JAMES GORDON BENNETT, JUNR., AND HIS NEWSPAPEB.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 392, 15 October 1880, Page 5

JAMES GORDON BENNETT, JUNR., AND HIS NEWSPAPEB.

(From the New York Hour.) BINCE his Father's death, Mr. Bennett, Junr., has had the entire control of the Herald, and although he has not shown the great abilities if>v which the elder man -wits noted, he has proved himself an able manager and evinced a keen appreciation of the journalistic wants of the American people. As a mere chronicle of the events of the day, the Herald is unsurpassed either in this country or in Europe ; but as atearher or guide in political or other affairs, it is sadly deficient, •f a cm P loveti u P on t^e journal are, as a rule, ignorant and uneducTXed. Valuable news is often sacrificed for so-called sensations, which commonly fall flat. An absurd hobby is mounted for a month or more and then expires, ridden to death. But, in spite of these deficiencei, the Hemld is facile princeps among grubbers for news. Mr. Bennett, Junr., is intensely jealous and suspicious of his own employees. He has always refused to employ an efficient managing editor, lest some of his own powers might be usurped. So he keeps a species of clerk who does not dare to move hand or foot without first consulting his owner, even at the expense and delay of cabling to Europe. His suspicious nature is constantly shown by the immediate removal of any person who has acquitted himself with marked ability in some particular department. Bo it comes that the office-boy of to-day is the managing editor of to-morrow and the political editor of one week is the police court reporter of the next. He has quarrelled with most of the men who have given him a world-wide reputation. MacGahan and Stanley, who had risked their lives in his service, were treated with the basest ingratitude, and the sod is not yet green over one who spent his life in helping to build up the Herald, and who dragged himself home from the office with fiftyfour cents, his last week's pay, to die of hunger and fatigue. The enterprise of the Herald in obtaining news has often been spoken of, and it is truly great. But such expeditions as the journey of Stanley and the voyage of the Jeannette or the 400,000 dollars subscribed to the Irish famine fund must scarcely be considered in this light. They are merely shrewd advertising dodges, and it would be as absurd to praise the adventurers who own the quack medicines, the advertisements of which deface the rocks of the Hudson River, for their patronage of art, as to compliment Bennett, Junr., npon his love of science or his philanthropic soul. Mr. Bennett, Junr., is in the receipt of a princely income from the revenues of the paper, and he spends the greater part of it abroad. He makes only brief visits to the United States, evidently preferring such society as he is admitted to in Europe to his uncertain and unsatisfactory social position in New York. This probably accounts for the fact that he is in style and sentiment more like a European than an American, It also explains the cause of the difference between the Herald and strong, vigorous and influential American journals like the Sun and Tribune. The former is unsurpassed in enterprise, and as a collector of news has all the advantages of an enormous capital and a single wealthy proprietor. Yet, as leaders and directors of public opinion, the latter journals are as far above it in position and influence as it is possible to conceive.