20 DECEMBER 1851, Page 18

"OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT."

THERE never was such a plague! Puck misleading Demetrius and Lysander, or clapping an ass's head upon Bottom, did not distract and worry his victims half so much as 'our own correspondent' vexes the Monarchs of Europe by his unceremonious toinments on their conduct or his Marplot revelations of their schemes and strategy. He follows the tamp, and lets the enemy into the se- crets of intended movements and combinations; he haunts the ex- change, and explains the manceuvres by which public funds are made to appear in request; he speaks his mind about the highest personages with a blunt plainness of language that is quite pro- voking. Kings and potentates 'cannot attend to their business for hearkening after the speeches of this curious impertinent. Then he is as impalpable as he is omnipresent. His voice is, as Trinculo said of Ariel's song, "a tune played by the picture of nobody." He is the very Riiberahl of German legends-close at your elbow when you are least thinking of him, and invisible the moment you attempt to strike him, lie is everywhere and no- where. Now he appears in the shape of a quiet literary gentle- man, living at his ease, giving and receiving good dinners in Paris. Again, he is seen, in a ooat of undeniably London fashion, with an umbrella in one hand and a carpet-bag in the other, scrambling along on foot over the debateable land between the Austrian and the Magyar ; or he presents himse14, mounted on a high-spirited charger by the side of Dembinski But all attempts to lay hold of and silence this mysterious entity are unavailing. The man with the umbrella and carpet-bag may be seized and sent across the Western frontier of Austria, but in the course of a few weeks he voluntarily presents himself at the head police-office in Vienna having just arrived from the Fast. Were the amiable and accom- plished giver and receiver of dinners at Paris shipped on board the Boulogne steam-boat tomorrow, the Incubrations of "our own cor- respondent" would not for one day cease to make their appearance in the accustomed columns. "One own correspondent" has a magical power of multiplying himself indefinitely and eluding the grasp of pursuers. The "own correspondents "of the English press resemble nothing so much as the viewless voices which, we are told in the Arabian tale, beset the adventurers in search of the golden water, singing tree, and talking bind, when they began to ascend the mountain at the top of which those rarities were. His incessant clack-his more thao ventriloquist power over his voice

,-deafens and bewilders his victims and turns them to stone. - The late razzias of the Austrian, Prussian, and French Govern- ments, against this wayward and inscrutable being, are utterly unavailing.

As easy may they the intrenohant air With their keen swords impress, as make him bleed."

From the commencement of the Peninsular war till the taking of Paris, not all the power and efforts of Napoleon, with all the governments and armies of the Continent at his command, could prevent the late Mr. Walter front receiving early and authentic information before the Government, and even -when the Govern- ment could not obtain it. And so will it be in future. So long as there is a public willing to pay for news, and a country where men are free to print news, so long will the publisher of 'math find his "own correspondents " in plenty. Suppress the professional jour- nalist, and a thousand irregular volunteers are ready to supply his place. Every man who has a grievance to complain of, or a good deed or clever invention to make known, or a commercial or stock- jobbing enterprise to promote by throwing light upon the state of markets, can be tamed to account. The successful soldier wishes the journalist to blow his trumpet ; the unsuccessful soldier has recourse to him to explain by what machinations or misadventures he has been thwarted. Nay, the very courts, ministers, and sove- reigns, who vow that "our own correspondent" is the plague of their life are ready enough to assume his character When they think there is anything to be gained by it. "Our own corre- spondent" is everybody, and to stop everybody's mouth is no easy matter.

Seriously, as beseems the time-to banish or silence the avowed professional correspondent of the English newspaper, is the most unwise thing any government can do. The proprietors of English newspapers know that their success depends upon the quality of their news ; and they therefore employ as their regular foreign correspondents men of intelligence, education, and veracity. These gentlemen know that the permanence of their employment depends upon the truthfulness and accuracy of their reports. While they hold the pen, the news pub- lished in the English journals will be substantially true and Impartial; but when these journals are obliged to depend upon occasional and imperfectly known correspondents, unchecked-by any fear of losing a permanent appointment, there will be less se- curity against their being made channels of misrepresentation. The professional correspondent is dangerous only to the bad; the occasional correspondent is dangerous to all. Vhere "our own correspondent" cannot be shut out, it is better he should be known and responsible : he has already established a footing in every country except Russia, China, and the wilds of Tartary ; and he cannot much longer 'be kept out of them.