STRANGER THAN FICTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4916, 23 December 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

STRANGER THAN FICTION.

(From the Philadelphia Telegraph.) The recent death of Marmaduke B. Sampson, who had been . financial editor of the London Timet from 1846 to 1875, recalls one of the most interesting yet painful chapters in newspaper history. Mr. Sampson's position on The Times was of a fairly potential sort. He had a kind of power not to be adequately described ; was absolutely trusted by the proprietors of the greatest journal in the world, and was undisputed master in his own department. Long before his disgraceful dismissal from The Times, he had lost' favor in this country through his strong endeavor to help the Southern loan in England during the rebellion a course which did not a little toward exciting an angry feeling between the two countries, and, which was the cause of heavy losses by English capitalists—but he weathered the storm, and was up to the year 1874, apparently as strong in the possession of his great post as ever. In that year, however, arose the famous " Eubery v. Grant and Sampson " case, ■which resulted in his complete overthrow. Eubery was a man concerned in the famous diamond-salting scheme in Arizona, which was exposed in November, 1870. Designing persons had " salted" waste lands with diamond scraps and clippings, and then put the property in the market, with a prospect, for a while, of fabulous profits. Eubery was mentioned in connection with this swindle, and the London Times spoke of him in that relation, but guardedly, and no further than all the facts seemed, at the time, and now seem to warrant. The accused brought a suit for libel, and complicated it by an incident which, while it had no direct bearing upon the case, was used by his counsel with telling effect. Eubery had by some means discovered that Sampson had received money from Baron Grant, a notorious speculator .of London, for assistance in soine of his stock-gambling operations, and he succeeded in getting in this evidence, as showing the character of the writer who had, libelled him. Grant swore that the payments had no connection with the Eubery or the diamond swindle, but was forced to admit that he had made the money payments charged. This was the vital point. Eubery gained his suit and SSOO damages, but that was nothing. The Times had received a hurt which all honorable journalists can appreciate! Sampson was, of course, immediately dismissed. "Thehonor andindependence of this paper," says The Times, the day after the trial, January 19, 1875, " must ever be above suspicion, and the humiliation we have suffered is hard to bear—a hardship with which the damages that have been awarded to Mr. Eubery aro as a feather in the air." InOctober, 1875, it was announced that Sampson had been engaged by. Baron Grant to write the money article of his London paper, the Echo, but ho did not retain that position long, and passed the latter portion of his life in retirement. , The strange tale would not be complete without reference to the fact that Mr. Sampson's predecessor in the financial chair of The Times, T. M. Alsager, who was money editor from 1821 to 1846, committed suicide,upon tieing detected in breaches of trust similar to those which led to Mr. Sampson's disgrace,

In conjunction with Mr. Delane, editor of The Times, ' and father of the present editor, Alsager speculated in stocks in the panic attendant upon the downfall of Hudson, the •'Railway King." The case was clear, and both Delane and Alsager werp dismissed. Alsager cut his throat when informed of his punishment. When Mr. Sampson, who had previously been distinguished as a writer upon prison reform and other philanthropic subjects, was appointed money editor, he was required to promise on his honor that he would never become interested in any stock movement which might become the subject of report or comment in the paper. He was allowed a very large salary—£2ooo a year—in order the better to render him entirely impartial and unprejudiced. Mr. Sampson had been recommended to The Times proprietors by the Directors of the Bank of England, and the same officials afterwards recommended Arthur Cramp, who had held a similar post upon the Pall Mall Gazette, to the succession. Mr. Sampson was in his seventy-first year at the time of his death. To live to such an age, through such a course of honor, influence, and usefulness, to come to such an end!