Suspense, Volume III by Henry Seton Merriman

Theodore Trist had not over-estimated his powers in informing Brenda that he had some influence with the newspapers. The story of Captain Huston's sudden death never became public property; indeed, there was no mention made of the inquest. The result of an accident was all detail vouchsafed to the public. There was, by the way, some virtuous indignation expressed in the columns of a halfpenny weekly publication possessing a small circulation in the neighbourhood of the West India Dock Road. This just wrath was excited by the evident suppression of detail, and the scant courtesy with which their representative had been received by a gentleman -- himself a journalist -- who was closely connected with the disgraceful death of this British officer. In cheap type, upon a poor quality of paper, and in vile English, this self-constituted representative of the thirsting British public demanded further details. He expressed himself surprised that an enlightened nation should stand idly by while the aristocracy of the overburthened land deliberately plotted to screen its own debauched proceedings from public censure. The enlightened nation either failed to spend a halfpenny foolishly (thus neglecting its own interests), or it preferred to continue standing by. Moreover, the debauched aristocracy showed no signs of quailing beneath the lash of a relentless press. It is just possible, however, that they had neither seen the newspaper in question nor heard of its existence.

The demand for further details must have failed to reach the delinquents concerned. At all events, there was no reply, the error was never repaired, and the _Times_ failed to take up the cudgels and fight for their common rights side by side with its powerful contemporary.