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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 1

An Office Secret

An Office Secret.

The London correspondent of the Sheffield Independent describes the circumstances under which the announcement of the resignation of Lord R. Churchill was communicated to the Times. He states that Lord R. Churchill drove into Printing-house-square shortly after eleven on Wednesday night, and asked to see the editor. He was lodged with him for nearly an hour, at the end of which time, lo! as Mr Black says in his novels, a strange thing happened. As soon as Lord Randolph had been seen off the premises an order was issued to lock every door, back and front, and take the key to the editor's room. Despatches as they arrived through the night, were taken in at a window in the courtyard. Not a soul, from the editor's room to the companionship of the printer's devil, was permitted to leave the premises on any pretext whatever. For some hours mystery and consternation brooded over the establishment. The secret was till two o'clock in the morning locked in the breasts of the editor and two leader-writers. The paragraph announcing the resignation, and the articles commenting thereon, were written and held back till the last moment. But even then, the hour being one at which other papers were going to press, the doors were still locked, and it was not till the paper had gone to press that the doors were unlocked. This is « how they brought the news to Ghent, » and how it was jealously kept there.