NEWSPAPERS. The authenticated history of newspapers begins in Germany. The earliest plainly periodical collection of the "news of the day," as distinguished from the isolated news-pamphlets (of which there is at least one example of as early a date as 1498, and in Germany alone about eight hundred examples, all dating before 1610, still to be found in existing libraries), is the Frankfurter Journal, a weekly publication started by Egenolph Emmelin 1615. Antwerp follows, with its Nieuwe Tijdinghen of 1616. Six years later came the establishment in London, by Nathaniel Butter and his partners, of a like paper, under the title of The Weekly News. All of these were the enter- prises of "stationers," undertaken in the ordinary way of their trade, and hawked about the streets by itinerating "mercuries." The foundation in Paris, in 1631, of a journal which eventually attained fame as the Gazette de France, and which still exists, had a very different origin and different aims. The scheme of Théophraste Renaudot, a busy projector, unconnected with trade, who in certain points of his character and talent may be described as a born publicist, it appeared under the patronage of Richelieu, in the shape and with the limitations which it pleased the chief statesman of the day to mark out for it.
The history of the "leading article," as a great factor in the shaping of public opinion, begins with Swift, Defoe, Bolingbroke, and Pulteney, in the many newspapers, from The Review and The Examiner to The Craftsman, by which was waged the keen political strife of the years 1704-40. There is no counterpart to it in France until the Revolution of 1789, nor in Germany until 1796 or 1798. It was a Frenchman who wrote—"Suffer yourself to be blamed, im-prisoned, condemned; suffer yourself even to be hanged; but publish your opinions. It is not a right ; it is a duty." It was in England that the course so pithily described was actually taken, in the face of fine, imprisonment, and pillory, at a time when in France the public bad to depend upon foreign journals illicitly circulated, when its own chief writers resorted to clandestine presses, to paltry disguises, and to very poor subterfuges to escape the responsibilities of avowed authorship, and when in Ger-many there was no political publicity worthy to be named.
When the Mercure de France, after a long period of mediocrity, came into the hands of men of large intellectual faculty, they had the most cogent reasons for exerting their powers upon topics of literature rather than upon themes of politics. True political journalism dates only from the Revolution, and it then had a very brief exist-ence. It occupied a cluster of writers, some of whom have left an enduring mark upon French literature. A term of high aspiration was followed quickly by a much longer term of frantic licence and of literary infamy. Then came the long rule of a despotic censorship; and cycles of licence followed by cycles of repression have revolved, with varying periodicity, from that day to this. Germany has to some extent its parallelisms; but German journal-ism, if it never soared so high, never sank so low. Journalism in Germany has made steady advances onward; and in one grand feature—that of far-gathered information from foreign countries, not merely of incidents, but of the growth of opinion and the state of social—life -the leading newspapers of Germany keep much atiead of their best French contemporaries. In France, too often, the journals that gain the largest circulation are precisely those of most conspicuous frivolity. Sometimes they are much worse than frivolous. In 1871 newspapers issued from Parisian presses which were as base and as brutal as those of 1794. In 1870 the democratic Government at Bordeaux issued against journals of high aims and of unspotted integrity, but opposed to its pretensions, edicts as arbitrary as the worst acts in that kind of Napoleon I., and unparalleled in the whole course of the government of Napoleon III.
In all the other countries of Europe political journalism, in any characteristic sense, is a thing of the present century,—somewhat earlier in the century in northern Europe, somewhat later in southern. The Ordinarie Post-Tidende of Stockholm dates indeed from 1643, but until very recent times it was a mere news-letter. Denmark had no sort of journal worth remark until the foundation, in 1749, of the Berlingske Tidende, and that too attained to no political rank. The Gazette of St Petersburg—the patriarch of Russian newspapers—dates from 16th December 1702, is a Govern-ment organ, and nearly synchronizes with the first success-ful attempt at a newspaper in the British colonies in America. But the Boston Gazette was, in its degree, a better journal in the last century than the Wiedomosti now.
Journalism in Italy begins with the Diario di Bona in 1716, but in politics the press remained a nullity—for all practical purposes—until nearly the middle of the present century, when the newspapers of Sardinia, at the impulse of Cavour, began to foreshadow the approach of the influential Italian press of the present day. In Spain no rudiments of a newspaper press can be found until the last century. As late as in 1826 an inquisitive American traveller records his inability to lay his hands, during his Peninsular tour, upon more than two Spanish newspapers.
It may be useful to bring these chronological notes of the origin of journalism into view, at a glance, conjointly with the dates of some of the chief existing journals of Europe, by tabulating them thus :—
Table
The development of the modern newspaper is due to a union of causes that may well be termed marvellous. A machine that from a web of paper 3 or 4 miles long can, in one hour, print, fold, cut, and deliver 24,000 or 25,000 perfected broadsheets is after all not so great a marvel as is the organizing skill which centralizes in a London office telegraphic communications from every important town in Europe, Asia, America, and Australia, and which then (whilst re-transmitting thither the news of London) dis-tributes those communications—directly or indirectly—to thousands of recipients simultaneously, by day and by night, throughout all Britain. And but for unusual mental gifts, conjoined with high culture and with great "staying-power," in the editorial rooms, all these marvels of ingenuity—which now combine to develop public opinion on great public interests, and to guide it—would be nothing better than a vast mechanism for making money out of man’s natural aptitude to spend his time either in telling or in hearing some new thing.
Julius Reuter’s enterprise grew immediately out of the thoughts of an observant Prussian Government-messenger on the extraordinary excitement of this natural aptitude which he witnessed as caused by the revolutionary move-ments of 1848. In 1849 he established a news-trans-mitting agency in Paris, with all the appliances that were then available. Between Brussels and Aix-la-Chapelle he formed a pigeon-service, connecting it with Paris and with Berlin by telegraph. As the wires extended, he quickly followed them with agency-offices in many parts of the Continent. When he came to London, his progress was for a moment held in check. The editor of The Times listened very courteously to his proposals, but (on that first occasion) ended their interview by saying, "We gene-rally find that we can do our own business better than anybody else can." He went to the office of The Morning Advertiser, which had then the next largest circulation to that of The Times, and had better success.1 He entered into an agreement with that and afterwards with other London journals, including The Times, and also with many commercial corporations and firms.
The newspapers, of course, continued to employ their own wires and to extend them, but they found great advantage in the use of Reuter’s telegrams as supplemen-tary. His enterprise grew apace. Within a few years it is said to have yielded the founder some £25,000 a year. In 1865 it was transferred to a limited company. In 1868 the London Press Association was formed. It contracted with Reuter’s company to supply their telegrams exclusively throughout the United Kingdom, London only excepted. The cost yearly to those newspaper proprietors who are members of the association is £294, to non-members £323. In connexion with the intelligence depart-ment of the post-office, the Press Assosiation supplies parliamentary, juridical, and market news. The office of the Association is kept open during twenty-one hours of the twenty-four. The enterprise was organized by Mr John Lovell, now editor of The Liverpool Mercury. London has now at least nine other press and telegraphic associa-tions ; Paris probably has almost as, many.
THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.
The first English journalists were the writers of "news-letters," originally the dependants of great men, each em-ployed in keeping his own master or patron well-informed, during his absence from court, of all that transpired there. The duty grew at length into a calling. The writer had his periodical subscription list, and instead of writing a single letter wrote as many letters as he had customers. Then one more enterprising than the rest established an "intelligence once," with a staff of clerks, such as Ben Jonson’s Cymbal depicts from the life in The Staple of .Alews, acted in 1625:—
"This is the outer room where my clerks sit,
And keep their sides, the register in the midst;
The examiner, he sits private there within;
And here I have my several rolls and files
Of news by the alphabet, and all put up
Under their heads."
Of the earlier news-letters good examples may be seen in Sir John Fenn’s collection of Paston Letters, and in Arthur Collins’s Letters and Memorials of State (better known, perhaps, as the Sydney Papers). Of those of later date specimens will be found in Knowler’s Letters and Despatches of Strafford, and in other well-known books. Still later examples, and such as have a very high historical interest, may be seen in abundance amongst the papers collected by the historian Thomas Carte, now pre-served in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Of these, several series were addressed to the first duke of Ormond, partly by correspondents in England and Ireland, partly by correspondents in Paris; others were addressed to suc-cessive earls of Huntingdon; others, again, to various members of the family of Wharton. And like valuable collections are to be seen in the library of the British Museum, and in the English Public Record Office. In Edinburgh, the Advocates’ Library possesses a series of the 16th century, written by Richard Scudamore to Sir Philip Hoby during his embassy to Vienna.
The MS. news-letters—some of them proceeding from writers of marked ability who had access to official infor-mation, and were able to write with greater freedom and independence of tone than the compilers of the printed news—held their ground, although within narrowing limits, until nearly the middle of the last century. Some of the collections of these "gazettes à-la-main" have for the historian a greater value than any existing printed series of a contemporary gazetteer.
By the pains and critical acumen of the late Mr Thomas Watts, of the British Museum, the obstinate fiction that "for the first printed newspaper mankind are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burghley" is at length gradually disappearing from current literature, although the old story of the English Mercurie of the Armada year has been many times repeated (even in the latest works on English journalism) since the first publica-tion of his able pamphlet.2 In a later publication,3 the same learned bibliographer traced, not less conclusively, this curious fabrication to its author, the second earl of Hardwicke.
Although no genuine newspaper of the 16th century can be produced, English pamphlets, as well as French, Italian, and German, occur with such titles as Newes from Spaine, and the ike. In the early years of the 17th century they became very numerous. In 1614 we find Burton (the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy) pointing a sarcasm against the non-reading habits of "the major part" by adding, "if they read a book at any time . . . ‘tis an English chronicle, Sir Huon of Bordeaux, Amadis de Gaul, &c., a play-book, or some pamphlet of news." The most eminent purveyors of reading of this sort were Nathaniel Butter, Nicholas Bourne, and Thomas Archer; and by them was issued, in May 1622, the first authentic English periodical newspaper now known to exist. When these news-pamphlets began to be periodicals their periods were
FOOTNOTES (page 413)
(1) Mr James Grant has put on record, word for word, the curious conversation that occurred (Hist. of Newspaper Press, ii. 323 sq.).
(2) Letter to Antonio Panizzi, on the Reputed Earliest Printed News-paper, "The English Mercurie" of 1588, London, 1839, 8vo.
(3) "Authorship of the fabricated ‘Earliest English Newspaper,’" Gent. Mag., u.s., xxxiii. 485-491, 1850.
at first irregular. Thus on the 1st of June 1619 Ralph Rounthwaite entered at Stationers’ Hall A Relation of all matters done in Bohemia, Austria, Poland, Sletia, France, &c., that is worthy of relating, since the 2 of March 1618 [1619 N.S.] until the 4th, of May.1 Again, at the begin-ning of November 1621, Bartholomew Downes and another entered in like manner The certaine and true newes from all parts of Germany and Poland, to this present 20 of October 1621.2 No copy of either of these papers is now, we believe, known to exist. Nor is any copy known of The Courant, or Weekly Newes from foreign parts, of October 9, 1621, mentioned by Mr Nichols.3 But in May 1622 we arrive at a weekly newspaper which may still be seen in the British Museum. It is entitled "The 23d of May—The Weekly News from Italy, Germany, &c., London, printed by J. D. for Nicholas Bourne and Thomas Archer." Nathaniel Butter’s name does not occur on this number, but on many subsequent numbers it appears in connexion sometimes with Bourne’s and sometimes with Archer’s name; so that there was probably an eventual partnership in the new undertaking. Butter had published Newes from Spaine in 1611, and he continued to be a publisher of news until 1641, if not later.4
In The Certain Newes of this Present Week, ending 23d August 1622, the publisher inserted this advertisement :— "if any gentleman or other accustomed to buy the weekly relations of newes be desirous to continue the same, let them know that the writer, or transcriber rather, of this newes hath published two former newes; the one dated the second, the other the thirteenth of August, all which do carry alike title, and have dependence one upon another; which manner of writing and printing he doth propose to continue weekly, by God’s assistance, from the best and most certain intelligence." November 1641 is especially noticeable for the publication, in the form of a newspaper, of the earliest authentic report of the proceedings of parliament. Diurnal Occurrences, or the Heads of several Proceedings in both Houses of Parliament, was usually, notwithstanding its title, a weekly periodical, and it sometimes contained ordinary news in addition to its staple matter. This was followed, within five years, by a long train of newspapers, most of which were published weekly. Those which stand out most saliently from the rest are the Mercurius Britanni-cus, M. Pragmaticus, and M. Politicus of Marchmont Nedbam, and the Mercurius Aulicus of John Birkenhead. Nedham was perhaps both the ablest and the readiest man that had yet tried his hand at a newspaper. He com-menced the M. Britannicus on August 22, 1643, zealously advocated in it the cause of the Parliament, and continued its publication until 1647. At that period he changed sides, and began to write Mercurius Pragmaticus,
"which, being very witty, satirical against the Presbyterians, and full of loyalty, made him known to, and admired by, the bravadoes and wits of those times.... At length ... Lenthall and Bradshaw ... persuaded him to change his style once more [in favour of] the Independents, then carrying all before them. So that, being bought over, he wrote Hercurius Politicus, so extreme contrary to the former that the generality for a long, time . . . could not believe that that ‘intelligence’ could possibly be written by the same hand that wrote the ff. Pragmaticus. . . . The last [i.e., the Pragmatici] were endeavoured by the parliamenteers to be stifled, but the former, the Politici, which came out by authority, and fiew every week into all parts of the nation for more than ten years, had very great influence. . . . He was then [after a fourth ‘change of style’] the Goliath of the Philistines, the great champion of the late usurper, whose pen, in comparison of others, was like a weaver’s beam."5
Birkenhead’s M. Aulicus was also begun in 1643, and continued, although irregularly, until nearly the close of the civil war. According to Wood, Charles I. "appointed him to write the Mercurii Aulici, which being very pleas-ing to the loyal party, His Majesty recommended him to the [university] electors that they would choose him moral philosophy reader," which was done accordingly. He was assisted in the composition of Aulicus by George Lord Digby (secretary of state, and afterwards earl of Bristol) and by Dr Peter Heylin. Sir John Birkenhead had con-siderable powers of satire, after a coarse fashion, and was one of the few rough-weather royalists who were permitted to bask in the sunshine of the Restoration.
Under Cromwell, the chief papers were M. Politicus and in The Public Intelligencer (of which the first number appeared ge, on the 8th October 1655). These publications were issued on different days of the week, and at length they became conjointly the foundation of the present London Gazette. Even at their origin they were in some degree official papers. In 1659 the council of state caused the following announcement to be published :— "Whereas Marchmont Nedham, the author of the weekly news-books called Mercurius Politicus and The Publique Intelligencer, is, by order of the council of state, discharged from writing or publishing any publique intelligence; the reader is desired to take notice that, by order of the said council, Giles Dury and Henry Muddiman are authorized henceforth to write and publish the said intelligence, the one upon the Thursday and the other upon the Monday, which they do intend to set out under the titles of The Parliamentary Intelligencer and of Mercurius Publicus." After the Restoration, an office of surveyor of the press was instituted, to which Roger L’Estrange was appointed. The story of his administration of it—for which there are ample materials in the State Papers6—would be well worth the telling in a befitting place. On him was also conferred, by royal grant—and, as it proved, for only a short period,—"all the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publishing all narratives, advertisements, mercuries, intelligencers, diurnals, and other books of public intelligence; ... with power to search for and seize unlicensed and treasonable schismatical and scandalous books and papers." L’Estrange continued the papers above mentioned, but changed their titles to The Intelligencer and The News.
Joseph Williamson (afterwards secretary of state) was for a time L'’Estrange’s assistant in the compilation of The Intelligencer,7 from which he soon withdrew. He organized for himself a far-spread foreign correspondence, and carried on the business of a news-letter writer on a larger scale than had till then been known. Presently L’Estrange found his own sources of information much abridged. To his application for renewed assistance Williamson replies that ho cannot give it, but "will procure for L’Estrange a salary of £100 a year if he will give up his right in the news-book."8 The Intelligencer appeals to Lord Arlington, and assures him that the charge of "entertaining spies for information was £500 in the first year."9 But he has
FOOTNOTES (page 414)
(1) Registers of the Stationers’ Company, as printed by Mr Edward Arber, iii. 302.
(2) Ibid., iv. 23.
(3) Literary Anecdotes, iv. 38.
(4) It is to him that a passage in Fletcher’s Fair Maid of the Inn (act iv. se. 2) obviously refers :—"It shall be the ghost of some lying stationer. A spirit shall look as if butter would not melt in his mouth; a new Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus."
(5) Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (by Bliss), iii. 1182. A new Mercurius Britannicus appeared in June 1647, but did not long continue. Another, entitled M. Britannicus again Alive, was published in May 1648, and the title was often subsequently revived.
(6) These materials begin in Domestic Correspondence, Charles II., xxxix. 92-95 (Rolls House), and continue at intervals in several succeeding volumes.
(7) This help seems to have been given at the request of Arlington (then Sir H. Bennet) in 1663, State Papers, Domestic, Charles II., lxxix. 112, 113.
(8) State Papers, Domestic, Charles II., cxxxiv. 103 (Rolls House).
(9) Ibid., 117.
