An affair of the "shop" has occupied considerable space in
the important columns of the Times and the Morning Chronicle this week. The Chronicle lately anticipated the Times in the publi- cation of the Queen Regent's speech at the opening of the Spanish Cortes. The Times, nettled at the superior eclat gained in this in- stance by a rival, insinuated unfair play on the part of the Chro- nicle people, through whom the Times packet had been transmitted. It appealed, however, that the agent of the Chronicle at Madrid bad only agreed to deliver the Times packet within six hours after his own; and the people at the Chronicle office delivered it at the Times office within three hours. [Packets were delivered on similar conditions to the Morning Herald, and to a merchant in the City ; whose agents at Madrid both acknowledged the favour.] Here the matter rested till Monday last, when the Times published a statement from its own correspondent at Madrid, denying that any stipulation was made with Mr. MAIIERLEY, who acted for the Chronicle in the affair, relative to the time when the packet was to be delivered at the Times office. This person also states, that lie despatched an early copy of the Queen's speech, (with which he had been exclusively favoured by the Spanish Ministry) by a Government courier, who was allowed to get thirty hours' start of Mr. MABERLEY'S courier, who was detained for want of a passport, purposely refused him. Moreover, he says, that be did not send a duplicate of the Queen's speech by Mr. MADERLEY'S courier. Yet the Times declares that the only copy of the speech which it received was contained in the packet for- warded by the courier of the " too clever Mr. MABERLEY;" and pretends to believe that this man, having overtaken the Spanish Government courier at Rambouillet, bribed him to give up the packet for the Times, in order that it might be detained in London. If this is true, the proof of it lies with the Times; which is bound, by the production of the proof, to free itself from the suspicion of having applied to its correspondent to get up a case, and of having cast an unwarranted imputation upon the Chronicle by the subornation of false evidence. It is ridiculous to suppose that one journal would incur the expense of a courier for the purpose of exclusively obtaining early intelligence, and then give its rivals all the advantages of the trouble and outlay ; or that a Government courier would be bribed ,to give up a packet, with the safe delivery of which be was especially charged, without any evidence of his treachery being forthcoming. The Times is in the situation of one who has made a gross charge of delinquency against a rival without the slightest proof of its truth. The Times must not expect to be invariably before its contem- poraries in obtaining news. The exertions made by several of the Daily Papers to get early intelligence are now so great, that it will happen occasionally—accidentally, or by a little extra trouble or better arrangement—that one will outstrip the other, even though that other should be the Times.
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