Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 26).djvu/102

 of Gazettes, was making his way to the Mansion House in a hansom cab. It was eight o'clock at night, and Lord Mayor Sydney came down half-dressed and in slippers. The telegram woke him up. Seizing the paper his worship rushed upstairs, shouting the good news all over the house.

But all the world was not at the Mansion House, and some means must be found of making the glad news known to the citizens. The Sheriffs were dining at the London Tavern, then in Bishopsgate, and thither Mr. Harrison, the Lord Mayor's chaplain, and the Lord Mayor himself, in slippers, flew as fast as a hansom cab could go with them. Rushing upstairs, the Lord Mayor pushed to the front. The dinner was half over, and one of the Sheriffs was speaking. But dinner and speeches were of secondary moment just then. Pushing the Sheriff on one side, the Lord Mayor took possession and read out the news of the Battle of the Alma. "It was an extraordinary sight," says Mr. Harrison, "such as I have never seen since. The guests left the table and went away, and soon the news was everywhere."

That was how the news came home from the Alma. The telegram which caused such commotion had been dispatched at seven o'clock in the morning from Belgrade, and at nine o'clock at night it was known, without the aid of newspapers, all over London. It was this news, it is interesting to note, which was the occasion of the only Sunday opening of Messrs. W. H. Smith's bookstalls which has ever been known. On the Sunday morning, in order that the news might be spread as far and wide as possible, Messrs. Smith departed from their no-Sunday rule and circulated the Gazette and other papers containing the despatch. On that day, too, a special Gazette was issued confirming the news from the Alma. Here is a copy of the telegram which was in these ways circulated throughout London on that exciting Saturday night:—