"doubled the size and price of the book, and has brought the profit from £200 to £400 or £500 a year."1 The appeal was in vain. It was resolved to suppress The Intelligencer, and to establish a court newspaper under a new title and new editorship.
At that time the great plague had driven the court to Oxford. The first number of The Oxford Gazette was published on the 14th of November 1665. With the publication of the twenty-fourth number it became The London For Oriel College, was the acting editor.2 For several years the Gazette was regularly translated into French by one Moranville. During the Stuart reigns generally, its con-tents were very meagre, although in the reign of Anne some improvement is already visible. More than a century after the establishment of the Gazette, we find Secretary Lord Weymouth addressing a circular3 to the several secretaries of legation and the British consuls abroad, in which he says, "The writer of the Gazette has represented that the reputation of that paper is greatly lessened, and the sale diminished, from the small portion of foreign news with which it is supplied." He desires that each of them will send regularly all such articles of foreign intelligence as may appear proper for that paper, "taking particular care,—as the Gazette is the only paper of authority printed in this country,—never to send anything concerning the authenticity of which there is the smallest doubt." From such humble beginnings has arisen the great repertory of State Papers, now so valuable to the writers and to the students of Enalish history. It has appeared twice a week, in a continuous series, for nearly two hundred and twenty years.4 The Gazette brings to the public an income ex-ceeding £20,000 a year. The editorship is of course a Government appointment, and it has a salary of £800. The office is now commonly given in reward of distin-guished service upon the ordinary newspaper press.
In November 1675 L’Estrange—not yet tired of journal-ism—commenced The City Mercury, or Advertisements concerning Trade. This he followed up in 1679 by Domestick Intelligence, published gratis for the promoting of Trade.
The very day after the departure of James II. was marked by the appearance of three newspapers—The Uni-versal Intelligence, The English Courant, and The London Courant. Within a few days morc these were followed by The London Mercury, The Orange Gazette, The London Intelligence, The Harlem Currant, and others. The Licensing Act, which was in force at the date of the Revolu-tion, expired in 1692, but was continued for a year, after which it finally ceased. On the appearance of a paragraph in The Flying Post of 1st April 1697, which appeared to the House of Commons to attack the credit of the Exchequer Bills, leave, was given to bring in a Bill "to prevent the writing, printing, or publishing of any news without licence"; but the Bill was thrown out in an early stage of its progress. That Flying Post which gave occasion to this attempt was also noticeable for a new method of printing, which it thus announced to its customers,— "If any gentleman has a mind to oblige his country friend or correspondent with this account of public affairs, he can have it for twopence . . . . on a sheet of fine paper, half of which being left blank, he may thereon write his own affairs, or the material news of the day."
In 1696 Edward Lloyd—the virtual founder of the world-famous "Lloyd’s" of commerce-started a thrice-a-week paper, Lloyd’s News, which had but a brief exist-ence in its first shape, but was the precursor of the Lloyds List of the present day. No. 76 of the original paper contained a paragraph referring to the House of Lords, for the appearance of which a public apology must, the pub-lisher was told, be made. He preferred to discontinue his publication (February 1697). Nearly thirty years afterwards he in part revived it, under the title of Lloyd’s List,—published at first weekly, afterwards twice a week.5 This dates from 1726. It is now published daily.
It was in the reign of Queen Anne that the newspaper press first became really eminent for the amount of intel-lectual power and of versatile talent which was employed upon it. It was also in that reign that the press was first fettered by the newspaper stamp. The accession of Anne was quickly followed by the appearance of the first successful London daily newspaper, The Daily Courant (1703). Seven years earlier, in 1695, The Postboy had been started cl as a daily paper, but only four numbers appeared. The Courant was published and edited by the well-known and learned printer Samuel Buckley, who explained to the public that "the author has taken care to be duly fur-nished with all that comes from abroad, in any language. .... At the beginning of each article he will quote the foreign paper from which it is taken, that the public, seeing from what country a piece of news comes, with the allowance of that Government, may be better able to judge of the credibility and fairness of the relation. Nor will he take upon himself to give any comments, . . . . supposing other people to have sense enough to make reflexions for themselves." Then came, in rapid succes-sion, a crowd of new competitors for public favour, of less frequent publication. The first number of one of these, The Country Gentleman’s Courant (1706), was given away gratuitously, and made a special claim to public favour on the ground that "here the reader is not only diverted with a faithful register of the most remarkable and momentary [i.e., momentous] transactions at home and abroad, . . . . but also with a geographical description of the most material places mentioned in every article of news, whereby he is freed the trouble of looking into maps."
On the 19th of February 1704, whilst still imprisoned in Newgate for a political offence, Defoe began his famous paper The Review (see DEFOE). At the outset it was pub-lished weekly, afterwards twice, and at length three times a week. It continued substantially in its first form until July 29, 1712 ; and a complete set is of extreme rarity. From the first page to the last it is characterized by the manly boldness and persistent tenacity with which the almost unaided author utters and defends his opinions on public affairs against a host of able and bitter assailants. Some of the numbers were written during travel, some in Edinburgh. But The Review appeared regularly. When interrupted by the pressure of the Stamp Act, the writer modified the form of his paper, and began a new series (August 2, 1712, to June 11, 1713). In those early and monthly supplements of his paper which he entitled "Advice from the Scandalous Club," and set apart for the discussion of questions of literature and manners, and sometimes of topics of a graver kind, Defoe to some extent anticipated the Tatler and Spectator. In 1705 he severed those supplements from his chief newspaper, and published them twice a week as The Little Review. But they soon ceased to appear. Not again to revert to Defoe as an
FOOTNOTES (page 415)
(1) State Papers, Domestic, Charles 11., cxxxv. 24.
(2) Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, sect. "Perrot."
(3) Calendar of Home-Office Papers, 1766-69, p. 483 (1879).
(4) A complete set exceeds four hundred volumes, with four volumes of index, and is now of extreme rarity.
(5) Frederick Martin, History of Lloyd’s, 66-77 and 107-120. The great collection of newspapers in the British Museum contains only one number of Lloyd’s News; but sixty-nine numbers may be seen in the Bodleian Library. Of the List, also, no complete series is known to exist ; that in the library of Lloyd’s begins with 1740.
English journalist, it may here be added that in May 1716 he began a new monthly paper under an old title, Mercurius Politicus, . . . . "by a lover of old England." This journal continued to appear until September 1720.
The year 1710 was marked by the appearance of The Examiner, or Remarks upon Papers and Occurrences (No. 1, August 3), of which thirteen numbers appeared by the co-operation of Bolingbroke, Prior, Freind, and King be-fore it was placed under the sole control of Swift. The Whig Examiner, avowedly intended "to censure the writings of others, and to give all persons a rehearing who had suffered under any unjust sentence of The Examiner," followed on the lst September, and The Medley three weeks afterwards.
This increasing popularity and influence of the news-paper press could not fail to be distasteful to the Govern-ment of the day. Prosecutions were multiplied, but with small success. At length some busy projector hit upon the expedient of a newspaper tax. The paper which seems to contain the first germ of the plan is still preserved amongst the Treasury papers. It is anonymous and undated, but probably belongs to the year 1711. "There are published weekly," says the writer, "about 44,000 newspapers, viz., Daily Courant, London Post, English Post, London Gazette, Postman, Postboy, Flying Post, Review, and Observator.1
The duty eventually imposed was a halfpenny on papers of half a sheet or less, and a penny on such as ranged from half a sheet to a single sheet (10 Anne, c. xix. § 10 1), and it came into force on the 19th July 1712. The first results of the tax cannot be more succinctly or more vividly described than in the following characteristic passage of the Journal to Stella (August 7, 1712): "Do you know that Grub Street is dead and gone last week? No more ghosts or murders now for love or money. I plied it close the last fortnight, and published at least seven papers of my own, besides some of other people's; but now every single half-sheet pays a halfpenny to the queen. The Observator is fallen ; the Medleys are jumbled together with the Flying Post; the Examiner is deadly sick; the Spectator keeps up, and doubles its price—I know not how long it will hold. Have you seen the red stamp the papers are marked with? Methinks the stamping is worth a halfpenny."
Swift’s doubt as to the ability of the Spectator to hold out against the tax was justified by its discontinuance in the following year. But the impost which was thus fruit-ful in mischief, by suppressing much good literature, wholly failed in keeping out bad. Some of the worst journals that were already in existence kept their ground, and the number of such ere long increased.2 An enumera-tion of the London papers of 1714 comprises The Daily Courant, The Examiner, The British Merchant, The Lover, The Patriot, The Monitor, The Flying Post, The Postboy, Mercator, The Weekly Pacquet, and Dunton’s Ghost. Another enumeration in 1733 includes The Daily Courant, The Craftsman, Fog’s Journal, Mist’s Journal, The London Journal, The Free Briton, The Grub Street Journal, The Weekly Register, The Universal Spectator, The Auditor, The Weekly Miscellany, The London Crier, Read’s Journal, Oedipus or the Postman Remounted, The St James’s Post, The London Evening Post, and The London Daily Post. Twenty years later the last-named publication became the well-known Public Advertiser. Part of this increase may fairly be ascribed to political corruption. In 1742 the committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the political conduct of the earl of Orford reported to tlie House that during the last ten years of the Walpole ministry there was paid, out of public money, no "less a sum than £50,077, 18s. to authors and printers of news-papers, such as the Free Briton, Daily Courant, Gazetteer, and other political papers."3 But some part of the payment may well have been made for advertisements. Towards the middle of the century the provisions and the penalties of the Stamp Act were made more stringent. Yet the number of newspapers continned to rise. Johnson, writing in 1758, bears testimony to the still growing thirst for new: "Journals are daily multiplied, without increase of knowledge. The tale of the morning paper is told in the evening, and the narratives of the evening are bought again in the morning. These repetitions, indeed, waste time, but they do not shorten it. The most eager peruser of news is tired before he has completed his labour ; and many a man who enters the coffee-house in his night-gown and slippers is called away to his shop or his dinner before he has well considered the state of Europe." Five years before this remark appeared in The Idler the aggregate number of copies of newspapers annually sold in England, on an average of three years, amounted to 7,411,757. In 1760 it had risen to 9,464,790, and in 1767 to 11,300,980. In 1776 the number of newspapers published in London alone had increased to fifty-three.
When Johnson wrote his sarcastic strictures on the newspapers that were the contemporaries and, in a sense, the rivals of The Idler, the newswriters had fallen below the standard of an earlier day. A generation before, the newspaper was often much more of a political organ than of an industrial venture. All of the many enterprises of Defoe in this field of journalism united indeed both characteristics. But if he was a keen tradesman, he was also a passionate politician. And not a few of his fellow-workers in that field were conspicuous as statesmen no less than as journalists. Even less than twenty years before the appearance of Johnson’s remarks, men of the mental calibre of Henry Fielding were still to be found amongst the editors and writers of newspapers. The task had fallen to a different class of men in 1750.
The history of newspapers during the long reign of George III. is a history of criminal prosecutions, in which individual writers and editors were repeatedly defeated and severely punished, whilst the press itself derived new strength from the protracted conflict, and turned ignomini-ous penalties into signal triumphs. From the days of The North Briton to those of The Examiner, every con-spicuous newspaper prosecution gave tenfold currency to the doctrines that were assailed. In the earlier part of this period men who were mere traders in politics—whose motives were obviously base and their lives contemptible -became for a time powers in the state, able to brave king, legislature, and law courts, by virtue of the simple truth that a free people must have a free press. Yet the policy that had failed in 1763 continued to be clung to in 1819.
One of the minor incidents of the North Briton excite-ment led indirectly to valuable results with reference to the much-vexed question of parliamentary reporting. During the discussions respecting the Middlesex election, Almon, a bookseller, collected from members of the House of Commons some particulars of the debates, and published them in The London Evening Post. The success which attended these reports induced the proprietors of The St James’s Chronicle to employ a reporter to collect notes in the lobby and at the coffee-houses. This repeated infrac-tion of the privilege of secret legislation led to the memor-
FOOTNOTES (page 416)
(1) "A Proposition to Increase the Revenue of the Stamp-Office, "Red-ington, Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1708-14, p. 235. The stamp-office dated from 1694, when the earliest duties on paper and parchment were enacted.
(2) See the Bumey collection of newspapers in the British Museum; and Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, iv. 33-97.
(3) "Fourth Report of the Committee of Secrecy," &c., in Hansard’s Parliamentary History, xii. 814.
able proceedings of the House of Commons in 1771, with their fierce debates, angry resolutions, and arbitrary im-prisonments,—all resulting, at length, in that tacit concession of publicity of discussion which in the main, with brief occasional exceptions, has ever since prevailed.
The three metropolitan newspapers which at different periods of this reign stood pre-eminent amongst their com-petitors were The Public Advertiser, The Morning Post, and The Morning Chronicle. The first-named paper owed much of its popularity to the letters of Junius. The Post and the Chronicle were mainly indebted for their success to the personal qualities of individual editors, combined, in both cases, although in very different degree, with a staff of writers endowed with exceptional literary power and marked versatility of talents. The Public Advertiser was first published in 1726, under the title London Daily Post and General Advertiser. In 1738 the first part of the title was dropped, and in 1752 General Advertiser was altered into the name which the letters of Junius made so famous. Many of these had appeared before the smallest perceptible effect was produced on the circu-lation of the paper; but when the "Letter to the King" came out (19th December 1769, almost a year from the beginning of the series) it caused an addition of 1750 copies to the ordinary impression. The effect of subsequent letters was variable ; but when Junius ceased to write the monthly sale of the paper had risen to 83,950. This was in December 1771. Seven years earlier the monthly sale had been but 47,515.1 It now became so valuable a property that shares in it were sold, according to John Nichols, "as regularly as those of the New River Company."2 But the fortunes of the Advertiser declined almost as rapidly as they had risen. It continued to appear until 1798, and then seems to have been amalgamated with the commercial paper called The Public Ledger (dating from 1759), which still exists as a London daily journal. Actions for libel were brought against the paper by Edmund Burke in 1784, and by William Pitt in 1785, and in both suits damages were given. The Morning Chronicle was begun in 1769. William Woodfall was its printer, reporter, and editor, and continued to conduct it until 1789. James Perry succeeded him as editor, and so continued, with an interval during which the editorship was in the hands of the late Mr Sergeant Spankie, until his death in 1821. Perry’s editorial functions were occasionally discharged in Newgate in consequence of repeated prosecutions for political libel. In 1819 the daily sale reached nearly 4000. It was sold in 1823 to Air Clement, the purchase-money amounting to £42,000. Mr Clement held it for about eleven years, and then sold it to Sir John Easthope for £16,000. It was then, and until 1843, edited by John Black, who numbered amongst his staff Albany Foriblanque, Charles Dickens, and John Payne Collier. The paper continued to be distinguished by much literary ability, but not by commercial prosperity. In 1849 it became the joint property of the duke of New-castle, Mr Gladstone, and some of their political friends; and by them, in 1854, it was sold, conditionally, to Mr Serjeant Glover, under whose management it became event-ually the subject of a memorable public scandal in the law courts of France. At length the affairs of the Chronicle were wound up in the Bankruptcy Court of London, after an existence of more than ninety years.
The Morning Post dates from 1772. For some years it was in the hands of Henry Bate (afterwards known as Sir Henry Bate Dudley), and it attained some degree of temporary popularity, though of no very enviable sort. In 1795 the entire copyright, with house and printing
FOOTNOTES (page 417)
(1) These are the figures of Mr W. S. Woodfall, the editor
(2) Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century.
materials, was sold for £600 to Peter and Daniel Stuart, who quickly raised the position of the Post by enlisting Mackintosh and Coleridge in its service, and also by giving unremitting attention to advertisements and to the copious supply of incidental news and amusing paragraphs. There has been much controversy about the share which Coleridge had in elevating the Post from obscurity to eminence. That he greatly promoted this result there can be no doubt. His famous "Character of Pitt," published in 1800, was especially successful, and created a demand for the particular number in which it appeared that lasted for weeks, a thing almost without precedent. Coleridge wrote for this paper from 1795 until 1802, and during that period its circulation in ordinary rose from 350 copies, on the average, to 4500. Whatever the amount of rhetorical hyperbole in Fox’s saying,—recorded as spoken in the House of Commons,—"Mr Coleridge’s essays in The Morning Post led to the rupture of the treaty of Amiens," it is none the less a striking testimony, not only to Coleridge’s powers as a publicist, but to the position which the newspaper press had won, in spite of innumerable obstacles, eighty years ago. The list of his fellow-workers in the Post is a most brilliant and varied one. Besides Mackintosh, Southey, and Arthur Young, it iricluded a galaxy of poets. Many of the lyrics of Moore, many of the social verses of Mackworth Praed, some of the noblest sonnets of Wordsworth, were first published in the columns of the Post. And the story of the paper, in its early days, had tragic as well as poetic episodes. In consequence of offence taken at some of its articles, the editor and pro-prietor, Nicholas Byrne (who succeeded Daniel Stuart), was assaulted and murdered whilst sitting in his office. In later days, but long prior to those of the submarine cable, the Post for a time eclipsed most of its rivals by means of the skilfitl organization which Lieutenant Waghorn—the pioneer of the overland route to India—-gave to its agencies for foreign intelligence.
