al
couriers, at great cost, for the purpose of obtaining the earliest
transmission of foreign intelligence.

These important qualities--enterprise, energy, business tact, and
public spirit--sufficiently account for his remarkable success. To
these, however, must be added another of no small
importance--discernment and knowledge of character. Though himself the
head and front of his enterprise, it was necessary that he should
secure the services and co-operation of men of first-rate ability; and
in the selection of such men his judgment was almost unerring. By his
discernment and munificence, he collected round him some of the ablest
writers of the age. These were frequently revealed to him in the
communications of correspondents--the author of the letters signed
"Vetus" being thus selected to write in the leading columns of the
Paper. But Walter himself was the soul of The Times. It was he who
gave the tone to its articles, directed its influence, and
superintended its entire conduct with unremitting vigilance.

Even in conducting the mechanical arrangements of the paper--a business
of no small difficulty--he had often occasion to exercise promptness
and boldness of decision in cases of emergency. Printers in those days
were a rather refractory class of work men, and not unfrequently took
advantage of their position to impose hard terms on their employers,
especially in the daily press, where everything must be promptly done
within a very limited time. Thus on one occasion, in 1810, the
pressmen made a sudden demand upon the proprietor for an increase of
wages, and insisted upon a uniform rate being paid to all hands,
whether good or bad. Walter was at first disposed to make concessions
to the men; but having been privately informed that a combination was
already entered into by the compositors, as well as by the pressmen, to
leave his employment suddenly, under circumstances that would have
stopped the publication of the paper, and inflicted on him the most
serious injury, he determined to run all risks, rather than submit to
what now appeared to him in the light of an extortion.

The strike took place on a Saturday morning, when suddenly, and without
notice, all the hands turned out. Mr. Walter had only a few hours'
notice of it, but he had already resolved upon his course. He
collected apprentices from half a dozen different quarters, and a few
inferior workmen, who were glad to obtain employment on any