The Special Correspondent.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 2, Issue 89, 25 July 1871, Page 6

The Special Correspondent.

(Belgravla.}

The Special, be he married or single, must do his duty ; and to teach him that duty requires much pain, much trouble, and much expense. It will be better for him to speak half-a-dozen languages with tolerable fluency; to have visited or resided in most parts of the habitable globe—if he knows something about the Rocky Mountains or the interior of Africa, so much the better ; to be a good cook, a moderate smoker —for tobacco is a good buckler against the pangs of hunger—and a perfect master of the art of packing ; that is to say, he should be able to compress a goodsized writing-case, a despatch-box, a pair of jack-boots, a Roger's " Thessaurus," and a Bible, a small keg of brandy, a change of linen, a waterproof sheet, a dark lantern, and a gridiron, in the area of a pair of saddlebags. The experienced Special is never without a passport, a large number of visiting cards with his name and address legibly en graved thereon, a revolver—about the possession of which the less he talks the better — a little housewife full of pins, needles, buttons, and thread ; an umbrella, a corkscrew, and a dress-suit with patent-leather boots ; for he never knows when he may be called upon to dine with royalty, or vice-royalty, or some other species of grandeeism, abroad. Then, when he has had the cholera once or twice, and sufficiency of tropical fevers; when he lias smelt powder quite close enough for his whiskers to be singed—it may be said that he is readv to go into harness as a thorough-going Special; well broken, sound as a roach, quiet to ride and drive, with splendid action, and no vice worth speaking of. You see that I have qualified my warranty in the last particular. Can we warrant anybodv or anything in this world as absolutely free from vice ? His life ! It is to rise early or sit up late, completely as the exigincies of his life compel him : to fear no peril, to shrink from no difficulty ; to be able to recall the exordium of Burke's speech at the trial of Warren Hastings in the middle of a bombardment: to write his letters on a drum, on the deck of a steamboat during a gale, on horseback, in the garret of a house on fire, on the top of an omnibus, or on the top of Mont Blanc. Some Specials can write very well standing up in the coupe of an express train ; others can indite their matter on mantel-pieces ; and others in the dark, and others in bed. It is expected from them that they should be able to start for the end of the world at a moment's notice; to go to Russia in January, and to India in July ; to explore a district where typhus fever and small-pox are raging, with the same equanimity as they displayed when thev attended the marriage of the Prince of Wales, and which they have had an opportunity of airing at the wedding of the Princess Louise :—bless the dear little Princess's heart, and confusion to the nickthanks who grudge her her money ! When there is no war a-foot, he must be prepared to " do" funerals, as well as weddings, state banquets, volunteer reviews, great exhibitions, remarkable trials, christenings, coronations, ship-launches, agricultural shows, royal progresses, picture-shows, first-stone layings, horse races, and hangings. s He must be jack-of-all-trades. and master of all that are journalistic ; and the very moment his frame exhibits symptoms of decay, or his mental powers show signs of enfeeblement, his employers will very politely give him to understand that he is no longer " up to the mark," and that he had better—when he is old and broken, perchance—select some line in life other than that of Special Correspondent. Yes, this may be his goal ; he may find himself straneded when it is too late in life to haunt Westminster Hall or the Session Houses in search of briefs, to paint pictures, to tout for patients, or to enter into business. The public, who knew so much of him whon he was a Special Correspondent, entirely forget his existence the day after he ceases to write. Who, save his own kin, bestows a thought on the poor gentleman who was murdered, while correspondent to "The Times" in China, by the silken barbarians, twelve years ago ? The unhappy Special may have been toiling in the literature of journalism for twenty years ; yet he may never have published one book. He has no place in the Republic of Letters. He is as a bursted musket, a blunted sword, a spiked cannon : nobody wants to know anything about him. I declare that I do not know what the decaved Special is good for, save to be a pawnbroker's assistant, or the governor of a gaol ; for in the course of his experience he must have become familiar with an amassing amount of human rasjality ; and by bringing bis knowledge of men and manners to bear on the people who bring jewellery to pledge, and on the rogues who are looked up for stealing jewellery, he might be very useful to his master in the one case, and do good service to the country in the other.