The Times is usually dated from the Ist of January 1788, but was really commenced on the 1st January 1785, under the title of The London Daily Universal Register, printed logographically. This "word-printing" process had been invented by a printer named Henry Johnson several years before, and found a warm advocate in John Walter, who expounded its peculiarities at great length in No. 510 of his Daily Universal Register. In a later number he stated, very amusingly, his reasons for adopting that altered title which the enterprise and the ability of his successors have made world-famous.
Within two years Walter had his share in the Georgian persecutions of the press, by successile sentences to three fines and to three several imprisonments in Newgate, chiefly for having stated that the prince of Wales and the dukes of York and Clarence had so misconducted them- selves "as to incur thejust disapprobation of his Majesty." In 1803 he transferred the management (together with the
joint proprietorship) of the journal to his son, by whom it was carried on with remarkable energy and consummate tact. To Lord Sidmouth’s Government he gave a general but independent support. That of Pitt he opposed, espe-cially on the questions of the Catamaran expedition and the malversations of Lord Melville. This opposition was resented by depriving the elder Walter of the printing for the customs department, by the withdrawal of Govern-ment advertisements from The Times, and also, it is said, by the systematic detention at the outports of the foreign intelligence addressed to its editor. Walter, however, was strong and resolute enough to brave the Government. He organized a better system of news transmission than had ever before existed. He introduced steam-printing, and repeatedly improved its mechanism; and, although machines which print 22,000 sheets in the hour may now seem to thrust into insignificance a press of which it was at first announced as a notable triumph that the new machine per-formed its task "with such a velocity and simultaneousness of movement that no less than 1100 sheets are impressed in one hour," yet Walter’s assertion was none the less true, that The Times of 29th November 1814 "presented to the public the practical result of the greatest improvement con-nected with printing since the discovery of the art itself."
The effort to secure for The Times the best attainable literary talent in all departments kept at least an equal pace with those which were directed towards the improve-ment of its mechanical resources. And thus it came to pass that a circulation which did not, even in 1815, exceed on the average 5000 copies became, in 1834, 10,000; in 1844, 23,000; in 1851, 40,000; and in 1854, 51,648. In the year last named the average circulation of the other London dailies was—Morning Advertiser, 7644; Daily News, 4160 ; Morning Herald, 3712 ; Morning Chronicle, 2800 ; Morning Post, 2667.
Sir John Stoddart, afterwards governor of Malta, edited The Times for several years prior to 1816. He was suc-ceeded by Thomas Barnes, under whose management the great journal became famous for munificent reward of every kind of efficient service. The energy shown of late in the use of the railway and the telegraphic cable is no more marvellous than was the bringing of important news to London in 1834, at the rate of 15 miles an hour, for 400 miles. Unlike his most distinguished successor in the editorship, Barnes for many years wrote largely in his paper. When his health began to fail the largest share of the editorial work came into the hands of Captain Edward Sterling,—the contributor about a quarter of a century earlier of a noteworthy series of political letters signed "Vetus," the Paris correspondent of The Times in 1814 and subsequent eventful years, and afterwards for many years the most conspicuous among its leader-writers.1 From 1841 to 1877 the chief editor was John Thaddeus Delane. It is known, on the best authority, that "he never was a writer; he never even attempted to write anything, except what he wrote better than most writers could do—reports and letters."2 But without writing, in the literary sense, a wonderful life's work was crowded into those six and thirty years. The result of that labour, combined with the labour of a most brilliant staff of contributors, was to make what already had grown to be the "favourite broadsheet" of the English public into that which is now wont to be described as the "leading journal of the world." Everything that is used in the production of The Times, except the printing paper, is made in its offices. Not only its own "Walter machines"—able to print and perfect from 22,000 to 24,000 sheets in the hour-but those also which have been supplied to The Scotsman, The Daily News, The Liverpool Post, and The New York Times have been manufactured there. The editor’s office in Printing-House Square is now in direct communication by special wires with his branch offices both in Paris and in Berlin. The parliamentary reports are sent to the office from the Houses through the telephone. The shorthand writer extends his notes in the usual way, and reads off the manuscript through the instrument. The recipient dictates the reports to the type setters. The manuscript follows the telephonic report, and the proofs are read by it. These several mechanical triumphs, in their varied stages of development, must have occasioned a preliminary outlay of at least £100,000. And that such experiments, on any like scale, became possible is due to the growth of advertisements. Of these, the first number of The Times contained fifty-seven, all brief ones. In recent days a number of The Times has occasionally con-tained sixty columns—in one instance, at least, sixty- seven—of advertisements. The rates of charge vary, but upon a rough average it seems probable that the annual revenue from this source alone may considerably exceed £400,000. With such a fund in reserve—apart from the direct product by sale—it becomes easy to understand the otherwise amazing items of outlay known to have been incurred for telegrams, as, for instance, of £,800 for reports of the results of the congress of Berlin, when The Times achieved the publication of the treaty almost at the instant of its signature. What the sale of the paper was upon that occasion is not publicly recorded. But when, in December 1861, it published a memoir of the lamented Prince Consort, 91,000 copies were sold. On occasion of the marriage of the prince of Wales a sale of 110,000 copies (at 4 _ d.) was attained.
Of the many curious episodical incidents which occur in the public history of The Times, one only can here be mentioned. In 1840 the Paris correspondent of the paper (Mr O’Reilly) obtained information respecting a gigantic scheme of forgery which had been planned in France, together with particulars of the examination at Antwerp of a minor agent in the conspiracy, who had been there, almost by chance, arrested. All that he could collect on the subject, including the names of the chief conspirators, was published by The Times on the 26th of May in that year, under the heading "Extraordinary and Extensive Forgery and Swindling Conspiracy on the Continent (Private Correspondence)." The project contemplated the almost simultaneous presentation at the chief banking-houses throughout the Continent of forged letters of credit, purporting to be those of Glyn & Company, to a very large amount; and its failure appears to have been in a great degree owing to the exertions made, and the responsibility assumed, by The Times. One of the persons implicated brought an action for libel against the printer, which was tried at Croydon in August 1841, with a verdict for the plaintiff, one farthing damages. A subscription towards defraying the heavy expenses (amounting to more than £5000) which The Times bad incurred was speedily opened, but the proprietors declined to profit by it; and the sum which had been raised was devoted to the foundation of two "Times scholarships," in connexion with Christ’s Hospital and the City of London School. Three years afterwards The Times rendered noble public service in a different direction. It used its vast power with vigour—at the expense of materially checking the growth of its own advertisement fund—by denouncing the fraudu-lent schemes which underlay the "railway mania" of 1845.
For a long period after the establishment of The Times, no effort to found a new daily London morning newspaper was ever conspicuously successful. As time went on, many endeavours were made, at an aggregate cost, as respects those only that entirely failed, of at least £80,000. A measure of success followed the establishment
FOOTNOTES (page 418)
(1) See Life of John Sterling, by Carlyle, who says of him at this time—"The emphatic, big-voiced, always influential and often strongly unreasonable Times newspaper was the express emblem of Edward Sterling. He, more than any other man. . . . was The Times, and thundered through it, to the shaking of the spheres"
(2) The Times, 25th November 1879.
(3) Conspicuous among these unfruitful attempts were—(1) The New Times, started by Dr (afterwards Sir John) Stoddart, upon his depar-ture from Printing-House Square; (2) The Representative, established by John Murray, under circumstances which seemed at the outset exceptionally promising; (3) The Constitutional, begun in 1836 and carried on for eight months by a joint-stock company, exception-ally favoured in having for editor and sub-editor Laman Blanchard and Thornton Hunt, with a staff of contributors which included Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold, and Bulwer; (4) The Morning Star, founded in 1856, and kept afloat at a cost (it is credibly reported) of, from first to last, some £80,000, until 1870, when it merged in The Daily News; (5) in 1867, The Day, which lived only six weeks; (6) in 1873, The Hour, which had an existence of three years; (7) in 1878, The Daily Express, an almost instant failure, although edited with much ability. Against these seven disastrous ventures, extending over nearly the whole of the present century, there are to be set but three successful ones,—disregarding papers of a strictly commercial sort, and also, of course, those teeming local and suburban journals which are chiefly advertising organs, and of which only one, The Clerkenwell Daily Chronicle, has succeeded in establishing itself as a London morning paper of the usual type.
(1794) of The Morning Advertiser, under special circum-stances. It was the joint-stock venture of a large society of licensed victuallers, amongst whom subscription to the paper was the condition of membership. For nearly sixty years its circulation lay almost entirely in public-houses and coffee-houses, but amongst them it sold nearly 5000 copies daily, and it yielded a steady profit of about £6000 a year. Then, by the ability and enterprise of an experi-enced editor (James Grant), it was within four years raised to a circulation of nearly 8000, and to an aggregate profit of £12,000 a year.
Setting aside mere class-journals like The Financier and The Sportsman, the only existing London morning news-papers which have been founded during the present century are Tke Daily News (21 st January 1846), The Daily Tele-graph (29th June 1855), and The Standard (29th June 1857). ; The lowest of the three in the point of circulation has attained an average issue of 170,000 copies; the highest has reached (by notarial certificate) to an average of about 242,000. In 1856 no London newspaper of any kind was recorded to have reached a higher average circu-lation than 109,106 copies (attained in 1854 by the weekly News of the World); no daily newspaper had exceeded an average of 51,648 copies (attained in the same year by The Times), its next highest competitor, The Morning Advertiser, reaching an average sale of only 7644 copies.
The Daily News became a penny paper in 1868. The great stride in its circulation did not come until 1870, when lavish use of the electric telegraph, combined with the great powers of a brilliant war correspondent, are said to have lifted the sale in a week from 50,000 copies to 150,000.1
Originally an evening paper, established in 1827 as the express organ of the opponents of the measure for the removal of the Roman Catholic disabilities, The Standard was at first edited by Dr Gifford. From the beginning it showed marked literary ability, but its commercial success was small. When sold to James Johnson its fortunes rapidly improved. He made it both a morning and even-ing journal, reduced its price to a penny, and gave it a thoroughly good organization. Occasionally, in 1870, the evening sale reached 100,000 copies. In 1882 the aggregate circulation, morning and evening, was certified to average 242,062 copies.
The Daily Telegraph was originally founded by Colonel Sleigh, and for a few and unprosperous years was edited by Henry Barnett. It attained no success until a change of ownership placed it under the editorial care of Edward Lawson. In 1882 its certified average daily circulation exceeded 241,900 copies.
London possessed no daily evening paper until 1788, nor did any evening paper attain an important position until the period of the war with Napoleon, when The Courier (established in 1792) became the newspaper of the day. For a few years its circulation exceeded that of The Times. The average amounted during the last three years of the war to 10, 000 copies daily, a circulation not till then known to have been attained by any daily paper. Mack-intosh, Coleridge, and Wordsworth were amongst its stated contributors. Out of an article in The Courier, from the pen of the last-named, grew the famotis pamphlet on the convention of Cintra. Among the successive editors of The Courier were Daniel Stuart, William Mudford, Eugenius Roche, John Galt, James Stuart, and Lanian Blanchard. In 1827 one twenty-fourth share in the property is said to have brought 5000 guineas. But changes of editorship and keen competition were fatal to a paper that had rendered brilliant public service in its day, and for a time had headed the newspaper press of London.
The metropolis has now seven evening papers, one of which—The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette—is exclusively commercial. Whilst, of the distinctively political morning journals, four are Liberal and only two Conservative, of the six political evening ones, four are Conservative (Globe, dating from 1803; Evening Standard, 1827; St James’s Gazette, 1880; Evening News, 1881) and two are Liberal (Pall Hall Gazette, 1865; and The Echo, 1868). The last-named was the first London newspaper published at a halfpenny.
The London weekly press has always worn a motley garb. Weekly publication facilitates the individuality of a journal, both as respects its editorship and as respects the class of readers to which it more especially addresses itself. From the days of Daniel Defoe to those of Albany Fonblanque and Robert Rintoul there have always been newspapers bearing the unmistakable impress of an individual and powerful mind. When to great force of charac-ter in the writer and its natural result, an almost personal intimacy between writer and reader, Governments have been unwise enough to add the strength which inevitably grows out of persecution, the combination might well prove a formidable one. Cobbett’s Weekly Register affords serhaps as striking an illustration of journalism in its greatness an in its meanness as could be found throughout its entire annals. And Cobbett’s paper has bad many successors, some of which, profiting by the marvellous mechanical appliances of the present day, have attained a far wider popular in uence than was possessed by the Weekly Register in its most prosperous days.
The Observer dates from 1792, and was conducted by one editor-—Mr Doxat—for more than fifty years. It early distanced its com-petitors ; its expenditure was lavish, and its profits large. There is record that the issue of The Observer which contained a report of the coronation of George IV. (published in two parts, each of them with a fourpenny stamp) attained a circulation of 60,000 copies, and that there was paid to the Government for that week's issue about £2000 of stamp duty.2
The late well-known Examiner was founded in 1808, and had a career as one of the most prominent organs of the Liberals of nearly seventy years. That its literary reputation was great resulted naturally from a succession of such editors as Leigh Hunt, Albany Fonblanque, John Forster, and Professor Henry Morley. It had in its later days a distinguished competitor in the Spectator, founded (July 1828) and for more than thirty years edited by Robert Rintoul.
Strikingly in contrast with news rs of this class stand two which have much in common besides their identity of title and their extraordinary circulation—Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper and Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper. The former started as an unstamped illustrated journal at a penny in September 1842. In 1843 it was enlarged in size, and the price raised to threepence. Curious ingenuity was shown in advertising it by all sorts of expedients. Amongst others, all the pennies its proprietor could lay his hands on were embossed, by a cleverly constructed machine, with the title and price of the new journal. The Times soon drew attention to this defacement of the queen’s coin, and so gave a better advertisement still. From a weekly sale of 33,000 in 1848 it rose to 170,000 in 1861. In anticipation of the abolition of the paper duty, the price was then reduced to a penny. The circulation became 347,000 in 1863 ; in 1865 it rose to 412,080. The skill of the American machine-makers was now put to a test which produced for this paper Hoe’s first great web-machine,—adopted immediately afterwards by The Daily Telegraph and The Standard. In 1879 the weekly sale of Lloyd’s Newspaper was certified to average 612,902 copies. Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper, which has also a large circulation, dates from May 1850.
Of the illustrated papers The Illustrated London News is the oldest, and has the largest circulation (about 95,000). Besides its pictorial merits, it has long been notable for its obituary notices and its abstracts of wills. It was founded in May 1842. The Graphic (commenced in December 1869) has attained considerable reputation for its literature as well as for its engravings. The Pictorial World dates from March 1874.
FOOTNOTES (page 419)
(1) Hatton, Journalistic London, 1881.
(2) "The Newspaper Press," in Quarterly Review. October 1880.
Nearly thirty years ago (in 1865) the total number of London daily newspapers was 15 ; it is still (in 1883) only 18. The total number of London newspapers of all kinds increased from 89 in 1855 to 386 in 1883. In 1855 the total number of provincial newspapers published throughout the United Kingdom was 560 ; in 1883 it was 1576. The whole number of daily newspapers in the provinces at the former date was but 13; at the latter it was 162. This vast growth is due in the main to altered legislation rather than to altered economic conditions. Some account must now be given of the Government restrictions on the British newspaper press, commencing with the Stamp Act of 1712.
In 1756 an additional halfpenny was added to the tax of 1712. In 1765 and in 1773 various restrictive regulations were imposed (5 Geo. III. c. 46, and 13 Geo. III. c. 65). In 1789 the three-halfpence was increased to twopence (29 Geo. III. c. 60), in 1797 to twopence-halfpenny (37 Geo. Ill. c. 90), in 1804 to three-pence-halfpenny (44 Geo. III. c. 98), and in 1815 to fourpence, less a discount of 20 per cent. Penalties of all kinds were also increased, and obstructive regulations were multiplied. In the course of the struggle between this constantly enhanced taxation and the irrepressible desire for cheap newspapers, more than seven hundred prosecutions for publishing unstamped journals were insti-tuted, and more than five hundred persons were imprisoned, some-times for considerable periods. As the prosecutions multiplied and the penalties became more severe, Poor Man’s Guardians, Demo-crats, Destructives, and their congeners multiplied also, and their revolutionary tendencies increased in a still greater ratio. Blas-phemy was added to sedition. Penny and halfpenny journals were established which dealt exclusively with narratives of gross vice and crime, and which vied with each other in every kind of artifice to make vice and crime attractive. Between the years 1831 and 1835 many scores of unstamped newspapers made their appearance. Papers such as those enumerated above swarmed from presses that seemed to rival, in their mysterious itinerancy and sudden vanish-ings, the famous Marprelate press of the 16th century. The politi-cal tone of most of them was fiercely revolutionary. Prosecution followed prosecution; but all failed to suppress the obnoxious publications.
To the late Lord Lytton is due the credit of grappling with this question in the House of Commons in a manner which secured the speedy reduction of the tax from fourpence to a penny, and paved the way for its subsequent though long-delayed abolition. The reduction to a penny took effect on the 15th September 1836. At that date the number of newspapers stamped in Great Britain and Ireland was about 36,000,000 in the year, and the gross amount of duty upwards of £553.000. Of this sum English newspapers paid 9473,910, Scottish newspapers £47,999, Irish newspapers £31,287. In the year ending 9th January 1838—the first complete year of the reduced duty—the number of stamps issued was 53,897,926. The gross amount of duty was reduced to £223,426 (English, 6182,998; Scottish, £18,671; Irish, £21,756).
