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 THE DEMEANOUR OF ENGLAND. 291 mure towards the press was a good deal like chap. that of a soldier taken prisoner by the enemy. '__ He received his marching orders submissively from the sheets of the * Times/ proceeded at once to obey them, and so trudged doggedly on, without giving other vent to his savageness than a comfortable oath and a growl. Whilst he trudged, he would even explain to any less docile fellow-prisoner how vain and foolish it was to dream of attempting resistance. No humble subordinate employed by the great news-dealing company could well have proved more tractable in their hands than did the new chief of the War Department. What the ' Times ' had been enjoining he made it his first task to do. What the ' Times ' had asserted, he held must be taken as true until the contrary were shown, and in the meantime might be used as the basis of a set accusation. He even maintained that the public clamour directed against Lord Kaglan's most highly valued officers, should of itself suffice to disqualify them. It is true, he from time to time showed that he savagely hated the yoke which he thought himself forced to bear ; and I observe that, after bringing himself to write a despatch which was the very echo of what the great journal ordained, he indulged him- self with a fling at the power he had strictly obeyed by calling it ' the villainous " Times." ' But one must not forget that he made good his obedience to the newspaper by an act of State fraught with State consequences ; whilst his little malediction — doing no good or harm to