Years ago the Herald outgrew the provincial idea that the happenings of the streets must be of more importance, and, consequently, demanding more space, than events of universal interest in the chief centres of the world. The policy of the paper has been, while neglecting nothing of news value at home, and while photographing all events of local importance with fulness and accuracy, to keep its readers au courant with the world's progress. In all departments of sporting intelligence the Herald is an acknowledged authority; its dramatic news is fuller than that of any paper in the country; it "covers," to use a newspaper technicality, the world's metropolis on the banks of the Thames not with a single correspondent, but with a corps of able writers; during the recent troubles in Ireland one of its special correspondents traversed that distracted country, giving to his paper the most graphic picture of Irish distress and discontent, and he capped the climax of journalistic achievement by interviewing the leading British statesmen on the Irish theme, making a long letter, which was cabled to the Herald and recabled back the same day to the London press, which had to take, at second-hand, the enterprise of the great New-England daily. At Paris, the world's pleasure capital, the chief seat of science, it is ably represented, and its Italian correspondence has been ample and excellent. When public attention was first drawn to Mexico by the opening up of that land of mystery and revolutions by American railway-builders, the Herald put three correspondents into that field, and made Mexico an open book to the reading public. It is one of the characteristics of the paper's policy to take up and exhaust all topics of great current interest, and then to pass quickly on to something new. In dealing with topics of interest of local importance, the paper has long been noted for exhaustive special articles by writers of accuracy and fitness for their task. Its New York City staff comprises a general correspondent, a political observer, a chronicler of business failures, an accomplished art critic, a fashion writer, a theatrical correspondent, and three general news correspondents, using the wires. The Herald is something more than a Boston paper. It has a wide reach, and employs electricity more freely than did the oldtime newspaper the post-horse.
In its closely-printed columns the Herald has, during the last decade, given to its readers a cyclopædia of the world's daily doings. Portraitures of men of affairs done by skilled writers, the fullest records of contemporaneous events, the gossip and news of the chief towns of the globe,—all this has made up a complete record to which the future historian may turn.
To manage such a paper requires a coördination of forces and an intellectual breadth of view deserving to be ranked with the work and attributes of a successful general. Not to wait for the slow processes of legislation, to be up and ahead of the government itself, to be alert and untiring—this is the newspaper ideal. How near the Herald has come to this, its enduring popularity, its great profits, and its wide fame and influence, best show.
WACHUSETT MOUNTAIN AND PRINCETON.
By Atherton P. Mason.
Almost the first land seen by a person on board a vessel approaching the Massachusetts coast is the summit of Wachusett Mountain; and any one standing upon its rocky top beholds more of Massachusetts than can be seen from any other mountain in the State. For these two reasons, if for no others, a short historical and sceno-graphical description of this lonely and majestic eminence, and of the beautiful township in which it lies, would seem to be interesting.
Wachusett, or "Great Watchusett Hill," as it was originally called, lies in the northern part of the township of Princeton, and is about fifty miles due west from Boston. The Nashaways, or Nashuas, originally held this tract and all the land west of the river that still bears their name, and they gave to this mountain and the region around its base the name of "Watchusett." Rising by a gradual ascent from its base, it has the appearance of a vast dome. The Reverend Peter Whitney[2] speaking of its dimensions, says: "The circumference of this monstrous mass is about three miles, and its height is 3,012 feet above the level of the sea, as was found by the Hon. John Winthrop, Esq., LL.D., in the year 1777: and this must be 1,800 or 1,900 feet above the level of the adjacent country." More recent measurements have not materially changed these figures, so they may be regarded as substantially correct.
The first mention, and probably the first sight, of this mountain, or of any portion of the region now comprised in Worcester County, is recorded in Governor Winthrop's journal, in which, under the date of January 27, 1632, is written: "The Governour and some company with him, went up by Charles River about eight miles above Watertown." The party after climbing an eminence in the vicinity of their halting-place saw "a very high hill, due west about forty miles off, and to the N.W. the high hills by Merrimack, above sixty miles off," The "very high hill" seen by them for the first time was unquestionably Wachusett.