The results of the reduction surpassed all that had been predicted by its promoters. Yet the total abolition came only in 1855. In the year ending 5th January 1855 the number of penny stamps issued to newspapers was 107,052,053, and the gross amount of duty £446,050. The details are as follows:—
TABLE
At the same date the following newspapers (all weekly except The Times and Advertiser) stood highest as regards circulation and, consumption of stamps:—
TABLE
The measure for the final abolition of the stamp tax was substan-tially prepared by Mr Gladstone during his chancellorship of ther exchequer in 1854, but was introduced into the House of Commons by his successor in 1855. The second reading carried by a majority of 215 to 161. In the House of Lords no division took place. To enable the reader to appreciate the legislation of June 1855, we give here the aggregate circulation of newspapers, as shown by the number of stamps issued and as compared with the growth of population, at various periods during the century pre-ceding the abolition of the stamp duty, and also the figures for the first year after the abolition tool, effect.
TABLE
FOOTNOTE (page 420)
1 Inclusive of prices current, trade lists, &c., and of halfpenny stamps for supplements.
It will be observed that for several years in the earlier part of this century the aggregate circulation remained very steady—almost stationary—at about 24,000,000 copies, and that, after a gradual increase within a few years to 30,000,000, the political excitements of the years 1830-32 raised the aggregate to very nearly 38,000,000.1 Making allowance for the mere trade-lists, this number came to be more thda tripled in 1854.
The number of newspapers established from the early part of 1855, when the repeal of the duty, had become a certainty, and continuing in existence at the beginning of 1857, amounted to 107,—80 started in 1855, and 27 in 1856 ; 26 were metropolitan, and 81 provincial. Of the latter, the majority belonged to towns which possessed no newspaper whatever under the Stamp Acts, and the price of nearly one-third of them was but a penny. In some cases, however, a portion of these new cheap papers of 1857 was printed in London, usually with pictorial illustrations, and to this was added a local supplement containing the news of the district.
The total number of the newspapers published throughout the nited Kingdom at the beginning of 1857 was 711. They may be classified as follows—:-
TABLE
If these newspapers be classified according to their dates of first spublication, the enumeration will run thus:—
TABLE
The decrease in the number of newspapers which passed through the post-office in the year 1855 (during exactly one-half of which the compulsory stamp had been abolished) amounted to about onefourth of the aggregate number which had been posted in the preceding year. During the six months of the optional stamp the money received for impressed stamps was about £93,000, and that for postage stamps affixed on newspapers about £25,000. In the year 1856 the number of newspapers which passed through the post-office was nearly 71,000,000,—about three-fourths bearing the impressed stamp and one-fourth franked by the ordinary postage stamps. The total gross revenue was therefore about £295,833. Prior to the abolition of the compulsory stamp the average weight of the new papers passing through the post-office was three ounces ; in 1857 the average weight fell to about two ounces and three quarters. The reduction was due to the increase of the small and cheap papers. It was understood that The Times, at that date, stamped about 40 per cent. of its entire impression, the daily average of which then exceeded 60, 000.
Amongst the earliest results of the change in newspaper law made in 1855 was the establishment in quick succession of a series of penny metropolitan local papers, chiefly suburban, of a kind very different from their unstamped forerunners. They spread rapidly,
FOOTNOTE (page 421)
1 The figures in the table are from the parliamentary returns. Mr Grant (History of the Newspaper Press, vol. ii. p. 321) states the circulation for 1831 at 38,649,314 copies, founding upon figures quoted in the House of Commons in 1864 by Mr Edward Baines.
and attained considerable success, chiefly as advertising sheets, and as sometimes the organs, more often the critics, of the local vestries and other administrations. There are now (1883) 128 of these local papers. One of them, The Clerkerwell News and Daily Chronicle, so prospered in the commercial sense, being crowded with advertisements, that it sold for £30,000, and was then transformed into the London Daily Chronicle (28th Alay 1877). In the hands of its new owner—the proprietor of Lloyd’s Weekly—News its circulation increased fivefold within a year. Another conspicuous result of the legislation of 1855 was an enormous increase in the number and influence of what are known as "class papers," and as professional and trade papers.
The history of the provincial press of England begins with the year 1690, and With a weekly newspaper which still exists, The Worcester Postman, now known as Berrow’s Worcester Journal. But the real development of provincial journalism, as a power coordinate with that of London, dates only from 1855 ; although there were many newspapers issuing from country presses here and there—at least from the later years of the last century—which were marked by originality of character and by considerable literary skill. Worcester has now four weekly and two daily newspapers. Stamford followed next after Worcester by the establishment of its Mercury in 1695. This also is still published under the title of The Lincoln, Rutland, and Stamford Mercury. Next to The Stamford Mercury came The Norwich Postman, first published in 1706 in small quarto, and of meagre contents. The stated price of this paper was a penny, but its proprietor notified to the public that "a halfpenny is not refused." Two other papers were started in Norwich within a few years afterwards,—The Courant in 1712, and The Weekly Mercury or Protestant’s Packet (which still exists) in 1720. Norwich has now seven other weekly and, in addition, two daily papers. Nottingham follows in 1710 with its Courant, now The Nottingham Journal, and a daily paper. Nottingham has now in all four daily ha and three weekly newspapers. The Newcastle Courant followed in 1711 ; Newcastle has now five weekly and five daily journals. The Courant continues to be the farmers’ paper of the north ; for almost a hundred and eighty years it has bad but seven successive proprietors ; in politics it is independent. The Daily Journal is an organ of the Conservative party, dating as a weekly paper from 1832, as a daily one from 1861. The Chronicle holds a like position on the Liberal side. The Liverpool Courant dates from May 1712. It lasted a very short time, and had no successor until May 1756, when The Liverpool Advertiser appeared ; Gore’s General Advertiser followed in 1765, and continued until 1870. Liverpool has now (1883) eight daily and five weekly journals. There are, besides, commercial gazettes and a European Times published irregularly. The Hereford Journal dates from 1713, is of Conservative politics, H and is noted for its fulliess of local reports. The Hereford Times was established in 1832, and claims to be "the largest newspaper in the world," containing regularly 112 columns, with frequent supplements. Its merits are such that it holds its ground at the price of 3_ d. against a competitor at 2d. and two at ld. The four papers of Hereford are all weekly.
The Salisbury Postman was the first newspaper started in that city. It appeared in 1715, and its first number was the earliest first number of a provincial newspaper that the researches of the committee of the Caxton Centenary of 1877 enabled them to exhibit at South Kensington. It was followed by The Salisbury Journal of 1729, which continues to appear. Bristol journalism began with Felix Farley’s Journal in 1715, which merged into The Bristol Times (1735), and both were conjoined with The Bristol Mirror (weekly from 1773) to form The Daily Bristol Times and Mirror of January 1865. In journalism as in much else Bristol contrasts curiously with its northern rival. Liverpool bad no really established newspaper until 1756. It now (in 1883) publishes seventeen papers (reckoning those which are printed to accompany the, outgoing mails), while Bristol has only seven, including the little visitors’ paper of Clifton.
The Kentish Gazette dates from 1717, but was first published under the title of Kentish Post. Canterbury has now seven papers, one of which appears twice a week; the others are of weekly issue.
The Leeds Mercury was established in 1718, and, for the purpose of evading the Stamp Act, was made to extend to twelve pages small quarto (or a sheet and a half,—the stamp being then levied only on papers not exceeding a single sheet). Like its contemporaries it was published weekly, and its price was three-halfpence. In 1729 it was reduced to four pages of larger size, and sold, with a stamp, at twopence. From 1765 to 1766 its publication was suspended, but was resumed in January 1767, under the management of James Bowley, who continued to conduct it for twenty-seven, years, and raised it to a circulation of 3000. Its price at this time was fourpence. The increase of the stamp duty in 1797 altered its price to sixpence, and the circulation sank from 3000 to 800. It was purchased in 1801 by Edward Baines, who first began the insertion of "leaders." It took him three years to obtain a circulation of 1600 ; but the Mercury afterwards made rapid progress, and became one of the most important and valuable of the country papers. It is now published both as a daily and as a weekly paper. Leeds has now four dailies and six weeklies.
Journalism in Exeter began in the same year as in Leeds, and, somewhat singularly, with three newspapers, all of which in the first year of existence became the subject of debate in parliament. The western capital was then fiercely political. Its journals took the freedom of commenting on proceedings in parliament, and the three editors—those of The Exeter Mercury, The Protestant Mercury, and The Postmaster or Loyal Mercury—were all summoned to the bar of the House of Commons.1 incident is curious as showing that each of the three represented a rival MS. news-letter writer in London.
The following year (1719) saw the beginnings of journalism in Manchester, originating with The Manchester Weekly Journal. The Manchester Gazette followed in 1730, and lasted until 1760. Then, in 1762, came Joseph Harrop’s Manchester Mercury, which bad a stormy life, but continued to appear until 1830. In 1867 Manchester had three daily papers and four weekly ones ; now it has six dailies (two Conservative, two Liberal, and two neutral) and seven weeklies.
The earliest of the Birmingham newspapers dates from 1741, when Aris’s Gazette (still in course of publication) began its career. It seems to have had no competitor, of any lengthened existence, until the establishment in 1836 of The Midland Counties Herald. The daily press of Birmingham begins with the year 1857, and with The Birmingham Post. There are now three daily papers and nine weeklies, exclusive of The Midland Sporting News, pub-lished twice a day, but relating only to its special subject. Of the in other papers six are neutral, four Liberal, two Conservative.
The newspapers of Cambridge begin with the Chronicle of 1744, still extant. The Radical Intelligencer of the later years of the last century, conducted by Benjamin Flower, and notable in the history of press prosecutions, is said to have been the first provincial paper in England for which original leading articles on the political topics of the day were written. But it would need a far-reacting ex-amination of scattered collections and files of newspapers preserved in editorial offices—the collection, large as it is, in the British Museum is quite inadequate to the inquiry—to warrant any absolute assertion on that oint. Cambridge has now three weekly news-papers (one Liberal, one Conservative, one neutral), exclusive of those university organs which a only during term. Oxford journalism begins, strictly speaking, with Mercurius Aulicus1 (1643, see p. 414, above), but the earliest really local newspaper is The Oxford Journal of 1753, still in existence. The city has in all (exclusive, as above, of university ones) four weekly papers, three of which are Conservative organs.
The earliest existing newspaper of Wales is The North Wales Chronicle, published at Bangor, which began to ear in 1807. The entire newspaper press of the principality num ered in 1850 nine journals, in 1873 sixty, in 1883 seventy-five. Of these eleven are printed in Welsh one of them, Y Llan a’r Dywysogaeth describes itself as "the only church and state Welsh newspaper. Of the English-printed papers, thirteen are described as Conserva-tive, twenty-seven as Liberal, the remainder as being either "neutral" or "independent" in respect of politics.
The aggregate number of provincial newspapers in England and for Wales was in the year 1782, 50; in 1795, 72 ; in 1846, 228 ; in d 1866, 773 ; in 1868, 797; in 1870, 848; in 1872, 948 ; in 1874, 973 ; in 1876, 1047 ; in 1878, 1075 ; in 1879, 1088 ; in 1880, 1130 ; in 1881, 1163 ; in 1883, 1219. In respect of political character the 1163 papers of 1881 have been approximately classified thus—Liberal, 385 ; Conservative, 302 ; neutral or independent, 476.
The first newspaper purporting by its title to be Scottish (The Scotch lntelligencer,3 September 1643) and the first newspaper actually printed in Scotland (Mercurius Politicus, published at Leith in October 1653) were both of Englis manufacture,—the one being intended to communicte more particularly the affairs of Scotland to the Londoners, tb other to keep Cromwell’s army well acquainted with the Lon don news. The reprinting of the Politicus was transferred to Edinburgh in November 1654, and it continued to appear (under the altered title Mercurius Publicus subsequently to April 1660) until the beginning of 1663. Meanwhile an attempt by Thomas Sydserfe to establish a really Scottish newspaper, Mercurius Caledonius, had failed after the appearance often numbers, the first of which had been published at Edinburgh on the 8th of January 1660. It was not until March 1699 that a Scottish newspaper was firmly established, underthe title of The Edinburgh Gazette, by James Watson, a printer of eminent skill in his art.4 Before the close of the year The Gazette was transferred to John Reid, lay whose family it long continued to be printed. In February 1705 Watson started The Edinburgh Courant, of which he only published fifty-five numbers. He states it to be his plan to give "most of the remarkable foreign news from their prints, and also the home news from the ports of this kingdom, . . . . now altogetber neglected." The Courant appeared thrice a week. Upon coniplaint being made to the privy council concerning an advertisement inserted after the transfer of the paper to Adam Boig, the new printer presented a supplication to the council in which he expressed his willingness "that in all time coming no inland news or advertisements shall be put into the Courant, but at the sight and allowance of the clerks of council." In 1710 the town council authorized Mr Daniel Defoe to print The Edinburgh Courant in the place of the deceased Adam Boig. Four years earlier the indefatigable pioneer of the Scottish press, James Watson, had begun the Scots Courant, which he continued to print until after the year 1718. To these papers were added in October 1708 The Edinburg Flying Post and in August 1709 The Scots Postman. Five years later this paper appears to have been incor-porated with The Edinburgh Gazette, and the publication ap-peared twice a week, as it still continues to do in 1883, as the Government gazette for Scotland. The Caledonian Mercury began April 28, 1720. At one period it was published thrice and afterwards twice a week. Its first proprietor was William Rolland, an advocate, and its first editor Thomas Ruddiman. The property passed to Ruddiman on Rolland’s death in 1729, and remained in his family until 1772. It is curious to notice that in his initiatory number of April 1720, Rolland claimed a right to identify his Mer-cury with that of 1660. This journal, he said in his preface to the. public, "is the oldest [existing] in Great Britain." And his suc-cessor of the year 1860 followed suit by celebrating the "second centenary" of The Caledonian Mercury. He brought out a facsimile of No. 1 of Mercurius Caledonius (January 1660), in its eight -pages of small quarto, curiously contrasting with the great double sheet of the day. But sixty years is a long period of suspended animation, and the connexion of the two newspapers cannot beproved to be more than nominal. The Caledonian Mercury was the first of Scottish journals to give conspicuous place to literature—foreign as well as Scottish. In "the’45" one of its editors, Thomas. Ruddiman, junior, virtually sacrificed his life,5 and the other, James Grant, went into exile, for the expression of conscientious; political opinion. Its publication ceased after an existence of more than one hundred and forty years.
Notwithstanding the positive assertion6 that The Edinburgh Courant and The Edinburgh Evening Courant "were entirely different journals, and never had any connexion whatever with each other," the proprietors of the existing Courant assert a substantial identity, and obviously upon better grounds than those for which identity used to be claimed for The Caledonian Mercury with Mer-curius Caledonius. The grant by the town council of Edinburgh in December 1718 of a licence to James M’Ewan to print an Evening Courant three times a week appears to have been really a revival, in altered form, of the original Courant, repeatedly referred to in earlier, but not much earlier, records of the same corporation. So revived, The Evening Courant was the Arst Scottish paper to give foreign intelligence from original sources, instead of repeating the advices sent to London. In 1780 David Ramsay became its proprietor. Under his management it is said to have attained the ar1gest Scottish circulation of its day. It was then of neutral politics, Of late years, returning to its original title, and appearing as a daily morning paper, it has ranked as the senior organ of the -Conservative party in Scotland.
FOOTNOTES (page 422)
(1) Journals of the House of Commons, xix. 30, 43, 1718.
(2) Mr Grant (Newspaper Press, vol. iii. p. 193) says, very singu-larly:—"Though printed in Birkenhead, the Mercurius Aulicus was not published there. It was avowedly printed for a bookseller near Queen’s College, Oxford. . . . Unfortunately there are no copies in the British Museum." The set of Mercurius Aulicus in the British Museum is, however, very complete, and has some useful MS. notes of dates, but no mention of any "Birkenhead," except the stout old cavalier Sir John.
(3) This was followed by The Scotch Dove, the first number of which is dated "September 30 to October 20, 1643," and by The Scottish Mercury (No. 1, October 5, 1643). In 1648 a Mercurius Scoticus and a Mercurius Caledonius were published in London. The Scotch Dove was the only one of these which attained a lengthened existence.
(4) Watson was the printer and editor, but the person licensed was James Donaldson, merchant in Edinburgh (I I Act in favors of James. Donaldson for printing the Gazette," March 10, 1699, published in Miscellany of the Maitland Club, ii. 232 sq.). Arnot, in his History, of Edinburgh, mentions as the second of Edinburgh newspapers--intervening between Mercurius Caledonius and the Gazette—a King-dom’s Intelligencer. But this was a London newspaper, dating from 1662, which may occasionally have been reprinted in Scotland ; no such copies, however, are now known to exist. In like manner The Scottish Mercury, No. 1, May 8, 1692, appears to have been a London newspaper based upon Scottish news-letters, although in an article written in 1848, in the Scottish Journal of Topography, vol. ii. p. 303, it is mentioned as an Edinburgh newspaper.
(5) During an imprisonment of six weeks in the Tolbooth of Edin-burgh his health suffered so severely that he died very shortly after- his release.
(6) Grant, History of the Newspaper Press, 1873, iii. 412.
