--One accompaniment of the singular result of the election has been sufficiently ridiculous--the daily reports of "the situation" as they appeared in the columns and at the doors of the Republican and Democratic newspapers. The phrase "to lie like a bulletin" has been justified to the fullest extent. On which side lay the deviation from truth it was impossible to say; but if one respectable journal's assertions were true, the others surely were false. It was strange and laughable to read on one bulletin board, "Republican Victory! Election of Hayes! South Carolina and Florida ours by large majorities!" and then to find only a few yards off a no less flaming announcement of "Democratic Triumph! Tilden elected! South Carolina and Florida give decided Democratic majorities!" And this was not only ridiculous, but somewhat incomprehensible. For the newspapers which made these flatly contradictory announcements at the same time and within short distances, all equally prided themselves on their reputation as purveyors of news--news that could be relied upon. Moreover, their means of obtaining news are pretty well known to the public and quite well to each other. True the "reliable gentleman," and the "distinguished member of Congress," figured somewhat largely as the sources of those very discrepant statements; and those persons are notoriously untrustworthy; even more so than the "intelligent contraband" of the war times. But after all it was a puzzle--unless, indeed, upon the assumption that these newspapers published each of them, not what they knew to be the fact, but what they thought their readers would like to be told; a theory not to be entertained for a moment. Nevertheless the facts as they presented themselves did seem to be worthy of some candid consideration by the journalistic mind; for to mere outsiders they seemed to point to the prudence and safety, to say the least, of more caution and reserve of assertion, with the certainty that the introduction of these new elements into the news department of journalism would tend to the elevation of the profession, and would beget a confidence in that department of our leading journals which it may perhaps be safely said does not exist in a very high degree at present. Possibly, however, the question may have presented itself in this form to the journalistic mind: "If we continue to announce victory for our own party, and it so turns out in the end, we are all right, and we shall have pleased our readers." If the contrary, we shall merely have to denounce the frauds of our opponents which have falsified the truth that we told, and we shall have pleased our readers all the same." Ingenious gentlemen.