The Times shaved its pocket-book as follows: "Our cash re-
ceipts have been $50,000 more this year than they were last up to
the same time. All through the dullest of the summer months
we have had a balance of from $15,000 to $20,000 in the bank.
We have no notes afloat which we are not prepared to cash on
presentation."
One thing which helped The Times, however, was its selection by the State Banking Department at Albany as the official paper in which the metropolitan banks should publish their <veekly statements as required by law. These statements, )ften containing the very best of financial news and often occu- pying two or three columns, had to be paid for by the banks at the regular advertising rate of The Times. As a matter of fact, practically every New York paper was glad to publish these statements, but The Times was the only one to receive compen- sation for their notice. The Times had secured this concession because one of its leading stockholders, D. B. St. John, was the State Superintendent of Banks, and he naturally favored the newspaper in which he had a financial interest. By withholding these bank statements from other New York papers until they had first appeared in The Times, Raymond was able to square matters with Greeley, who had refused to allow Tribune carriers to distribute copies of The Times. Greeley promptly took the matter up with St. John, but was unable to secure any satisfac- tion: in one of his letters of protest he said: "All this insolence of this little villain is founded on your injustice," and the New York press, whenever it saw fit to attack The Times, spoke of its editor as "the little villain."
EXPOSURE OF LAND GRAB
On January 6, 1857, The Times published what it called a magnificent land-stealing scheme. Among the men who left The Courier and Enquirer in 1851 to become connected with The Times was James W. Simonton, who later became connected with the Associated Press. At the beginning of 1857 he was the Wash- ington correspondent for The Times. He it was who exposed the scheme of land-robbery which, under the guise of granting cer- tain public lands to the Territory of Minneso
