James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

Bark Gen. Jones, (of Boston,) Hodgden, London 47 days, chalk to E. S. Belknap & Sons. Aug. 14, lat. 50° 11′, lon. 9° 20′, spoke ship Merensa, of Boston, 19 days from Eastport for London. Aug. 19, signalized a ship showing Nos. 55, 31, steering E. Aug. 20, signalized ship Isaac Allerton, of New York. Sept. 1, spoke Br. Emerald, and supplied her with some provisions. Sept. 13, lat. 43° 36′, lon. 49° 54′, passed a number of empty barrels and broken pieces of oars. Sept. 13, lat 43°, long 50° 40′, while lying to in a gale, passed a vessel's spars and broken pieces of bulwarks, painted black and white; supposed the spars to be a ship's topmasts. Sept. 19, lat. 41° 14′, lon. 56°, signalized a bark showing a red signal with a white spot in center.

As no one not interested in marine affairs ever bestows a glance upon this part of his daily paper, these condensed tragedies of the sea will be novel to the general reader. To compile the ship-news of this single morning, the log-books of twenty-seven vessels must have been examined, and information obtained by letter, telegraph, or exchange papers, from ninety-three sea-port towns, of which thirty-one are in foreign countries. Copied here, it would fill thirty-five pages, and every line of it was procured yesterday.

The money article of the Tribune, to those who have any money, is highly interesting. It chronicles, to-day, the sales of stocks, the price of exchange and freight, the arrivals and departures of gold, the condition of the sub-treasury, the state of the coal-trade and other mining interests, and ends with gossip and argument about the Schuyler frauds. There is a vast amount of labor condensed in the two columns which the money article usually occupies.

The Tribune, from the beginning of its career, has kept a vigilant eye upon passing literature. Its judgments have great weight with the reading public. They are always pronounced with, at least, an air of deliberation. They are always able, generally just, occasionally cruel, more frequently too kind. In this department, taking into account the quantity of information given—both of home and foreign literature, of books published and of books to be published —and the talent and knowledge displayed in its notices and reviews, the superiority of the Tribune to any existing daily paper is simply undeniable. Articles occasionally appear in the London journals, written after every other paper has expressed its judgment, written at ample leisure and by men pre-eminent in the one branch of letters to which the reviewed book belongs, which are superior to the reviews of the Tribune. It is the literary department of the paper,