THE GREAT HIT OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 269, 19 September 1879, Page 3

THE GREAT HIT OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.

Mr Blanohiu'd when lecturing recently before a crowded meeting of the London Shorthand Writer's Association upon his Literary Recollections, gave an interesting summary of the Daily Telegraph :-Tho first number of the Daily Telegraph appeared iu June 22,1855, at twopence. It ww started by a few military officers with the idea of humbling the Horse Guards, against which they had a grievance. Colonel Sleigh was the editor, and nearly everybody wrote for it, though very few got paid. For four months it dragged on a wretched existence, and it was necessary to do something. Colonel Sleigh then reduced the price to a penny on September 15, 1855, but the reduction made very little difference in the prospects of the paper, and the difficulties of getting to press were enormous, as sheriffs' officers were lying in wait to seize the type directly it came out of the office. Sometimes a hearse was made use of, sometimes a cab, which was careful to go in the opposite direction. Under such J circumstances the paper could not go on, f and ultimately Colonel Sleigh was very I glad to sell, for a nominal sum, all right he had in the piper, save a small right upon which he had borrowed £GO, and which £6O realised the enormoussum of £375,000. The great hit of the paper was made over the fall of Delhi. A mail was expected on Saturday night, and Mr R, Hanson and Mr Pearson who were then working the paper, got eight compositors to stay on the premises by paying them overtime out of their own pockets, and plying them with beer. The mail arrived, and the paper was published on Sunday morning with the news. The sale by 11 o'clock, had reached thirty thousand, and the fortune of the Telegraph was made. This was the only instance-September 11,1857 —that a paper was published on a Sunday. To show the enormous growth of the paper, Mrßlancbavd mentioned that on the previous Thursday, when there was a twelve page, issue, the advertisements were of the value of £2221 8s Od.