were what they are. Mr. Harrison's story is a curious echo of the Crimean War, when the English people were kept waiting days and weeks for the news which we get now in hours. It was on the day the news of the Battle of the Alma reached England. It was on September 30th, 1854. Mr. Harrison sat in his office in the afternoon, when a messenger arrived from the Duke of Newcastle, the First Secretary of State for War, asking him to hasten to Downing Street, where the Duke was in temporary occupation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's rooms.
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The issue announcing the surrender of Napoleon.
Hurrying back with the messenger, Mr. Harrison found the Duke in a state of great excitement. "We have such glorious news," said the Duke, explaining the nature of it. But the puzzle was how to make it known. Of course, it would be printed in the Gazette; but it was Saturday evening, and there were no papers until Sunday, and it was important that the public anxiety should be allayed by the widest possible circulation of such a piece of news. "Nobody knows it, and I don't know how to communicate it," the Duke went on. The news had found him almost alone in his office—there were only two messengers in the place—and it seemed impossible that the news of the Alma could be circulated that night.
Mr. Harrison was equal to the occasion. He immediately thought of the theatres. There were three of them open: why not have the telegram read out there? The Duke thought the plan excellent, and Mr. Harrison returned to St. Martin's Lane, set up the news with his own hands, and sent men round to the theatres with early copies of the Gazette. "See the manager," were the instructions to the messengers. "Take no refusal. Insist on having the performance stopped by order of the Duke while this news is read out." The men obeyed the orders to the letter, and at Drury Lane and other theatres the scenes were historic. A paragraph in the "Greville Memoirs" tells how the writer was passing the Adelphi Theatre when the play suddenly ceased and the people rushed out, shouting and cheering wildly over the victory.
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The announcement of the birth of Queen Victoria.
While the theatres were cheering themselves hoarse, Mr. Harrison, with a bundle
