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The general business of Smith, Elder, & Co. through the sixties was extremely prosperous. In 1861 an additional office was taken in the west end of London at 45 Pall Mall, nearly opposite Marlborough House. The shock of the Mutiny was ended, and Indian trade was making enormous strides. Smith, Elder, & Co. had supplied some of the scientific plant for the construction of the Ganges canal, and in 1860 they celebrated the accomplishment of the great task by bringing out a formidable quarto, Sir Proby Thomas Cautley's 'Report of the Construction of the Ganges Canal, with an Atlas of Plans.' The publishing affairs of the concern were meanwhile entirely satisfactory. The success of the 'Cornhill' had given them a new spur. It had attracted to the firm's banner not merely almost every author of repute, but almost every artist of rising fame. Not the least interesting publication to which the magazine gave rise was the volume called 'The Cornhill Gallery: 100 Engravings,' which appeared in 1864. Portions of it were reissued in 1866 in three volumes, containing respectively engravings after drawings made for the 'Cornhill' by Leighton, Walker, and Millais. Ruskin's pen was still prolific and popular, and the many copyrights that had been recently acquired proved valuable.

With characteristic energy Smith now set foot in a new field of congenial activity, where he thought to turn to enhanced advantage the special position and opportunities that he commanded in the world of letters. The firm already owned two weekly newspapers of somewhat special character—the 'Homeward Mail' and 'Overland Mail'—and Smith had been told that he could acquire without difficulty a third periodical, 'The Queen.' But it was his ambition, if he added to the firm's newspaper property at all, to inaugurate a daily journal of an original type. The leading papers paid small attention to literature and art, and often presented the news of the day heavily and unintelligently. There was also a widespread suspicion that musical and theatrical notices, and such few reviews of books as were admitted to the daily press, were not always disinterested. It was views like these, which Smith held strongly, that had prompted in 1854 Thackeray's scheme of a daily sheet of frank and just criticism to be entitled 'Fair Play.' That scheme had been partly responsible for Thackeray's 'Roundabout Papers' in the 'Cornhill Magazine,' but they necessarily only touched its fringe. Thackeray's original proposal was recalled to Smith's mind in 1863 by a cognate suggestion then made to him by Mr. Frederick Greenwood. Mr. Greenwood thought to start a new journal that should reproduce the form and spirit of Canning's 'Anti-Jacobin.' After much discussion the plan of a new evening newspaper was finally settled by Smith and Mr. Greenwood. Men of literary ability and unquestioned independence were to be enlisted in its service. News was to be reported in plain English, but the greater part of the paper was to be devoted to original articles on 'public affairs, literature, the arts, and all the influences which strengthen or dissipate society.' The aim was to bring into Rh