My old friend the editor of the "Daily News," had, during
my absence in America, been appointed to the "Gazette," and the new
Pharaoh "knew not Joseph." And so we decided to throw up the sponge
and go back to America, though even there the new influx of English
competitors (for which I was in part responsible) had made our chance
less brilliant. My father-in-law offered us, if we withdrew from our
decision, to settle ?400 a year on my wife. With this aid we felt
that we might carry through; and to her the change from English life,
surrounded by old friends and an artistic atmosphere, to the strange
and comparatively cruder surroundings of America, was to be avoided at
any possible price, and I had no right to hesitate.
The great Exhibition of Vienna, in 1873, found the New York "Tribune"
unprovided in time for its correspondence, and the European manager,
my friend G.W. Smalley, proposed to me to go out for the paper. There
were three months still to the opening, but the preparation of the
groundwork of a continuous correspondence, on an occasion to which the
American public attached much importance, was a matter of gravity, and
the time was not too long. The editor had neglected the matter,
owing to considerations which deluded him, and I was just in time to
forestall the worst effects of a scandal which made its noise in its
day. The chief commissioner, General Van Buren, had had associated
with him, through influences which need not be cited, several
under-commissioners who were Jews, formerly of Vienna, and of course
obnoxious to the society, official and polite, of the Austrian
capital, and who were exercising a most unfortunate influence on the
prospects of the American exhibitors.
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