The Edinburg Weekly Journal dates from 1744, but it only attained celebrity when, almost seventy years afterwards, it became the joint property of Sir Walter Scott and of James Ballantyne. Scott wrote in its columns many characteristic articles. Ballantyne edited it until his death in 1833, and was succeeded in the editor-ship by Thomas Moir. The paper was discontinued about 1840.
The Scotsman was established as a twice-a-week paper in January 1817, and became a daily in June 1855. It has always ranked as the chief organ of the Liberal party in Scotland. The proprietor-ship continues to be in the family of William Ritchie, by whom, in conjunction with Charles Maclaren, the paper was founded. For a short period it was edited by J. R. M‘Cullocb, the eminent political economist. He was succeeded by Maclaren, who edited the paper until 1845, and he in turn by Alexander Russel, who continued to conduct it with great ability until 1876. In 1854 its average circulation was 3451 copies. In 1859 the first of Hoe’s rotary machines brought into Scotland was erected for The Scotsman, and the productive power was raised from 1500 in the hour to 7500.
The North British Advertiser, founded in 1826, had in 1854 an average circulation of 15,423 copies,—the greater part of the issue distributed gratuitously. The Witness began in 1840 as the avowed organ of what speedily became the Free Church party in Scotland. In its first prospectus it calls itself The Old Whig. The paper appeared twice a week, and its editor, Hugh Miller, very soon made it famous. In the course of less than sixteen years he wrote about a thousand articles and papers, conspicuous for literary ability, still more so for a wide range of acquirement and of original thought, most of all for deep conscientiousness. Itsurvived its first editor’s lamented death (1855) only a few years. Edinburgh has now five daily and six weekly papers.
In Glasgow, where six newspapers are published daily, the lead is taken by the Glasgow Herald (Independent). Founded in 1782, it has risen gradually to the level of the great metropolitan news-papers. The North British Daily Mail (Liberal), the oldest daily in Scotland, was established in April 1847. George Troup, its first editor, made it specially famous for the organizing skill with which he brought his intelligence at an unprecedented rate of Speed from Carlisle, the nearest point then connected with London by railway.1 Glasgow has also thirteen newspapers of weekly issue.
The earliest in date of the provincial newspapers of Scotland is The Aberdeen Journal (Conservative), founded as a weekly paper in 1748, and a daily from 1876. The Aberdeen Daily Free Press (Liberal), originally a weekly, dates from 1853. The Dundee Advertiser (Liberal) was established in 1801.
The aggregate number of Scottish journals—metropolitan and provincial together—79 in 1846, had grown in 1866 to 138, in 1876 to 164, and in 1883 to 184. Taken as a whole—in regard as well to literary character and scope as to the specially industrial characteristics of journalism—they occupy at least an equal rank with the best journals of the leading provincial towns England, whilst the metropolitan press of Scotland ranks exceptionally high. A very large number of the men who have distinguished themselves by their labours on the great newspapers of London, and several who rank as founders of these, began their career, and have left their mark, on the newspapers of Scotland.
Ireland’s Trite Diurnal (1642), Mercurius Hibernicus ( 1644), The Irish Courant (1690), are all of them London news )apers containing Irish news. The newspaper press of Ireland tegins with The Dublin News-Letter of 1685, just at the close of the lieu-tenancy of the illustrious duke of Ormond.2 Five years later appeared the Dublin Intelligencer (No. 1, September 30, 1690). Both of these were short-lived, Pue’s Occurrences followed in 1700, and lasted for more than fifty years, as the pioneer of the daily press of Ireland. In 1710 or in 1711 (there is some doubt as to the date of the earliest number) The Dublin Gazette began to appear, and it continues still (1883) as the official or of the vice-regal government. Falkener’s Tournal was establisfend in 1728, also appeared daily. Esdaile’s News-Letter began in 1744, took the title of Saunders’s News-Letter in 1764 (when it appeared three times a week), and became a daily newspaper in 1777. It long possessed the largest circulation ever attained by an Irish daily paper.
The famous Freeman’s Journal was long pre-eminent amongst the Dublin papers for ability and vigour. It was established as a daily paper by a committee of the first society of "United Irishmen" in 1763, and its first editor was Dr Lucas. Flood and Grattan were at one time numbered amongst its contributors; although the latter, at a subsequent period, is reported to have exclaimed in his place in the Irish parliament, "the Freeman’s Journal is a liar, . . . . a public, pitiful liar."3 The relations between the journalism and the oratory of Ireland have been not unfrequently of this stormy character. Dublin bas now six daily papers and fifteen others, mostly appearing once or twice a week. It bad in 1875 eight dailies and seventeen weeklies.
Waterford possessed a newspaper as early as 1729, entitled The Waterford Flying Post, It professed to contain "the most material news both foreign and domestic," was printed on common writing paper, and published twice a week at the price of a halfpenny. The paper of earliest origin now published in Waterford is The Waterford Chronicle, which dates from 1766. The Belfast News-Letter was started in 1737, and still flourishes.
In all Ireland the number of daily papers was 19 in 1875, and in 1883 only 16. The number issued once or twice a week was in the former year 118, in the latter 131. There are five other news-papers of varying periodicity, making an aggregate, in 1883, of 152. The total increase since 1862 is 18, the increase in Scotland during the same period having been 45.
The newspaper press of t e Isle of Man dates only from 1821. Id The island possesses six journals in 1883, one of which, The Mona Daily News, appears daily from July to September.
The Gazette de Guernsey—earliest of existing Channel Island newspapers—dates from 1788 ; the Chronique de Jersey from 1814. Guernsey has in all seven papers, and Jersey eight.
An Act of Parliament of 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 24), entitled
An Act to Repeal certain Enactments relating to Newspapers," simplified the process for discovering the names of proprietors and publishers, but until the year next following (1870) the establishment of a newspaper still required compliance with most of the tio regulations of the 6 & 7 Will. IV. c, 76. In that year, by the Act 33 & 34 Vict. c. 32, the (until then optional) stamp duties on newspapers were wholly repealed, and their postal transmission became subject only to the regulations of th e post- office. Itisnow subject, under the Post-Office Act of 1870, to an annual registration with a fee of five shillings, and without such annual registration a newspaper can pass through the post only at the book rate of postage. In 1881 the registration of newspapers in order to the enforcement of responsibility for libel passed to the office of the registrar of joint-stock companies (44 & 45 Vict. c. 60).
Authorities.—Miscellancous newspapers in the Burney, Stamp-Office,and other collections of the British Museum, and in the Hope collection and miscellaneous collection of the Bodleian at Oxford; Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, iv. 33-97; Returns relating to Newspaper Stamps, 1836-54; Report of the Select Committee on Newspaper Stamps, 1850; Hansard, Parliamentary History of England, 1712-1742, and Debates, Sessions 1835, 1836, 1853, 1854,1855,1881, and 1882; First Report ofthe Commissioners on the Inland Revenue, 1857, 28, cxxiv; Andrews, History of British Journalism, 2 vols., 1860; Hunt, The Fourth Fstate; Grant, The Newspaper Press, 3 vols., 1871-73; Wm. Lee, Life and Newly Discovered Writings of Daniel Defoe, 3vols.,1869; Coleridge,.Biographia Literaria, Supp., 392-395; Life of Edward Baines, 346 sq.; Mitchell, The Newspaper Press Directory, 1846, 1957, 1859 to 1883 inclusive, 26 vols.; Plummer, "The British Newspaper Press," Companion to the Almanac, 1876; Second, Third, and Twenty-eighth Reports of the Postmaster-General, 1856, p. 19,1857, p. 10 sq., 1882; Scott, Memoirs of Swift, 130 sq.; Alex. Chalmers, articles "Amhurst," "Birkenhead," "Heylyn," "Johnson," "Needham," &c., in General Biographical Dictionary, 1812-17; Gentleman’s Magaine, vol. vii.; "The Newspaper Press," Quarterly Review, cl. 498-537, October 1880; Hatton, Journalistic London, 1882; George Chalmers, Life of Ruddiman, part 2, 1794; Bayne, Life and Letters of Hugh Miller, vol. ii.; H. G. Graham, "Russel of the Scotsman," Fraser’s Magazine, n.s., xxii. 801- 317, 1880, Information concerning North of England newspaperg has been contributed by Mr W. Hill, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
FOOTNOTES (page 423)
(1) See Notes and Queries, 5th series, vii. 45, viii. 205.
(2) The appearance of the earliest of Irish newspapers during the very last year in which that great statesman was in Ireland made it a matter of special interest to the present writer to ascertain if Ormond—who had a keen zest for literature as well as for field sports—had in any way patronized or noticed the new literary venture. But a perusal of some scores of his original letters (now in Oxford), dated in that year, finds no mention of The Dublin News-Letter. Ormond's own collection of "news-letters" in MS. is, it may be added, one of the finest known to exist in the kingdom.
(3) Debates of the Irish House of Commons, 3d March 1789.
NEWSPAPERS OF FRANCE.
The annals of French journalism begin with the Gazette, established by Théophraste Renaudot in 1631, under the de patronage of Richelieu, and with his active co-operation. Much of its earliest foreign news came direct from the minister, and not seldom in his own hand. Louis XIII. took. a keen, perhaps a somewhat childish, interest in the progress of the infant Gazette, and was a frequent con-tributor, now and then taking his little paragraphs to the printing office himself, and seeing them put into type. Renaudot was born at Loudun in 1584, studied medicine in Paris and at Montpellier, established himself in the capital in 1612, and soon became conspicuous both within and beyond the limits of his profession. Endowed by nature with great energy and versatility, he seems at an early period of his career to have attracted the attention of the great cardinal, and to have obtained permission to establish a sort of general agency office, under the designation of "Bureau d’Adresses et de Rencontre." An enter-prise like this would, perhaps, naturally suggest to such a mind as Renaudot’s the advantage of following it up by the foundation of a newspaper. According to some French writers, however, the project was formed by Pierre d’Hozier, the genealogist, who carried on an extensive correspondence both at home and abroad, and was thus in a position to give valuable help; according to others by Richelieu himself. Be this as it may, Renaudot put his hand zealously to the work, and brought out his first weekly number in May 1631. So much, at least, maybe inferred from the date (4th July 1631) of the sixth number, which was the first dated publication, the five preceding numbers being marked by "signatures" only—A to E. Each number consists of a single sheet (eight pages) in small quarto, and is divided into two parts—the first simply entitled Gazette, the second Nouvelles Ordinaires de Divers Endroits. For this division the author assigns two reasons—(l) that two persons may thus read his journal at the same time, and (2) that it facilitates a division of the subject-matter—the Nouvelles containing usually intelligence from the northern and western countries, the Gazette from the southern and eastern. He commonly begins with foreign and ends with home news, a method which was long and generally followed, and which still obtains. Once a month he pub-lished a supplement, under the title of Relation des Nouvelles du Monde, reques dans tout le mois. In October 1631 Renaudot obtained letters-patent to himself and his heirs, conferring the exclusive privilege of printing and selling, where and how they might please, "the gazettes, news, and narratives of all that has passed or may pass within and without the kingdom." His assailants were numer-ous, but he steadily pursued his course, and at his death in October 1653 left the Gazette to his sons in flourishing circumstances. In 1752 the title Gazette de France was first used. Under this designation it continued to appear until the 24th August 1848. During the five days which followed that date it was suspended; on the 30th it was resumed as Le Peuple Français, Journal de l’Appel à la Nation, and again modified on the 14th September to L’Étoile de la France, Journal des Droits de Tous. On the 25th October it became Gazette de France, Journal de l’Appel à la Nation; and under this title it still continues to appear. A complete set extends to upwards of 300 volumes of which 189 are in quarto and the rest in folio. It scarcely need be added that such a set forms a collection of great value, not only for the history of France, but for that of Europe generally.
Not the least curious nor the least instructive incident in the history of the Gazette de France—ahistory which abounds both with curiosity and with instruction—is the endeavour which was made by a great French minister, more than a hundred years ago, to make the envoys and consuls of France at foreign courts official members of its literary staff, by calling on them for periodical accounts of the progress of letters and science and of literary and scientific institutions in the several countries to which they were respectively accredited. The approach of 1789 obstructed the good effect of this pregnant scheme.
Loret’s rhymed Gazette (1650 to March 1665) will always have interest in the eyes of students who care less for the "dignity" of history than for the fidelity of its local colouring and the animation of its backgrounds. It were vain to look there for any deep appreciation of the events of those stormy times. But it abounds in vivid portraits of the men and manners of the day. It paints rudely, yet to the life, the Paris of the Fronde, with all its effervescence and depression, its versatility and fickleness, its cowardice and its courage.
Of the Mercure Galant, established by Donneau de Visé in 1672, with Thomas Corneille for its sub-editor, it may be said that it sought to combine the qualities of the de Gazettes, both grave and gay. Like the former, it contained the permitted state news and court circulars of the day. Like the latter, it amused its readers with satirical verses, and with sketches of men and manners, which, if not always true, were at least well invented. Reviews and sermons, law pleas and street airs, the last reception at the Academy and the last new fashion of the milliners, all found their place. De Visé carried on his enterprise for more than thirty years, and at his death it was con-tinued by Rivière du Fresny. The next editor, Lefèvre de Fontenay, altered the title to Nouveau Mercure, which in 1728 was altered to Mercure de France, a designation re-tained, with slight modification, until 1853. The Mercure passed through many hands before it came into those of Panckoucke, at the eve of the Revolution. Amongst its more conspicuous writers, immediately before this change, had been Raynal and Marmontel. The latter, indeed, had for many years been its principal editor, and in his Mémoires has left us a very interesting record of the views and aims which governed him in the performance of an arduous task. And he there narrates the curious fact that it was Madame de Pompadour who contrived the plan of giving pensions to eminent men of letters out of the profits of the Mercure. To one of Marmontel’s pre-decessors the "privilege," or patent, bad been worth more than £1000 sterling annually. This revenue was now to be shared amongst several, and to become a means of extending royal "patronage" of literature at a cheap rate. It is to this pension-scheme, too, that we owe the Contes Moraux. Marmontel, who had long before lost his "patent" by an act of high-minded generosity, continued to share in the composition of the literary articles with Chamfort and La Harpe, whilst Mallet du Pan, a far abler writer than either, became the most prominent of the political writers in the Hercure. In 1789 he contributed a series of remarkable articles on the well-known book of De Lolme; and in the same year he penned some com-ments on the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," very distasteful to violent men of all parties, but which forcibly illustrate the pregnant truth they begin with:—"The gospel has given the simplest, the shortest, and the most comprehensive ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man,’ in saying, ‘Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.’ All politics hinge upon this."
In 1790 the sale of the Mercure rose very rapidly. It attained for a time a circulation of 13,000 copies. Mirabeau styled it in debate "the most able of the newspapers." Great pains were taken for the collection of statistics and state papers, the absence of which from the French news-paper press had helped to depress its credit as compared with the political journalism of England and to some extent of Germany. But, as the Revolution marched on towards a destructive democracy, Mallet du Pan evinced more and more unmistakably his rooted attachment to a constitutional monarchy. And, like so many of his com-patriots, he soon found the tide too strong for him. The political part of the Mercure changed hands, and after the 10th August 1792 its publication was suspended.
All this time the Moniteur (Gazette Nationale, ou le Moniteur Universel) was under the same general manage-ment as the Mercure Français (so the title had been altered in 1791). The first idea, indeed, of this famous official journal appears to have been Panckoucke’s, but it did not firmly establish itself until he had purchased the Journal de l’Assemblée Nationale, and so secured the best report of the debates. The Moniteur, however, kept step with the majority of the assembly, the Mercure with the minority. So marked a contrast between two journals, with one proprietor, gave too favourable a leverage to the republican wits not to be turned to good account. Camille Desmoulins depicted him as Janus,—one face radiant at the blessings of coming liberty, the other plunged in grief for the epoch that was rapidly disappearing.
When resumed, after a very brief interval, the Mercure Français became again Mercure de France,—its political importance diminished, whilst its literary worth was enhanced. During the later days of the Revolution, and under the imperial rule, its roll of contributors included the names of Geoffroy, Ginguené, Morellet, Lacretelle, Fontanes, and Chateaubriand. The statesman last named brought upon the Mercure another temporary suppression in June 1807 (at which date he was its sole proprietor), by words in true unison with the noblest deed of his chequered career—his retirement, namely, from the imperial service on the day that the news of the execution of the duke of Enghien reached him, being the day after he had been appointed by Napoleon a minister plenipotentiary:
Thus it chanced that alike under the brilliant despotism of Napoleon and under the crapulous malversation of Louis XV. the management of the Mercure was revolutionized for protests which conferred honour upon the journal no less than upon the individual writers who made them. Resumed by other hands, the Mercure continued to appear until January 1820, when it was again suspended. In the following year it reappeared as Le Mercure de France, au dix-neuvième siècle, and in February 1853 it finally ceased. A complete set extends to no fewer than 1611 volumes.
The only other newspaper of a date anterior to the Revolution which needs to be noticed here is the Journal de Paris, which was commenced on New Year’s Day of 1777. It had but a feeble infancy, yet lived for half a century. Its early volumes appear so insipid to a 19th- century reader that he wonders what can have been the cause of its occasional bickerings with the police. Its tameness, however, did not save it from sharing in the "suspensions" of its predecessors. After the Revolution such men as Garat, Condorcet, and Regnaud de St Jean d’Angély appear amongst its contributors, but those of earlier date were obscure. Its period of highest prosperity may be dated about 1792, when its circulation is said to have exceeded 20,000.
