details of cases which are brought before the tribunals; the moment these cases come before the public they are public property. There was a time when seemly and closed doors were the rule, and under the cloak of that pernicious system the most flagrant wrongs were committed; it is not so in the present day, and it is right that it should not be so. Public matters belong to the people, and so long as a proper and necessary measure of decency is observed, so long as private characters are not defamed, so long as homes and those who occupy them are not made wretched by infamous innuendoes, so long as the pen of the literary journalist is not employed for the purpose of scandal and blackmail--too often, we regret to say, convertible terms--the people's rights in this respect must be observed. "We point with justifiable pride to the manner in which our example has been followed. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and, we may add, also of approval, and the columns of numberless newspapers with which we have no connection testify to the approval which our new system of journalism has won. We mention no names, and have no intention of complaining because the credit of initiating the new system has been withheld from us; we accept the compliment which has been paid to us, and we wish our contemporaries good luck. At the same time we point out to our hundreds of thousands of readers that no journal has, up to this day, succeeded in presenting public news in as tempting a manner as we are enabled to do. The reason for this lies in the extraordinary intelligence of our staff. Our writers are picked men, who could earn celebrity in other channels than those of newspaper columns, but who are content to serve us because they are paid as capable journalists ought to be paid, with a liberality which other newspaper proprietors would deem excessive, but which we do not. This is one of the secrets of our astonishing and unprecedented success. Our editors, sub-editors, special correspondents, and reporters are zealous as no others are because they are devoted to our cause, because they have regular and tangible proof that our welfare is theirs, because they share in the profits of our enterprise. Thus it is that we are now in possession of particulars relating to 'The Mystery of Monsieur Felix,' which not one of our contemporaries has been able to obtain, and thus it is that we are in a position to present to our readers a romance as thrilling as any that has ever emanated from the printing press. It presents features of novelty and surprise which can be found in no other _cause célèbre_, and our readers may rest assured that we shall follow up every clew in our possession with an intelligence frequently wanting in the officials of Scotland Yard. And, moreover, we have every right to maintain, and we shall establish the fact, that what we do is done in the sacred cause of justice. The wronged shall be righted, and the mystery clearly