire of the field are the distractions of "the gallery." Still, the reporting machinery is about the best means we possess of trans- mitting a view of living action. Your military man may be more accurate ; your commander-in-chief may take a comprehensive view ; but neither one knows the art of reporting, which is at least half the battle—in the newspaper sense. Take the current accounts. Marshal St. Arnaud, in addition to direct military evolutions, had to satisfy the French appetite for the peculiar style of commenta- ries which the French public expects from their Cmsar ; Lord Rag- lan was busy all day about other matters, and could only send a very concise summary of the broad results. More than one officer has laid down the sword to take up the pen and tell us what hap- pened; but he views it from the military point,, and does not know how to take the place from which alone the civilian, perhaps the Cockney, can survey the scene and understand it. Our "special correspondent" is perfectly au fait; for him, the heights above the Alma are the heights of Richmond Hill " protracted for four miles" : multitudes besides the Londoners view the battle from that familiar standing-place, and arrive at a better comprehension of the movement than yards of military despatches could. furnish. A military man will tell you that "cavalry appearedin the dis- tance " ; our special civilian descried "the dark masses" which "to the practised eye " appear cavalry., The officer accustomed to such things tells you that there are sick in hospital ; the civilian de- scribes the sick men "falling out and carried to the rear," "litter after litter passing to the carts."- The civilian is struck with the novelty of round shot dancing through the squadrons of cavalry who disperse into broken lines and wheel to dodge the unwelcome arrival. The Thames narrowed to the size of a Hampshire rivulet, wrig- gling between banks high alternately on either side, shallow but rough, is the base-line from which the British and French troops dash up the four-mile wide Richmond Hill, while the Russian ar- tillery, posted half-way, mows down the coming ranks, and the Russian infantry atop awaits the irrepressible English, only to Vacate the ground, laden with dead bodies as it flies. The home- stopping reader sees it all as it happened ; knows what really takes place on the field of battle.; finds that Landseer's picture of War realizes the Beene of wounded horses ; descries the Member for Westminster, that venerable and not always fluent speaker, dashing gallantly on in the very thickest of the mitraille ; and, in short, understands the whole scene and operations as if the report came no further than from Richmond. Hill.
It is a grand application of one of our modern kinds of machinery. When Johnson reported debates under feigned classic names, a fortnight was considered not too long for preparing the account: we now have the grand debate upon the banks of the Alma within the same space of time, besides hastier sketches many days sooner, and without feigned names. Theory on the subject of war, its horrors and its splendid opportunities for drawing forth the noblest qualities of our nature, will be superseded by recent fact, with all the freshness that makes the reader ready to devour it and able to assimilate it in his mind.
There is something characteristic and pleasant, professionally, ia the new application of the reporting machinery. That most ipashing of animals " the gentleman connected with the press" hem shows that his gay audacity is not unaccompanied by the moat sterling courage. He can sit at the receipt of balls, one amongst a party dodging the round shot, participating the risk for life and limb, and yet write with as pleasant a style and as firm a hand as ifthere were, nothing more to agitate than the Rupert sallies of a Derby. The process is not more characteristic of our latest manners than it is of the strong contrast between ourselves and our great enemy. To suppress, pervert, disguise, minimize, and falsify, are the ride of Russian reporting ; the very generals must not tell what has happened. We throw open the battle-field to "the gallery"; confident in our own strength, we permit the facts themselves to stand before the eye of the reader; and the banks of the Alma have become as familiar for the day as the banks of the Thames.,
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