James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[243] some time after, was carried over it in about half the time, with not one-fourth the delay we encountered at the depot in Boston. (We could guess how all this was brought about, but it would answer no purpose now.) At Worcester, Mr. Twitchell (whom our agent on this end had only been able to find on Tuesday, having been kept two days on the route to Boston by a storm, and then finding Mr. T. absent in New Hampshire) was found in bed, but got up and put off, intending to ride but one stage. At its end, however, he found the rider he had hired sick, and had to come along himself. At one stopping-place he found his horse amiss, and had to buy one before he could proceed. When he reached Hartford (toward morning) there was no engine fired up, no one ready, and another hour was lost there. At New Haven our rider was asleep, and much time was lost in finding him and getting off. Thus we lost in delays which we could not foresee or prevent over three hours this side of Boston ferry,—the Cambria having arrived two or three days earlier than she was expected, before our arrangements could be perfected, and on the only night of the week that the rival express could have beaten even our bad time, —the Long Island Railroad being obstructed with snow both before and afterward. The Herald express came in at 20 minutes past 9; our express was here at 15 minutes past 12, or less than three hours afterward. Such are the facts. The express for the U. S. Gazette crossed the ferry to Jersey City at 10 1/2 instead of 11 1/2, as we mis-stated recently.

That will do for the curiosities of the Special Express. Another feature has vanished from the press of this country, since those paragraphs were written. The leading journals are no longer party journals. There are no parties; and this fact has changed the look, and tone, and manner of newspapers in a remarkable degree. As a curiosity of old-fashioned party politics, and as an illustration of the element in which and with which our hero was compelled occasionally to labor, I am tempted to insert here a few paragraphs of one of his day-of-the-election articles. Think of the Tribune of to-day, and judge of the various progress it and the country have made, since an article like the following could have seemed at home in its columns.