WAR CORRESPONDENTS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 115, 15 May 1878, Page 4

WAR CORRESPONDENTS.

(From the Queensland^.) The war correspondent J s uncori . ficiously rioiDp a great and a good work-. He is rendering warfare ridictiivyus He is hastening ih* millennium, by a pro cess which the old prophets Jver dreamt of. If MythillK wouM sn(luce men to lure their hayooela into toeing forks, and the swords into lodrcco-«utt-re v would surely bs .he knowleg* that the war correspondent has t«ken iha«.hW» out of both. Thanks to his turn for minute and persistent chippm?, all ,h e grand features of glory are desti gone—with his infernal knack «f snatching at a petty detail, he has »ot only stripped and skinned berosiFm, but has 1«M open the contents of itß etomap.h. Tin* is » epp C ; men oF how he does \>. Trfik Bey R^st-prisoner of General hkoU-icff, «» drank a glass of red wine, v glass of sherry, and a couple of glasses of champagne." This is JourDßlißtn in the nineteenth century— ii marvellously close approximation to the cbronicliDg of smell beer. A decent man caunot mix bis liquors, but the glasses must be multiplied by tens of tl-ouaandß, and spilt, over all the earth. But Jet us not revile the journalist if hehasteus milieuniuru. Men will think twice now before they become the tools of capricious monarchs, or of clamorous natioDS, nt the risk of haviDg their fifomacfis turned outside in for p. curious world to gaze at. If the aspirant for cailitary honor can be brought to realise that— thauks to the war correspondent ~-lbe last figure he will cut in history will be ttiHtof B mere forked nudity, permeated by a certain quantity of liquor, he will bo apt to question if the game be worth the candle. The proverbial va let de chamlre is no such destroyer of heroe 8 as " Our Correspondent at the Seat of War." The former at leaet owns the man as his master ; but tbe latter uses him as his drum, teats hitnsfclf into notice by means of Mm, and then opens him to see where the sound came from. Wha in the name of fortune is the service rendered to truth, morals, Bociety, journalism, or to the m-n themselves, by scattering over tbe world the information that 1 '.bey both laughed ?" So do we. We are laughing &t tbe tact that the war correspondent is running to seed. We are laughing to tee that the annals of glory cannot keep up their relish now without being supplemented and condimented with a Bpice of broad farce. We are laughing because, between details of horror and details of drinks, there is a fair chance of that long-iived impostor, Glory, expiring at last in a delirium ot drive). But poor Tefik Bey; we cannot dismiss him without a word of sympathy. "He soon again," so Bays the historian, " relapßed into melancholy and gloom. It was partly the despondency and sadness natural under the circumstances, partly the reaction on the extreme excitement and tension ot nerves during the ! ast few days when preparing for the sortie, and partly extreme lassitude aud fatigue." It wasn't. fie hadn't had a morsel to eat sioce morning, and now he had a glass of vodka in him, and a glass of red wine, and a glass of sherry, and a couple of glasses of champagne. And then he laughed. And then he collapsed. His eye had suddenly fallen on the war corresponJfcDt. His own impiety and this man's magpiety were borne in upon him simultaneously, In a few days lalam and all the world would know that he had broken the law of the Prophet.