"I'm taking notes," says I, "for a journal which has such an immense circulation among our gallant troops that when they begin to read it in the camps, it looks, from a distance, as though there had just been a heavy snow-storm."
"Ah!" says Villiam, thoughtfully, "newspapers and snow-storms are somewhat alike; for both make black appear white. But," said Villiam philosophically, "the snow is the more moral; for you can't lie in that with safety, as you can in a newspaper. In the language of General Grant at Donelson," says Villiam, sternly: "I propose to move upon your works immediately."
And with that he planted one of his boots right in the middle of my paper.
"Read that ere Napoleonic dockyment," says Villiam, handing me a scroll. It was as follows:
EDICK.
Having noticed that the press of the United States of America is making a ass of itself, by giving information to the enemy concerning the best methods of carrying on the strategy of war, I do hereby assume control of all special correspondents, forbidding them to transact anything but private business; neither they, nor their wives, nor their children, to the third and fourth generation.
I. It is ordered, that all advice from editors to the War Department, to the general commanding, or the generals commanding the armies in the field, be absolutely forbidden; as such advice is calculated to make the United States of America a idiot.
II. Any newspaper publishing any news whatever, however obtained, shall be excluded from all railroads and steamboats, in order that country journals, which receive the same news during the following year, may not be injured in cirkylation.
III. This control of special correspondents does not include the correspondent of the London Times, who wouldn't be believed if he published all the news of the next Christian era. By order of
Villiam Brown, Eskevire,
Captain Conic Section, Mackerel Brigade.