The police adventures of the writers. of the MS. news-letters, or Nouvelles à la Main, were still more numerous, and, if we may judge from the copious specimens of these epistles which yet survive, must also not unfrequently have arisen from lack of official employment, rather than from substantial provocation. Madame Doublet de Persan, the widow of a member of the French board of trade, was a conspicuous purveyor of news of this sort. For nearly forty years daily meetings were held in her house at which the gossip and table-talk of the town were systematically (and literally) registered; and weekly abstracts or epitomes were sent into the country by post. Piron, Mirabaud, Falconet, D’Argental, and, above all, Bachaumont, were prominent members of the "society," and each of them is said to have had his assigned seat beneath his own portrait. The lady’s valet-de-chambre appears to have been editor ex oficio; and as he occasionally suffered imprisonment, when offensive news-letters had been seized by the police, so responsible a duty was doubtless "considered in the wages." News and anecdotes of all kinds—political and literary, grave, gay, or merely scandalous—were all admitted into the Nouvelles à la Main; and their contents, during a long series of years, form the staple of those Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l’Histoire de la République des Lettres which extend to thirty-six volumes, have been frequently printed (at first with the false imprint "Londres: John Adamson, 1777-89"), and are, usually referred to by French writers as the Mémoires de Bachaumont.
The journalism of the first Revolution has been the theme of many bulky volumes, and their number is still on the increase. The recital of the mere titles of the newspapers which then appeared throughout France fills more than forty pages of larger dimensions than those which the reader has now before him. It is obvious, therefore, that a very casual glance at this part of our subject is all that can be given to it here.
When at least one half of the French people was in a ferment of hope or of fear at the approaching convocation of the states-general, most of the existing newspapers were still in a state of torpor. Long paragraphs, for example, about a terrible "wild beast of the Gevaudan"—whether wolf or bear, or as yet nondescript, was uncertain—were still current in the Paris journals at this momentous juncture. Mirabeau was among the foremost to supply the popular want. His Lettres à ses Commettants began on the 2d May 1789, and with the twenty-first number became the Courrier de Provence. Within a week Maret (after-wards duke of Bassano) followed with the Bulletin des Séances de l’Assemblée Nationale, and Lehodey with the Journal des États Génégraux. In June Brissot de Warville began his Patriote Français. Gorsas published the first number of his Courrier de Versailles in the following month, from which also dates the famous periodical of Prudhomme, Loustalot, and Tournon, entitled Révolutions de Paris, with its characteristic motto,—"Les grands ne nous paraissent grands que parce que nous sommes à genoux; levons nous !" In August 1789 Baudouin began the Journal des Débats (edited in 1792 by Louvet) and Marat the Ami du Peuple (which at first was called Le Publiciste Parisien). The Moniteur Universel (of which we an have spoken already) was first published on the 24th November, although numbers were afterwards printed bearing date from the 5th May, the day on which the states-general first assembled. Camille Desmoulins also commenced his Révolutions de France et de Brabant in November 1789. The Ami du Roi was first published in June 1790, La Quotidienne in September 1792.
Of all these prominent journals the Moniteur and the Débats alone have survived until now. A few of them lasted until 1794 or 1795 ; one continued until recently; but most of them expired either in the autumn of 1792 or with the fall of the party of the Gironde in September 1793. In some of these papers the energy for good and for evil of a whole lifetime seems to be compressed into the fugitive writings of a few months. Even the satirical journals which combated the Revolution with shafts of ridicule and wit, keen enough after their kind, but too light to do much damage to men terribly in earnest, abound with matter well deserving the attention of all students desirous of a thorough knowledge of the period.1
The consular Government began its dealings with the press by reducing the number of political papers to thirteen. At this period the number of daily journals had been nineteen, and their aggregate provincial circulation, apart from the Paris sale, 49,313, an aver4ge of 2600 each.
Under Napoleon the Moniteur was the only political paper that was really regarded with an eye of favour. Even as respects the nation at large, the monstrous excesses into which the Revolutionary press had plunged left an enduring stigma on the class. When Bertin acquired the Journal des Débats from Baudouin, the printer, for 20,000 francs, he had to vanquish popular indifference on
FOOTNOTE (page 425)
1 We make these remarks after an actual examination—volume by volume—of many hundreds of these ephemeral productions, reckoning those of all kinds, belonging to the Revolutionary period.
the one hand, as well as imperial mistrust on the other. The men he called to his aid were Geoffroy and Fievée; and by the brilliancy of their talents and the keenness of his own judgment he converted the Débats into a paper having 32,000 subscribers, and producing a profit of 200,000 francs a year. When the imposition of a special censorship was threatened in 1805, at the instance of Fouché, a remarkable correspondence took place between Fievée and Napoleon himself, in the course of which the emperor wrote that the only means of preserving a news-paper from suspeasion was "to avoid the publication of any news unfavourable to the Government, until the truth of it is so well established that the publication becomes needless." The censorship was avoided, but Fievée had to become the responsible editor, and the title was altered to Journal de l’Empire—the imperial critic taking exception to the word Débats as "inconvenient." The old title was resumed in August 1815. The revolution of July did but enhance the power and the profit of the paper. It has held its course with uniform dignity, as well as with splendid ability, amidst recent perils, and may still be said, in the words which Lamartine applied to it in an earlier day, to have "made itself part of French history."
Shortly before the Journal de l’Empire became again the Journal des Débats (in 1815), a severance occurred amidst both the writers and subscribers. It led to the foundation of the Constitutionnel, which at first and for a short time bore the title of L'Indépendant. The former became, for a time, the organ of the royalists par excellence, the latter the leader of the opposition. In 1824, however, both were in conflict with the Government of the day. At that date, in a secret report addressed to the ministry, the aggregate circulation of the opposition press of Paris was stated at 41,330,1 while that of the Government press amounted only to 14,344.2
The rapid rise of the Constitutionnel was due partly to the great ability and influence of Jay, of Étienne, of Béranger, and of Saint Albin (who had been secretary to Carnot in his ministry of 1815), all of whom co-operated in its early editorship, and partly to its sympathy with the popular reverence for the memory of Napoleon, as well as to the vigorous share it took in the famous literary quarrel between the classicists and romanticists (although in that quarrel it took what may now be called the side of the vanquished). Its part in bringing about the revolution of 1830 raised it to the zenith of its fortunes. For a brief period it could boast of 23,000 subscribers at 80 francs a year. But the invasion of cheap newspapers, and that temporary lack of enterprise which so often follows a brilliant success, lowered it with still greater rapidity. When the author of the Mmoires d’un Bourgeois, Dr Véron, purchased it, the sale had sunk to 3000. Véron gave 100,000 francs for the Juif Errant of Sue, and the Sue fever rewarded him for a while with more than the old circulation. Afterwards the paper passed under the editorship of Cdsena, Granier de Cassagnac, and La Guéronnière.
The cheap journalism of Paris began in 1836 (1st July) with the journal of Girardin, La Presse, followed instantly by Le Siècle, under the management of Dutacq, to whom, it is said—not incredibly—the original idea was really due. The first-named journal attained a circulation of 10,000 copies within three months of its commencement, and soon doubled that number. The Siècle prospered even more
FOOTNOTES (page 426)
(1) Le Constitutionnel, 16,250; Journal des Débats, 13,000 ; La Quotidienne, 5800; Le Courrier Français, 2975 ; Journal de Com-merce, 2380 ; L’Aristarque, 925.
(2) Journal de Paris, 4175; L’Étoile, 2749; Gazette de France, 2370 ; Le Moniteur, 2250; Le Drapeau Blanc, 1900 ; Le Pilote, 900.
strikingly, and in a few years had reached a circulation (then without precedent in France) of 38,000 copies.
The rapid growth of the newspaper press of Paris under Louis-Philippe will be best appreciated from the fact that, while in 1828 the number of stamps issued was 28 millions, in 1836, 1843, 1845, and 1846 the figures were-42, 61, 65, and 79 millions respectively. At the last-mentioned date the papers with a circulation of upwards, of 10,000 were (besides the Moniteur, of which the circula-tion was chiefly official and gratuitous) as follows:—Le Siècle, 31,000; La Presse and Le Constitutionnel, between 20,000 and 25,000; Journal des Débats and L’Époque, between 10,000 and 15,000.
If we now cast a retrospective glance at the general cliaracteris ties (1) of the newspaper press of France, and (2) of the legislation con-cerning it, between the respective periods of the devastating revolu-tion of 1793-94 and the scarcely less destructive revolution of 1848, it will be found that the years 1819, 1828, 1830 (July), and 1835 (September) mark epochs full of pregnant teaching upon our subject. We pass over, as already sufficiently indicated, the newspaper licence of the first-named years (1793-94), carried to a pitch which became a disgrace to civilization, and the stern Napoleonic censor-ship which followed it,—also carried to an excess, disgraceful, not, indeed, to civilization, but to the splendid intellect which had once given utterance to the words, "Physical discovery is a grand faculty of the human mind, but literature is the mind itself."
The year 1819 is marked by a virtual cessation of the arbitrary power of suppression lodged till then in the Government, and by the substitution of a graduated system of preliminary bonds and suretysbips ("cautionnements") on the one hand, and of strict penalties for convicted press-offences on the other. This initiatory amelioration of 1819 became, in 1828, a measure of substantial yet regulated freedom, which for two years worked, in the main, alike, with equity towards the just claims of journalism as a profession and with steady development towards the public of its capabilities as a great factor in the growth of civilization. Those two years were followed by a widely-contrasted period of five years. That
was a term of entire liberty often grossly abused, and fitly ending was a with the just and necessary restrictions of September 1835. But that period of 1830-35 was also signalized by some noble attempt to use the powers of the newspaper press for promoting the highest and the enduring interests of France. Not least memorable amongst these was the joint enterprise of Montalembert and Lamennais—-soon to be aided by Lacordaire—when, by the establishment (October 1830) of the newspaper L’Avenir, they claimed for the church of France "her just part in the liberties acquired by the country," and asserted for the sacred symbols of Christianity their lawful place, alike above the tricolor and above the lilies. "Dieu et la liberté" was the motto which Montalembert chose for his news- paper, as he had chosen it long before for the guiding star of his youthful aspirations. L’Avenir existed only for one year and one month. It came to its early end from no lack of energy and patience in its writers, but in part from that mission of the editors to Rome (November 1831) which, at least for a time, necessitated the discontinuace of their newspaper. Human regrets had higher than human consolations. "Our labours" on L’Avenir, wrote Montalem-bert, with simple truth, "decided the attitude of Catholics in France and elsewhere, from the time of the July revolution to the time of the second empire."
There were many other papers, at this time and afterwards, wbich, like L’Avenir, were, in their degree, organs of ideas, not speculations of trade. But they cannot be even enumerated here. No very notable specially religious paper succeeded L’Avenir until the founda-tion in 1843—under widely different auspices, although twice at the outset, the editorship was offered to Lacordaire—of L’Univers Religieux. That journal was edited, at first, by De Coux, then by Louis Veuillot; it underwent innumerable lawsuits, "warnings," suppressions, and interdicts, for causes very diverse. Several prelates suppressed L’Univers Religieux in their respective dioceses, amongst them the great bishop Dupanloup in that of Orleans (1853). Napoleon Ill. suppressed it in 1861, permitted it to reappear as Le Monde, and suspended it many times afterwards ; but it has survived all its misfortunes and still exists, under its new title. Le Monde had the curious fate, at one time, of being conducted jointly by the first editor of L’Avenir, Lamennais, and by George Sand, who had previously figured in the newspaper annals of France as co-foundress of L’Éclaireur de l’Indre, a journal published at Orleans. The account given by that brilliant writer of her adventures in what was then to her a new department of activity is ail instructive one. With that breadth of sympathy which was so characteristic of her, she strove to interest all her friends (however varied in character, as in rank) in the enterprise. There is, perhaps, scarcely anything more amusing in French journalistic annals than is her (contemporary) account of the first meeting of the shareholders—at which, she tells us, about five hundred resolutions were moved for the guidance, of the editor at his desk. L’Éclaireur did not shed its lustre on the department of the Indre for much length of time. In later days Le Monde, under very various editorships, has amply vindicated the change in its title.
The impulse given to the growth of advertisements in the days which followed July 1830, although trivial in comparison with what British newspaper readers are daily familiar with, became, as the years rolled on, sufficiently developed to induce the formation of a company—in which one of the Lafittes took part—to farm them,1 at a yearly rent of £12,000 sterling (300,000 francs), so far (at first) as regarded the four lea. dingjournals (Débats, Constitutionnel, Siècle, Presse), to which were afterwards added two others (Le Pays and La, Patrie). The combination greatly embarrassed advertisers, first, since its great aim was to force them either to advertise in all, whether addressing the classes intended to be canvassed or not, or else to pay for each advertisement in a selected newspaper the price of many proffered advertisements in all the papers collectively, and , secondly, because by many repetitions in certain newspapers no additional publicity was really gained, two or three of the favoured Journals circulating for the main amongst the same class of buyers. La France was then the newspaper of the Conservative aristocracy of the nation; Le Monde and the Union more especially addressed the clergy ; the Débats and the Temps were the journals of the upper mercantile class, the Siècle and L’Opinion of the lower or shopkeeping class. A man who asked to advertise briefly, in the Sikle, for example, alone, was charged 2 francs for each several insertion. If he went the round of the six, his advertisement cost him only 75 centimes per journal, for ten successive insertions in each of them, all round.
To a great extent, the inundation of newspapers which followed the revolution of February 1848 was but a parody on the revolutionary press of 1793. Most of them, of course, had very short lives. When Cavaignac took the helm he suppressed eleven journals, including La Presse and L’Assemble Nationale. The former had at this period a circulation of nearly 70,000, and its proprietor, in a petition to the National Assembly, declared that it gave subsistence to more than one thousand persons, and was worth in the market at least 1,500,000 francs. In August the system of sureties was restored. On the 13th June 1849 the president of the republic suspended Le Peuple, La Révolution Démocratique et Sociale, La Vraie République, La Dimocratie Pacifique, La Riforme, and La Tribune des Peuples. On July 16, 1850, the assembly passed what is called the "Loi Tinguy," by which the author of every newspaper article on any subject, political, philosophical, or religious, was bound to affix his name to it, on penalty of a fine of 500 francs for the first offence, and of 1000 francs for its repetition. Every false or feigned signature was to be punished by a fine of 1000 francs, "together with six months’ imprisonment, both for the author and the editor." The practical working of this law lay in the creation of a new functionary in the more important newspaper offices, who was called "secrétaire de la rédaction," and was, in fact, the scapegoat ex officio. In February 1852 all the press laws were incorporated, with increased stringency, into a "Décret organique sur la presse." The stamp duty for each sheet was fixed at 6 centimes, within certain dimensions, and a proportional increase in case of excess.
In 1858 the order of the six leading Parisian papers in point of circulation was—(1) Siècle, (2) Presse, (3) Constitutionnel, (4) Patrie, (5) Débats, (6) Assemblée Nationale. The number of provincial papers exceeded five hundred. "Newspapers, nowadays," wrote a eenly observant publicist in that year, "are almanacs, bulletins, advertising mediums, rather than the guides and the centres of opinion." In 1866 the change had become more marked still. The monetary success of Girardin’s many commercial speculations in this branch of commerce greatly increased the number of Parisian journals, whilst lowering the status of those of established rank. The aggregate daily issue of the Parisian "dailies" had increased to about 350,000 copies, but the evening paper, Le Petit Moniteur, alone issued nearly 130,000 of these. The average circulation of Le Siècle bad fallen from 55,000 to 45,000 copies ; that of La Patrie was reduced by one-half (32,000 to 16,000) ; that of Le Constitutionnel from 24,000 to 13,000; of L’Opinion Nationale from 18,000 to 15,000; whilst the chief journal of all,—with grand antecedents, and with a brilliant history of public service renderedlhad for a time descended, it is said, from 12,000 copies to 9000. And yet almost over the whole of this very period the brilliant "Lundis" of Sainte-Beuve were making their punctual appearance in Le Constitutionnel, to be presently continued in Le Moniteur and in Le Temps and writers like St Marc Girardin, Cuvillier-Fleury, and Prévost Paradol were constantly writing in the Journal des Débats. Meanwhile, Villemessant and his colleagues were making their fortunes out of Figaro, and helping to make frivolous petty "paragraphs ".on matters of literature almost everywhere take the place of able and well-elaborated articles. Well might Albert Sorel say,2 "Our trumpery newspapers are the newspapers that pay," And the descent in the sterling characteristics of journalism continued at an increased speed. In 1872 the circulation of Le Petit Journal was 212,500; in June 1877 it reached nearly to 500,000.
No incident in recent newspaper history made more temporary noise than did the strange charges brought in 1867 against the Débats, the Siècle, and L’Opinion Nationale, by M. Kerveguen, member for Toulon, in the French assembly. He charged them collectively with receiving bribes, both from the Government of Prussia and from that of Italy,—upon the faith, as it afterwards appeared, of statements made by another newspaper, not of France but of Belgium, La Finance. An elaborate inquiry, presided over by M. Berryer, pronounced the accusation to be absolutely groundless. Yet it was soon revived by Le Pays, in the shape of a specific charge against an individual editor of Le Siècle,—La Varenne. All that was eventually proved, in due course of law, was merely the agency in Paris of La Varenne for the Italian Government, at a time prior to the events of 1866.
