Assurance Society at Radley's Hotel, Bridge Street.

One of the longest wars the _Times_ ever carried on was that against
Alderman Harmer. It was Harmer's turn, in due order of rotation, to
become Lord Mayor. A strong feeling had arisen against Harmer because,
as the avowed proprietor of the _Weekly Dispatch_, he inserted certain
letters of the late Mr. Williams ("Publicola"), which were said to have
had the effect of preventing Mr. Walter's return for Southwark (see page
59). The _Times_ upon this wrote twelve powerful leaders against Harmer,
which at once decided the question. This was a great assertion of power,
and raised the _Times_ in the estimation of all England. For these
twelve articles, originally intended for letters, the writer (says Mr.
Grant) received L200. But in 1841 the extraordinary social influence of
this giant paper was even still more shown. Mr. O'Reilly, their Paris
correspondent, obtained a clue to a vast scheme of fraud concocting in
Paris by a gang of fourteen accomplished swindlers, who had already
netted L10,700 of the million for which they had planned. At the risk of
assassination, O'Reilly exposed the scheme in the _Times_, dating the
_expose_ Brussels, in order to throw the swindlers on the wrong scent.

At a public meeting of merchants, bankers, and others held in the
Egyptian Hall, Mansion House, October 1, 1841, the Lord Mayor (Thomas
Johnson) in the chair, it was unanimously resolved to thank the
proprietors of the _Times_ for the services they had rendered in having
exposed the most remarkable and extensively fraudulent conspiracy (the
famous "Bogle" swindle) ever brought to light in the mercantile world,
and to record in some substantial manner the sense of obligation
conferred by the proprietors of the _Times_ on the commercial world.

The proprietors of the _Times_ declining to receive the L2,625
subscribed by the London merchants to recompense them for doing their
duty, it was resolved, in 1842, to set apart the funds for the endowment
of two scholarships, one at Christ's Hospital, and one at the City of
London School. In both schools a commemorative tablet was put up, as
well as one at the Royal Exchange and the _Times_ printing-office.

At various periods the _Times_ has had to endure violent attacks in the
House of Commons, and many strenuous efforts to restrain its vast
powers. In 1819 John Payne Collier, one of their Parliamentary
reporters, and better known as one of th