written and published.  They were “spicy,” pleasant in style, full of gossip about the distinguished personages who thronged the capital every winter, and, withal, free from any offensive personality.  They were read with eagerness, and widely copied by the press throughout the country.  Yet he was poorly paid for them, and at a time when he had made a “real hit” was forced to labor hard for a bare subsistence.  He did all kinds of literary work.  He wrote editorials, letters, sketches, poetry, stories, police reports, in short, every thing that a newspaper had use for, and yet his earnings were barely more than sufficient to afford him a decent support.

In 1829, the “Courier and Enquirer” were united under one management, and Mr. Bennett was made assistant editor, with James Watson Webb as his chief.  In the autumn of that year he became associate editor.  Says Mr. James Parton (by no means an ardent admirer of Mr. Bennett): 

“During the great days of the ‘Courier and Enquirer,’ from 1829 to 1832, when It was incomparably the best newspaper on the continent, James Gordon Bennett was its most efficient hand.  It lost him in 1832, when the paper abandoned General Jackson and took up Nicholas Biddle, and in losing him lost its chance of retaining the supremacy among American newspapers to this day.  We can truly say that at that time journalism, as a thing by itself and for itself, had no existence in the United States.  Newspapers were mere appendages of party, and the darling object of each journal was to be recognized as the organ of the party it supported.  As to the public, the great public, hungry for interesting news, no one thought of it.  Forty years ago, in the city of New York, a copy of a newspaper could not be bought for money.  If any one wished to see a newspaper, he had either to go to the office and subscribe, or repair to a bar-room and buy a glass of something to drink, or bribe a carrier to rob one of his customers.  The circulation of the ’Courier and Enquirer’ was considered something marvelous when it printed thirty-five hundred copies a day, and its business was thought immense when its daily advertising averaged fifty-five dollars.  It is not very unusual for a newspaper now to receive for advertising, in one day, six hundred times that sum.  Bennett, in the course of time, had a chance been given to him, would have made the ‘Courier and Enquirer’ powerful enough to cast off all party ties, and this he would have done merely by improving it as a vehicle of news.  But he was kept down upon one of those ridiculous, tantalizing, corrupting salaries, which are a little more than a single man needs, but not enough for him to marry upon.  This salary was increased by the proprietors giving him a small share in the small profits of the printing-office; so that, after fourteen years of hard labor and Scotch economy, he found himself, on leaving the great paper, a capitalist to the extent of a few hundred dollars.  The chief