Hard on the heels of this blow came cheering news. The _Constitution_ met the _Guerriere_ on Aug. 19, and Capt. Hull’s victory was given to the public by Boston papers of the 31st, and New York papers of Sept. 2. Thus both the defeat and the victory were known to most Northerners about a fortnight after they took place. Of “the fall of Fort Dearborn at Chicagua,” on Aug. 15, the famous massacre, New Yorkers did not learn until Sept. 24, when a brief dispatch from Buffalo was inserted in an obscure corner by Coleman. All Washington news at this time still required two full days for transmission, and often more. When Madison on Nov. 3, 1812, sent a message to Congress at high noon, the _Evening Post_ announced that it and the _Gazette_ had clubbed together to pay for a pony express, and that it hoped to issue an extra with the news the following afternoon. It also stated that the previous evening an express had passed through the city towards New England, reputed to be bearing the substance of the message, and to have traversed the 340 miles from Washington in nineteen hours. Next day the editor stated that the express had really come from Baltimore only, and that it had been paid for by gamblers to bear the first numbers drawn in the Susquehanna lottery in advance of the mails. These numbers had been delivered to the gamblers in New York, who went to the proper offices and took insurance to the amount of $30,000 against their coming up that day; but the offices refused payment. It was nearly thirty-six hours before Madison’s message reached New York from Washington, and it was not printed until Nov. 5. Late in the fall occurred an interesting example of the constant conflict of that day between rumor and fact. Gen. Stephen Van Rensselaer sacrificed a force of 900 men at Queenstown Heights, just across the Niagara River, on Oct. 13. Seven days later the _Evening Post_ in a column headed “postscript” gave the city its first intimation that a battle had occurred. Just as the paper at two o’clock was going to press, it said, the Albany boat had come in with word from Geneva that an army surgeon had arrived there from Buffalo, and had reported a great American victory--the capture of Queenstown and 1,500 prisoners. But the steamer also brought a rival report from the Canandaigua _Repository_ of a disaster, in which hundreds had been killed and hundreds captured. The city could only wait and fear as the following day passed without news. Finally, on the afternoon of the 22d, the Albany steamboat hove in sight again, and a great crowd thronging the pier was aghast to learn that Van Rensselaer had lost a battle and a small army.