en such a task, but
what would they have done had they, after embarking in it, been twice
burned out and once robbed within the first fifteen months? Such was the
experience of Bennett, but as expressed by himself, he raked the
_Herald_ from the fire by almost superhuman efforts, and a few months
later, when the great fire occurred in Wall street, he went to the scene
himself and picked up all kinds of information about the firms burnt
out, the daring deeds of the firemen, and anything sensational he did
not fail to print. He also went to the unheard of expense of printing a
map of the burnt district and a picture of the Produce Exchange on fire.
This enterprise cost, but it gave the _Herald_ a boom over all
competitors, which it well maintains. It was the first paper that
published a daily money article and stock list, and as soon as possible
Bennett set up a Ship News establishment consisting of a row-boat manned
by three men to intercept all incoming vessels and ascertain their list
of passengers and the particulars of the voyage.

Mr. Calhoun's speech on the Mexican war, the first ever sent to any
paper by telegraph, was published in the _Herald_. At one time when his
paper wished to precede all rivals in publishing a speech delivered at
Washington, for the purpose of holding the wire, Mr. Bennett ordered the
telegraph operator to begin and transmit the whole Bible if necessary,
but not to take any other message until the speech came. Such enterprise
cost, but it paid; and so it has ever been. Seemingly regardless of
expense, bureaus of information for the _Herald_ were established in
every clime. 'Always ahead' seemed to be the motto of James Gordon
Bennett, and surely enterprise was no small factor in the phenomenal
success of the _Herald_. The tone, it has been said, was not always so
edifying as that of its contemporaries, the _Post_ and _Commercial_,
still every article was piercing as a Damascus blade. To buy one paper
meant to become afterwards one of its customers. It was indeed
astonishing what a variety of reading was contained in one of those
penny sheets; every thing was fresh and piquant, so different from the
old party papers. As originally intended, the _Herald_ has always been
independent in politics, although inclined to be Democratic. It
supported Fremont and the Republican party, and was one of the staunch
war papers.

Mr. Bennett has been described as being stern and disagreeable in his
manners