A NEWSPAPER QUARREL.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1523, 7 November 1873, Page 7

A NEWSPAPER QUARREL.

The following article is extracted from the Printers' Register, a trade organ published in London : It is seldom that we have witnessed such a quarrel as has recently taken place between the Times and the Globe on the one hand, and the Telegraph on the other; and for the credit of the press we hope that it will be along time before such an unseemly scene again takes place. The facts of the case are few, and may be briefly summarised. When the Khiva Expedition was on the point of starting, application to accompany the army was made to the Eussian Government by the correspondents of several newspapers; but each request was peremptorily refused, and it was understood that we should have to rely upon the Russian authorities for the particulars of the expedition. It may be judged, therefore, that some surprise was felt when, on the 30th of April, the Telegraph published a communication entitled, " Pictures by the Way," which, although it was without any date or the name of the place where it was written, purposed to be penned by a gentleman either with the Eussian army, or who was cognizant of everything going on. A rumour spread that the energetic proprietors of the Telegraph had succeeded in obtaining the services of a Russian officer, and, as a consequence, the letter was read with great interest. Since then another epistle has been published, and this, again, was devoid of date, but it was understood that the omission was designed, in order that the Russian authorities should have no suspicion of the writer. Between the appearance of the two letters, the Telegraph had startled the world by announcing the important intelligence that Khiva had fallen, and that the Khan was a prisoner. This news was sent by two different the eastern side of the Cas]j>ian,''-and the other from Tiflis; but although nearly four weeks have elapsed since the first announcement was made, no confirmation has been received; and as it has from the first been discredited by the Russian press, we may suppose that the story is not correct. The Telegraph pledged its honor that the telegrams were bona fide, and on some of its contemporaries hinting that the news was too good to be true, the Telegraph indignantly denounced their conduct, and boasted that it had made special arrangements to obtain first information on the subject. Thus affairs stood until last week, when the Globe published a letter signed " Run Him In," in which attention was drawn to a passage in one of the " Pictures by the Way," published on the 30th April, which bore a singular likeness to a passage printed a fortnight previously in All the Year Round. The two communications were almost exactly identical, the only variation being that the writer in AH the Year Bound was describing a journey from Sebastopol to Balaklava, and in the Telegraph he was " on the boundary line of the everlasting desert," witnessing the desolation of " the great waste of Eastern Russia." The Globe, in calling attention to this curious coincidence, thought the Telegraph owed it to the credit of the press to explain the matter; and the Times, on the following morning, published the remarks of its evening contemporary, but without adding a word of comment. The Telegraph said the coincidence was not surprising, since it was written by the same hand. " We have," it continued, " represented to Mr Charles Dickens, the proprietor and editor of All the Year Round, that our understanding with the correspondent in question is to write exclusively for the Daily Telegraph, and Mr Dickens, who was not previously aware of the circumstance, has undertaken that no further contributions from the same author shall, during his journey, be printed in All the Year Bound. The writer, for reasons sufficiently weighty in themselves, omitted all mention, in our columns, of the precise locality whence his letter was dated, and his despatches were designedly kept a considerable time, in order that our correspondent might be well on his way at tfre date of their issue/' The Globe was not satisfied with this explanation, and intimated pretty strongly that the supposed Khivan letters were not written by any gentleman with the Eussian army, and that they were penned either jp Fleet-street or at Hastings (where it was known that Mr George Augustus Sala was sojourning for the benefit of his health). The Times again quoted the remarks of the Globe, and also published the Telegraph's explanation, but once more refrained from making any independent.comments. On the sameday the Telegraph came out with a Jong and bitter leader, in which it accused the Times of eagerly printing a " vile slander " witho»t waiting for the explanation which was immediately furnished, and the Times was summoned with " the one reparation we can afford for a precipitate spite " to give immediate prominence to the Telegraph's rectification, But the second explanation only added fuel to the fire, for it was stated that" the cited passages describe one scene, one individual." This unfortunate expression was immediately pounced upon by the Globe and th<- Pall Mall Gazette, and was held up to withering contempt ind scorn, for it was impossible that the same scene could have .been witnessed! and the same individual met with in the Crimea and in Persia; The Times also ""took up the gauntlet

thrown 'down by the Telegraph, and in a temperate article' pointed oUI the jnconI sistencies contained iri the second explanation, and said a complete and satisfactory explanation was due to the public and to the Telegraph ;it had not,.it is said, for a moment assumed that no satisfactory explanation was forthcoming,, " but none such has yet been afforded." ' Simultaneously '-with, the appearance of 1 this statement in the Times, the Hour inserted "another curious coincidence," which showed that an article on Jiddali, published in Chambers'Journal on October 21st, 1871, was reproduced in a description of Tiflis, in the ; Telegraph's edition of the 7th ultimo. It was now evident to all disinterested persons that the Telegraph had been shamefully imposed upon, and that its correspondent had sent it " vamped up " letters. . The Telegraph accordingly acknowledged in the most handsome manner that such was really the case. "We have been deceived- (it said) by a person whom we had good reason to trust, and have been made the victim of a piece of literary dishonesty to which every journal at all times lies open. This second instance of unmistakable selfrepetition furnishes a new and unwelcome explanation of the first. Taken together —and there may well he others forthcoming— they prove that our correspondent has worked up old matter, which we could not know of, into his otherwise genuine communications, with the consequence that his letters are no longer to be trusted in this or any other particular." It was further explained that of the two telegrams announcing the fall of Khiva, one was received from the same gentleman who wrote the "Pictures by the Way," but the other was sent by a second special correspondent. The Telegraph has taken the only honorable course which was open to it after the disclosures of the Globe and the Hour, and it is a credit to English journalism that the matter should be so satisfactorily explained. A correspondent of the Times points out that both the Telegraph and Chambers's Journal have been imposed npon by the same writer, for on reference to Oassell's Magazine, published on the 21st December, 1870, a similar passage appeared in a description of Constantinople, which was afterwards made to do duty for Jiddafi and Titlis. This article was signed by " David Ker," and the Telgraph acknowledges that this was the person who supplied it with the " Pictures by the Way."