In 1874 an elaborate return showed that in thirty-five principal towns of France, comprising a population of 2,566,000, their respective journals bad an aggregate weekly issue of 2,800,000 copies. The details in round numbers are as follows:
TABLE
In 1878 the total number of journals of all kinds published in France was 2200. Of these 150 were political, strictly speaking, of which Paris published 49. Of Parisian journals other than political there were 1141 (including 71 religious, 104 legal, 153 commercial, 134 technological, 98 scientific and medical, 59 artistic). At that date Figaro had a circulation of about 70,000, Le Petit Journal (at a halfpenny) one of about 650,000.3 At the great show of newspapers of all countries held that year at the International Exhibition of Prague the French newspapers were conspicuous.
The principal Parisian newspapers in 1883 may be classified thus :—
a. Organs of the Legitimists end of the Church of France:—Gazette de France, Le Monde, L’Union, La Defense, La Civilisation, L’Univers.
b. Orleanist organs:—Le Moniteur Universel, le Constitutionnel, Le Français (under the auspices of the Due de Broglie), Le Soleil.
c. Bonapartist organ:—Le Pays (edited at onetime by Lamartine).
d. Republican organs:—Journal des Débats, Le Temps (the paper of the republican middle classes, and read largely by Protestants), Le Siècle (now of declining importance, Voltairean in tone), Le XIX. Siècle (also Voltairean), Le Paix (M. Grévy’s. paper), La Justice, Paris, La Republique Française (founded in 1871 by Gambetta), Le Parlement (founded by Dufaure ; circulation less than that of La Republique, but political weight considerable).
The law concerning the liberty of the press, of July.29, 1881, abolished suretyship for newspapers, and transferred their registration from the ministry of justice at Paris to the local representative of the attorney-general (le parquet) in each town respectively. It made the establishment of a newspaper virtually free, upon legal, deposit of two copies, and upon due registration of each newspaper under the simple guarantee of a registered director, French by birth, responsible in case of libel. And it took away the former discretionary power, lodged in the home office, of interdicting the
FOOTNOTES (page 427)
(1) Or, to speak more precisely, to farm a certain conspicuous page of each newspaper, in perpetuity.
(2) When comparing the French newspaper press as it stood in 1873 with that of Germany, in the Revue des deux Mondes, article "La Presse Allemande," vol. ii. of 1873, p. 715.
(3) It is curious to notice the comparatively small sale of the French illustrated papers. In 1880 the sale of L’Illustration was only about 16,000 copies, and that of Le Journal Amusant about twice that number. At the same date the Illustrated London News sold 95,000,. and the Illustrirte Welt of Stuttgart 107,000.
circulation in France of foreign journals. The home minister may still prohibit a single number of a newspaper ; only the whole council of ministers, duly convened, can prohibit the circulation of a foreign newspaper absolutely.1
Authorities.—Hatin, Histoire de la Presse en France, 8 vols., 1860-61; Jules Evrard, "Origines de la Presse en France," in Revue Moderne, 1. 721-741, 1869; Gallois, Histoire des Journaux et Jouinalistes de la Révolution, 2 vols.; Marmontel, Mémoires, i. 277-291; Morellet, Éloge de Marmontel, 11, 12; Chateau-briand, Mémoires d’outre Tombe, iii. § 1, 24 sq., v. 95, and vi. 403, 407; Mémoire, de Mallet du Pan, i. 29 sq.; Montalembert, Le Père Lacordaire, ii. 81, 1881 ; articles "Bachaumont," "Bertin," "Donneau," "Doublet," "Garat," "Loret," "Panckoucke," "Renaudot," in Biographie Universelle; Bulletin du Bibliophile, new series, vii. 855-866; Ste Beuve, Chateaubriand et son Groupe Littéraire, &c., ii. 100; Id., Portraits Littéraires, v. 147 sq. ; Lamartine, Histoire de la Révolution de 1848; Hatin, Manuel de la liberté de la Presse, 1868, and Nomen-clature des Journaux; Bibliothéque Impériale—Catalogue de l’Histoire de France, iv. 345-569, 1857; Victor Gébé, Catalogue des Journaux, 1875; "Journalism in France," Quarterly Review, lxv. 422-468, March 1840; Annuaire Encyclopédique, 1868,708-709 ; Cochin, Le Comte de Montalembert, 1870; Bibliographie de la France, "Chronique" (1875, 96; 1876, 74, 75, and 1881, 7); Journal Général de l’Imprimerie, 1881, part ii. 201 sq.; Amédée Breton, "Les droits de la Presse," in Revue Moderne, xlii. 721-741, 1867; Vapereau, articles "De Champagny," "De Coux," "De Falloux," "E. de Girardin," "Galignani," "J. Lemoinne," "De Montalembert," "Jules Ferry," "Alphonse Karr," "G. Sand," "Veuillot," &c., in Dictionnire des Contemporains, various editions; H. Rigault, "Observations sur les Journaux," in Jour. des Débats, October 28, 1858; G. Sand, Correspond-ance, ii. 288-311, 1882; Sayons, Mémoires et Correspondance de Mallet du Pan, i. 32-35, 84, 86, ii. 368-448; Reinach, "Parisian Newspapers," Nineteenth Century, xii. 347 sq.; various French newspapers, from 1789 onwards, in the library of the Taylor Institution at Oxford.2
NEWSPAPERS OF GERMANY.
Printed newspapers in Germany begin with the Frank-furter Journal, established in the year 1615, by Egenolph Emmel, a bookseller of Frankfort-on-Main. In the follow-ing year his example was imitated, doubtless with some improvement, by the foundation of the Frankfurter Ober-postamtszeitung,—continued until the year 1866 as Frank-furter Postzeitung. Fulda appears to have been the next German town to possess a newspaper, then Hildesheim (1619) and Herford (1630). In the course of the century almost all German cities of the first rank possessed their respective journals. The earliest in Leipsic bears the date 1660. The Rostocker Zeitung was founded in 1710. The Hamburgischer Correspondent dates from 1714, but was originally published under the name of Holsteinische Zeitungs-Correspondenz, two years earlier, and was almost the only German newspaper which really drew its foreign news from "our own correspondent." Berlin had two papers, those of. Voss and of Spener, both of which are still published. They possessed in their earlier career some literary value, but were politically null. Some half--dozen papers which glimmered in the surrounding darkness were the reservoirs whence the rest replenished their little lamps. On the whole, it may be said that the German newspapers were of very small account until after the out-break of the French Revolution. Meanwhile the MS. news-letters, as in earlier days, continued to enjoy a large circulation in Germany. Many came from London. The correspondence, for instance, known under the name of "Mary Pinearis,"—that, apparently, of a French refugee settled in London,—had a great German circulation between 1725 and 1735. Another series was edited by the Cologne gazetteer, Jean Ignace de Rodérique, also a French refugee,— and remembered as the subject of a character-istic despatch from Frederick II. of Prussia to his envoy in that city, enclosing 100 ducats to be expended in hiring a stout fellow with a cudgel to give a beating to the gazetteer as the punishment of an offensive paragraph.3 The money, it seems, was earned, for Rodérique was well-nigh killed. At Berlin itself, Franz Hermann Ortgies carried on a brisk trade in these news-letters (1728-35), until he too came under displeasure on account of them, was kept in prison several months, and then exiled for life.4 Nor, indeed, can any journal of a high order be mentioned of prior appearance to the Allgemeine Zeitung, founded at Leipsic by the bookseller Cotta (at first under the title of Neueste Weltkunde) in 1798, and which is still at the head of the political press of Germany. Posselt was its first editor, but his want of nerve—and perhaps his weak health—hindered the application of his high powers to political journalism. His articles, too, gave offence to the Austrian court, and the paper had to change both its title and its place of publication. It had been commenced at Tübingen, and removed to Stuttgart; it was now trans-ferred to Ulm, and again to Augsburg. It was Cotta’s aim to make this the organ of statesmen and publicists, to reach the public through the thinkers, to hold an even balance between the rival parties of the day, and to provide a trustworthy magazine of materials for the historians to come; and, in the course of time, his plan was so worked out as to raise the Allgemeine Zeitung into European fame. Cotta was also the founder, at various periods, of the Morgenblatt, which became famous for its critical ability and tact, of Vesperus, of Das Inland, of Nemesis, of the Oppositionsblatt of Weimar (for a time edited by Bertuch), and even of the Archives Parisiennes. His ventures were not, of course, uniformly successful, but it is rare that men of like enterprise have made so few failures. Whilst French influence was dominant in Germany, the German papers were naturally little more than echoes of the Parisian press. But amidst the excite-ments of the "war of liberation" a crowd of new journals appeared. Niebuhr started a Preussischer Correspondent; Görres—who in 1798 had founded at Coblentz Das rothe Blatt, soon suppressed by the invading French—under-took the Rheinischer Mercur (January 1814 to January 1816), which was suppressed by the Prussian Government, under Von Hardenberg. This journal, during its initiatory year, had the honour of being termed by Napoleon—per-haps Satirically—"the fifth power of Europe." Wetzel, somewhat later, founded the Fränkischer Mercur, published at Bamberg, and Friedrich Seybold the Neckarzeitung. Some of these journals lasted but two or three years. Most of the survivors fell victims to that resolution of the diet (20th September 1819) which subjected the news-paper press, even of countries where the censorship had been formally abolished, to police superintendence of a very stringent kind.
The aspirations for some measure of freedom which burst forth again under the influences of 1830 led to the establishment of such papers as Siebenpfeiffer’s Westbote, Lohbauer’s Hochwächter, Wirth’s Deutscher Tribune, Eisen-mann’s Baierisches Volksblatt, Der Freisinnige of Rotteck and Welcker, and many more of much freer utterance than had been heard before in Germany. This led, in the ordinary course, to new declarations in the diet
FOOTNOTES (page 428)
(1) The history of French journals published abroad is interesting, but is necessarily passed over in these pages. The Annales politiques of Linguet,—for a time of Linguet and Mallet du Pan jointl,y—was, from about 1770 to about 1785, almost a power in Europe, in its way. Mallet’s own Mercure Britannique, during the eventful years 1798--1800, was brilliant, sagacious, and honest. When the pen literally fell from his dying hand,—a hand that had kept its integrity under the pains of exile and of bitter poverty,—that pen was taken up (for a short interval) by Malonet. When Napoleon forcibly suppressed, a little later, the Courrier de l’ Europe of the count of Montlosier, he offered the deprived editor a pension, which was refused, until ac-companied by the offer of a post in which the able minister of Louis XVI. could still work for his country. In our own day, another Courrier de l’Europe has had a long and useful existence, and still appears weekly in London.
(2) The writer desires to express here, once for all, his deep sense of obligation to the curators of the Taylor Institution at Oxford and to their learned librarian, Dr Krebs, for liberally granting facilities of access to the store of foreign newspapers with which its library is admirably supplied.
(3) Fr. Kapp, "Berliner geschriebene Zeitungen," in Deutsche Rund-schau, xxi. 107-122, 1879, citing Droysen, Zeitschr. f. preuss. Gesch., xiii. 11. The story, as told by Droysen, is an instructive commentary on Carlyle’s praise of Frederick’s "love of the liberty of the press."
(4) Kapp, ut supra.
against the licence and revolutionary tendencies of the press, and to "regulations" of a kind which will be suffi-ciently indicated by the mention of one, in virtue whereof no editor of a suppressed journal could undertake another journal, during the space of five years, within any part of Germany. It need hardly be added that few of the news-papers of 1830 saw the Christmas of 1832. Very gradually some of the older journals—and amongst the number the patriarch of all, the Frankfurter Oberpostamtszeitung—-plucked up courage enough to speak out a little ; and some additional newspapers were again attempted. Amongst those which acquired deserved influence were Brockhaus’s Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the advocate of free trade and of a moderate liberalism, and possessing a large circu-lation in northern Germany (1837) ; the Deutsche Zeituny, edited by Gervinus, at Heidelberg (July 1847) ; and the Dorfzeitung, published at Hildburghausen. The stirring events of 1848 called forth in Germany, as in so many other countries, a plentiful crop of political instructors of the people, many of whom manifestly lacked even the capacity to learn, and vanished almost as suddenly as they had appeared. But it is undeniable that a marked im-provement in the ability and energy of the German politi-cal press may be dated from this period; and of late years the press of Germany has gone far towards turning into very grave earnest the ironical words of the first Napoleon.
In 1833 the number of German newspapers of all kinds, popular journals (Volksblätter) included, but without reckoning periodicals devoted to literature or science, amounted to no more than about 335; in 1849 this number had increased to 1551, their geographical distribution being as follows:—Anhalt, 10 ; Austria (Gerinan), 74; Baden, 55 ; Bavaria, 127 ; Bremen, 18 ; Brunswick, 9 ; Frankfort, 17 ; Hamburg, 24 ; Hanover, 32 ; Hesse-Cassel, 22 ; Hesse-Darm-stadt, 34; Hesse-Homburg, 4; Hohenzollern, 4; Holstein, 17 ; Lippe-Detniold, 4 ; Lübeck, 4 ; Luxemburg, 4 ; Mecklenburg, 22; Nassau, 13; Oldenburg, 8; Prussia, 632; Reuss, 11 ; Saxon Duchies, 44 ; Saxony, 183 ; Schaumburg- Lippe, 2; Schleswig, 5 ; Schwartzburg, 12; Waldeck, 2; Würtemberg, 67. In addition to these, but included in the total of 1551, 77 German newspapers were published in the Swiss cantons, and 14 in the Baltic pro-vinces of Russia. Many of those reckoned in this enumeration soon ceased to appear, but others took their place, and the total in 1855 was estimated at a little above 1600.
In 1879 it was estimated that the total number of newspapers and periodicals published in the German language, in all parts of the world, reached to nearly 5480 –in Germany proper, 3780 ; Austria-Hungary, about 700 ; Switzerland, about 300 ; Russia, about 50 ; Great Britain, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, &c., 40 ; North America, 600; South Aineriea, 9; Africa (Cape Town) 1.1 In Germany, in foreign languages, there appeared at the same period—in Polish, 26; French, 17; Danish, 10; Wendish, 6; Lithuanian, 2; English, 2 ; Hebrew, 4 ; total, 67.2
All the leading German papers have daily corres Londenceafr in Paris; in the Cologne Gazette sometimes five Paris tters in y be seen at a time. Foreign state papers are largely collected and trans-lated.
The National Zeitung, published at Berlin, holds a conspicuous place amongst existing German newspapers. Dr Bernhard Wolff, who founded it (also in 1848), continued to be chief editor until his death in 1879. He was a notable precursor (only a little in advance) in telegraphic enterprise of Julius Reuter ; and, to some extent, his telegraphic bureau at Berlin may be regarded as the germ at once of the "Agence Havas" and of "Reuter’s telegrams." Like Reuter, he found it expedient, as the affair grew, to turn it over to a company. He did so in 1864, but continued to work the enterprise until 1871. Of strictly political papers, the Volkszeitung is prob-ably that which has the largest circulation of all Germany.
As regards the socialistic press, "German socialism," says Sorel, "has turned journalist. It has established 14 printing offices, and publishes 41 political journals, 13 of which are of daily publication. . . . The collective circulation is said to exceed 130,000. The leading paper of this party, Forwarts, published at Leipsic, prints about 12 000 ; Die neue Welt literary rather than political, is said to sell 35, 0 00 copies."3 . . . Die Zukunft, another of their organs (1848), long edited by Johann Jacoby, was suppressed in 1871, mainly on account of its vigorous protests against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine.
The total number of political journals of all kinds throughout Germany in 1879 was 2451, of which 640 were avowedly Govern-inent or administrative organs.
Authorities (in addition to those above cited).—Articles "Bertuch," "Cotta,"
"Görres," "Huber," "Nicbuhr," "Posselt," &c., in Biographie Universelle. Bluntschli and others, article "Zeitungswesen," Deutsches Staatswörterbuch, 1870; Vapereau, Dictionnaire des Contemporains, edition of 1880.
NEWSPAPERS OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.
At the beginning of 1840 the whole number of Austro--German and Hungarian periodicals, of all sorts, was less than 100, only 22 being (after a fashion) political newspapers ; and of these nearly all drew their materials and their inspiration from the official papers of Vienna (Wiener Zeitung and Oesterreichischer Beobachter). These two were all that appeared in the capital. Agram, Pesth, Pressburg, Lemberg, and Prague had also two each; but no other city had more than a single journal. In 1846 the aggre-gate number of periodicals had grown to 155, of which 46 were political, but political only in the character of mere conduit-pipes for intelligence "approved of" by the Government. In 1855 the number of political papers published throughout the entire territory under Austrian government, the Italian provinces excepted, was 60.4 In 1873, ten years after the virtual cessation of a strict censorship,5 the number of political journals, including all the specifically administrative organs, as well local as gene-ral, was 267, and that of mere advertising papers 42; now, in 1883, the former number is increased to about 280, the latter to about 60. The comparatively brief duration of Austrian-Hungarian newspapers and periodi-cals generally is a characteristic feature. Of 866 journals of all kinds existing at a recent date, 153 had their birth in 1873, 145 others in 1872, 109 in 1871; only 67 dated from the decennium 185-60, 30 from 1841-50, and there were but 21 with any claim to a date earlier than 1840.
