The following is taken from the Judiciary Committee’s Report
on the Censorship of the press at Washington:
The Censor testified that on Friday, December 27, at 2 o’clock
P. M., he received positive orders to suppress all dispatches concerning the
matter, but at forty-five minutes after two he allowed the following dispatch
to go:
“Samuel Wood, New York
Hotel, New York: – Act as though you heard some very good news, for
yourself and me, as soon as you get this.
W. H. RUSSELL”
The committee say that any man of ordinary discernment might
have detected in that dispatch the contraband information, and that Mr. Russell
has not, by his letters to the London Times entitled himself to privileges
which were denied to our own citizens.
Stock speculations were active and remunerative, and the committee think
Mr. Russell’s friend made a good thing out of the good news. H. G. Fant, a banker of the city, was
examined by the committee, in reference to his operations in stock upon the
Trent affair. Mr. Fant had read in the
Herald that Mason and Slidell were to be given up, and he put to work Mr.
Robert J. Corwin to ascertain whether the communication had been made to Lord
Lyons. He ascertained in the Department
of the Interior, that it had. Mr. Fant invested
in stocks, and Mr. Corwin’s share of the profits was $1,300.
The reporters for the press were not allowed to send a word
over the wires about the settlement of the Trent affair. Mr. Fant, a banker, used Mr. Corwin to pump
the Secretary of the Interior. Mr. Smith
was pumped, and Mr. Corwin pocketed, as his share $1,300. Then, Dr. Russell advised his friend Samuel
Wood, of New York. How much Mr. Wood
made, and what fell to the share of the special correspondent of the London
Times is not stated.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 29, 1862, p. 4
No comments:
Post a Comment