Grady could not only write and say stirring things; he could be witty. He once spoke at a dinner of the New England Society, in New York, at which General Sherman was also present. "Down in Georgia," he said, "we think of General Sherman as a great general; but it seems to us he was a little careless with fire." Nor was Grady less brilliant as managing editor than upon the platform. He had the kind of enterprise which made James Gordon Bennett such a dashing figure in newspaper life, and the New York "Herald" such a complete _news_paper--the kind of enterprise that charters special trains, and at all hazards gets the story it is after. Back in the early eighties Grady was running the Atlanta "Constitution" in just that way. If a big story "broke" in any of the territory around Atlanta, Grady would not wait upon train schedules, but would hire an engine and send his men to the scene. Once, following a sensational murder, he learned that the Birmingham "Age-Herald" had a big story dealing with developments in the case. He wired the "Age-Herald" offering a large price for the story. When his offer was refused Grady knew that if he could not devise a way to get the story, Atlanta would be flooded next day with "Age-Heralds" containing the "beat" on the "Constitution." He at once chartered a locomotive and rushed two reporters and four telegraph operators down the line toward Birmingham. At Aniston, Alabama, the locomotive met the train which was bringing "Age-Heralds" to Atlanta. A copy of the paper was secured. The "Constitution" men then broke into a telegraph office and wired the whole story in to their paper, with the result that the "Constitution" was out with it before the Birmingham papers reached Atlanta. Atlanta was at that time a town of only about 40,000 inhabitants, but the "Constitution," in the days of Howell and Grady, had a circulation four times greater than the total population of the city--a situation almost unheard of in journalism. Something of the breadth of its influence may be gathered from the fact that in several counties in Texas, where the law provided that whatever newspaper had the largest circulation in the county should be the county organ, the county organ was the Atlanta "Constitution." An Atlanta lady tells of having called upon Grady to complain about an article which she did not think the "Constitution" should have printed. "Why did you put that objectionable article in your paper?" she asked him. "Did you read it?" he inquired. "Yes, I did." "Then," said Grady, "that's why I put it there." Grady and Howell always ran a lively sporting department. Away back in the days of bare-knuckle prize fights--such as those between Sullivan and Ryan, and Sullivan and Kilrain--a "Constitution" reporter was always at the ringside, no matter where the fight might take place. For a newspaper in a town of forty or fifty thousand inhabitants, a large percentage of them colored illiterates, this was real enterprise.