Vienna had in 1883 in all 18 daily newspapers (really such), ten of which range in average circulation from 14,000 to 54,000 copies, and, according to the consular returns collected by Hubbard, no less than 483 periodicals of all kinds, and of all periods of issue. Of 1016 journals, classified as to language, 600 appear in German, 170 in Hungarian, 79 in Bohemian, 58 in Polish, 56 in Italian, 22 in Slovenian, 11 in Croatian and Servian, 9 in Ruthenian, 8 in Roumanian, 3 in Hebrew. Budapest claims to have 229 journals, and Prague 99, counting those of all descriptions. The aggregate number of stamps issued to political journals in 1860 was about 42,100,000; in 1871 it reached nearly 81,000,000.
See Die periodische Presse Ostereichs, 1875; Lagai, "Zeitungen und Zeit-schriften," ut sup.; Bluntschli and others, "Zeitungswesen," ut sup.
FOOTNOTES (page429)
(1) Lagai, "Zeitungen und Zeitscebriften," in Pierer’s Univ. Lexicon, 1879. The statistics given by Hubbard (Newspaper Directory of the World, vol. ii. pp. 1399-1563) differ enormously from those given above. But Hubbard mingles the most heterogeneous "periodicals" in one undigested wass with the newspapers which are strictly such.
(2) "La Presse Allem. in 1873, "Rev. d. d. Mondes 1873, ii. 715.
(3) Valbert, "Le parti socialiste en Allemagne," Rev. d. d. Mondes, 1878, ii. 708.
(4) Distributed thus :—Vienna, 19; Linz, 1; Salzburg, 2; Gratz, 1; Klagenfurt, 1; Laibach, 1; Trieste, 3 (two Italian); Prague, 4 (one Czech); Brunn, 3 (one Czech); Olmütz, 1; Troppau, 1; Innsbruck, 4; Pesth, 4 (two Magyar); Pressburg, 1; Agram, 2 (one Crotian); Temesvar, 1; Neusatz, 1 (Servian); Herniannstadt, 2 (one Roumanian); Cronstadt, 2 (one Roumanian) ; Lemberg, 2 (one Polish) ; Cracow, I (Polish) Zara, 3 (one Slavonic and one Italian).
(5) What that censorship had been in its palmy days may be sufficiently seen from the one fact that in January 1818 the Rheinischer Merkur, the Nuremberg Concordant, the Neuwied Zeitung, all the papers in French printed in the Netherlands, and all Polish papers whatever were suppressed at a blow.
NEWSPAPERS OF OTHER EUROPEAN STATES.
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.—In Sweden the earliest regular newspaper appears to have been the, Ordinarie Post- Tidende of Stockholm, first published in 1643, and continued until 1680, then, after long suspension, revived under the title Post- och Inrikes--Tidning, under which name it is still published daily. Stockholm has also its Aftonbladet. The Post-Tidende was followed by the Svensk Mercurius (1675-83) and the Latin Relationes Curiosae (1682-1701). In 1742 a Swedish newspaper in French (Gazette FranVaise de Stockholm) was commenced, and was followed in 1772 by the Mercure de Suède. But the press in Sweden had small political influence until 1820, when the Argus was established by Johannsen. The strife between "classicists" and "romantic-ists" spread itself in Sweden, as in France, from the field of litera-ture into that of politics. Crusenstolpe’s Fäderneslandbladet and Hjerta’s Aftonbladet, founded in 1830, were long the most con-spicuous of the Swedish journals,—the former oil the side of the royalists, the latter on that of the reformers. Hjerta’s paper, in its best days, could boast of a circulation of 6000 copies ; but on the accession of King Oscar it ceased to appear as an opposition organ. Almost every town in the provinces has its paper. The growth of the Swedish press during the present century may be
thus briefly epitomized:—
GRAPH
In 1882 the newspapers and "other journals," according to Hubbard, numbered 303.
While Denmark, as regards mere news-journals, followed the example of its rival by publishing an Europdische Zeitung as early as 1663 and the Danske Mercurius in 1666, the political influence of the press is a newer thing in that country than even in Sweden. Until 1830 Copenhagen had but two papers, and they filled their columns with mild extracts from foreign journals. Real activity in this direction dates but from the establishment of the provincial statesin1834. The oldest existing paper is the Berlingske Tidende, which dates from 1749, and was at first published in German. It is now a semi-ministerial journal. The Fädrelandet belongs to the opposition, and in 1848-49 was in a glow of zeal for Scandinavian-ism and "Young Denmark." The total number of political journals in 1849 was 36. Of political and miscellaneous journals together there were in 1879, according to Larousse, 207, of which number 97 were published in Copenhagen. Those belonging to the provinces are of small account. The American consular returns furnished to Hubbard in 1882 give to Denmark 142 (in the text 61 only, but 81 are added in a supplement apparently printed subsequently to the table) of all kinds. So great is the diversity of the most recent accounts. Iceland has in all 12 journals ; 10 of these may fairly be looked upon as newspapers, while 2 are magazines. The 10 include two papers printed in Copenhagen for circulation in Iceland.
The earliest Norwegian paper was the Christiania Intelligents-sedler, founded in 1763. Next to this came the Adressecontors Efterretninger (1765), published at Bergen. Den Constitutionelle was until recently the organ of the Government, and bad absorbed an older paper, called Norske Rigstidende. The Morgenblad is now the daily journal of the popular party, and dates from 1819.
See A. Geffroy, "La presse périodique dans les États Scandinaves," in Revue des deux Mondes, 1861, iv. 759-765; Larousse, article "Journal," in Grand Dictionnaire, 1875; Hubbard, ut sup., ii. 1297-1300, 1833-1851, 1921, 2580-2582.
The Netherlands and Belgium.—The Nieuwe Tijdinghen of Antwerp, published by Abraham Verhoeven, has been said to date virtually from 1605, in which year a "licence for the exclusive retailing of news" was accorded to him by the archdukes Albert and Isabella. But the claim is conjectural. No copy of any number of this paper anterior to 1616 is now known to exist. It seems probable that the Gazette Extraordinaris Posttijdinghen, published by Wilhem Verdussen between 1637 and 1644, is a continuation of Verhoeven’s paper. But, be this as it may, that of Verdussen was certainly the foundation of the well-known Gazette van Antwerpen, which continued to appear until 1827.
Bruges had its Niettwe Tifilinghen uyt verscheyden Quartieren, published (in black letter) by Nicholaes Breyghel. When this paper was commenced is uncertain, but various numbers of it exist with dates between 1637 and 1645. In one of these (26th July 1644) a Brusselsehe Gazette of the 24th of that month is quote , apart from which citation no Brussels paFer is known of earlier date than 1649. When the first number of Le Courrier véritable des Pays-Bas made its appearance, the publisher (Jean Mommaert) prefaced the first number by an address to the reader, in which he says :—"I have long endeavoured to meet with somebody who would give employment to my presses in defending truth against the falsehoods whlich malignity and ignorance send daily abroad. I have at length found what I sought, and shall now be able to tell you, weekly, the most important things that are going on in the world." This paper became afterwards the Gazette de Bruxelles, then Gazette des Pays-Bas ; and, under the last-named title, it continued to appear until 1791. The Annales Politiques of Linguet was one of the most remarkable of the political journals of Brussels in the last century. For a time the editor won the favour of the emperor Joseph II. by praising his reforms, and the Government subscribed for 1200 copies of his paper at two louis d'ors each a year ; but here, as in almost every other place of residence during his chequered career, Linguet at length incurred fine and imprisonment. His journal was repeatedly suppressed, and as often resumed under many modifications of title. It was continued in France, in Switzerland (at Lausanne), and in England. At one time it was so popular that a printer in Brussels regularly and rapidly published a pirated edition of it. For a brief period the publication was resumed at Brussels. A complete set extends to eighteen volumes, and ranges in date from 1780 to 1791.1 Mallet Du Pan was, for a time, a collaborator in the editorship. Linguet died by the guillotine in 1794. Le National was a famous paper for a short period prior to the revolution of 1830. Soon after its cessation—its presses were destroyed by the populace on the 26th August—the official journal, Le Moniteur Belge, was established,—"the ministry deeming it indispensable to the success of it, great political enterprise that a journal should be created which might expound its views, and act daily upon public opinion"; and, on decree of the regency, it was published accordingly. It now claims a circulation of 30,500, and the restored National one of 21,100 copies. But L’Étoile outshines both ; according to its publishers, it circulates, on the average, 40,500 copies daily. Hubbard’s correspondents assign to Brussels a total of 28 daily newspapers, but this heaps together publications of the most incongruous kind.
The first newspaper published at Ghent, Gazette van Gent, appeared in 1667. Den Vaderlander, begun in October 1829, was, for a long period, one of the most widely circulated of the Flemish journals. La Flandre libérale is now the leading newspaper of Ghent, with a circulation of about 15,000 daily.
The kingdom of the Netherlands has always been rich in news papers, but they have usually had more weight commercially than politically. Those in most esteem are Het Nieuws van den Dag (about 25,000 copies) and the Allgemeen Handelsblad (both daily) of Amsterdam; the.Haarlemsche Courant;2 and the Nederlandsche Staats-Courant, and Dagblad van Zuidholland en ‘s Gravenhage (originally Journal de la Haye), both printed at the Hague.
See Hatin, Les Gazettes de Hollande, Paris, 1865; Warzée, Essai Historique et Critique sur les Journaux Belges, Ghent, 1845; Kolb, article "Linget," in Biographie Univenielle; Alex. Chalmers, article "Linguet," in Gen. Biog. Dict.
Russia, Poland, and Finland.—The earliest gazette of Moscow (Moskovskia Wiedomosti) was issued by order of Peter the Great on the 16th December 1702, but no copy is known now to exist of earlier date than the 2d January following. The whole gazette of the year 1703 was reproduced in facsimile by order of the late Baron de Korff (the able imperial librarian at St Petersburg) in 1855, on occasion of the festival for the 3d century of Moscow university. The existing Wiedomosti dates only from 1766 ; its circulation in 1882 has been estimated at 50,000 copies. That of St Petersburg dates from 1718.3 The historian Karamzin estab-lished a short-lived Moscow journal (Moskovski Listok), and after-wards at St Petersburg the once widely-known Russian Courrier de la Europe (1802). The profits of the successful Invalide Russe, established in 1815 by Persorovius, were devoted to the sufferers by the war with France. It continues to appear, not in its original weekly form, but daily, and is now published in Russian (Russkii Invalid). It is said to have an average circulation of about 7000 copies (1882). It is the organ of the "old Russia" party, and also of the ministry of war. Adding to the distinctively political journals those of miscellaneous character, the whole number of newspapers published within the Russian states—Poland and Fin-land excepted—in the year 1835 was 136 ; in 1858 that number had grown to 179, of which 82 were published in St Petersburg and 15 in Moscow; 132 were printed in Russian, 3 in Russian and in German, 1 in Russian arid in Polish, 28 in German, 8 in French, 3 in English, 1 in Polish, 1 in Lithuanian, 1 in Italian. In 1879, under the more liberal rule of Alexander II., the number of political and miscellaneous journals—if we may trust the native authorities used by Lagai—had grown to 293, and of these 105 were under the direct influence of the Government. But, in truth, the period of relaxation of censorship, if strictly examined, will be found to have lasted only from 1855 to 1864, when repressive meastires were again and frequently resorted to. Only 107 foreign political journals are now authorized to circulate. The total number of licensed foreign periodicals amounts to about 300, and of that number no less than 154 are in German.
Poland in 1830 had 49 newspapers. Fifty years later the number was still less than 70, of which 54 are in Polish, these numbers including journals of all kinds.
Finland in 1860 had 24 newspapers, half in Swedish, half in Finnish. In 1863 the number had increased to 32, in spite of the zealous opposition of Count de Berg, the governor-general, to all discussion of political events and "subjects which do not concern
FOOTNOTES (page 430)
(1) Collection de Matériaux, &c. (Bibliog. des Journaux], par M.D[eschiens];p, 97.
(2) The late M. Xavier Marmier says in his Lettres sur la Hollande, "the Haarlemsche Courant is the senior of all the gazettes of Europe," but in truth it dates only from 1656, seventeen years later than the Tijdinghen uyt verscheyden Quar-tieren, and twenty-five years later than his own familiar Gazette de France.
(3) There are now (1883) no less than four St Petersburg gazettes, all dailies, the three which are in Russian having an aggregate circulation of about 16,700, while the one in German (1827) circulated nearly 15,000 copies in 1882. Lagai says of the latter:—"Its aim is to restore the state of affairs which existed under Peter the Great."
the people." He was very friendly to journals of gardening and cottage economy, and to magazines of light literature, and did not regard comic papers with anger provided they kept quite clear of politics. The paper which was long the chief Finnish organ, Suometar (founded at Helsingfors in 1847, and circulating to more than 4000 copies), owed much of its popularity to the pains its editors took with their correspondence. The Oulun Wukko-Sanomat ("Uleaborg Daily News") was for a considerable period the most northerly newspaper of the world, with the one exception of the little journal published at Tromsö, in Norway. Uleaborg, with a population of less than 9000, supports 6 periodicals, 4 of which are strictly newspapers.
In 1880 the whole number of newspapers printed within the government of Finland was 46, while the total number of news-papers and journals of all kinds published within the whole Russian ,empire during the same year was 608. Of these, 417 were printed in the Russian language, 165 of them being official or administrative organs ; 554 were printed in Polish, 40 in German, 11 in Lettish, 10 in French, 7 in Esthouian, 3 in Lithuanian.
See Hatin, Bibliographie de la Presse périodique, Introduction, pp. xxix, c; Bibliographie de la France, January 30,1875, "Chronique"; Annuaire de la Presse Busse (for 1880), as quoted in Bibliographie de la France, 1880, "Chron-ique," p. 19; Lagai, article "Zeitungen," ubi sup., 745 sq.; A. Geffroy, "De la Presse périodique en Finlande," in Revue des deux Mondes, 1860, vi. 771-777; Sampson Low, in Publishers’ Circular, 1879, p. 410.
Italy.—The Diario di Roma, although dating only from 1716, may claim to have been the patriarch of the Italian press. It lasted for nearly a century and a half. During its later years it was a daily paper, with a weekly supplement having the somewhat whimsical title Notizie del Giorno. Next to this, we believe, came the Gazzetta Uffiziale di Napoli, which continues to exist. These and their congeners were published under a rigid censorship until far into the present century, and exercised little influence of any kind. The first tentative movement towards a free press may, perhaps, be dated from the effort to establish at Milan, in 1818, under the editorship of Silvio Pellico, the Conciliatore, in which Simonde de Sismondi, Gonfalonieri, and Romagnosi were fellow-writers. But the new journal was suppressed in 1820. The first really effectual effort had to wait for the lapse of nearly thirty years. L’Opinione, which in many respects is the leading journal of Italy, although its circulation is far inferior to that of many of its rivals, was first published in Turin (26th December 1847). It is now published in Rome. It has had, amongst its many editors, Giacomo Durando (a soldier of mark, and twice minister of foreign affairs), Montezenolo, Giovini Bianchi, and Giacomo Dina. At one period it attained, according to credible report, a circulation of 15,000 copies. Its present circulation averages less than the half of that, but few Italian papers are so often met with in other countries. Fewer still are edited with equal ability.
The Gazzetta del Popolo of Turin had in 1855 about 7000 sub-scribers. In later days its sale has occasionally reached almost 20,000 copies. Hubbard’s agents, in 1882, reported its circulation as8000. The Florence Diritto, originally founded at Turin, in 1851, by Lorenzo Valerio, was edited successively by Macchi, Bargini, and Civinini, and as a radical organ attained great influence. When (under the last-named editor) it displayed a wise moderation in its politics, popularity rapidly declined ; and it has long ceased to appear.
Counting journals of all kinds, there were published in Italy in 1836 185 newspapers ; in 1845, 220 ; in 1856, 311 ; in 1864, 450;1 in 18 75, 479. In 1882 the "periodicals" of all kinds2 numbered 1454, distributed as follows :—Piedmont, 155 ; Liguria, 63 ; Lombardy, 291 Venice, 83 ; the Emilia, &c., 301 ; Tuscany, 178 ; Naples, 243 Sicily, 132; Sardinia, 8. The total number of political -dailies is 149, of which the Roman district claims 35,3 Naples and Sicily 36, Lombardy 22. Amidst all the vicissitudes of things political in Italy, the press-law of March 1848 remains substantially and in the inain the law of to-day. There is neither starnp, caution-money, nor obligatory signature ; but there are provisions-—used with great moderation—for a wise and firm repression of libel. It was in Piedmont that the best portion of the press learned the lesson that its duty is rather to fructify and to expand established institutions than to attack them by sap and mine. By the Police Act of November 1859 the vending of newspapers is made subject to due regulation. And by the oonstitutional law of Italy (June 1874) it is made illegal for newspapers to publish reports of criminal procedure until after the delivery of the verdict or definitive judgment in each case.
See Statistica Amministrativa del regno d’Italia, Rome, 1882; Calendario gene-rale, 1876, appendix; Bibliografia Italiana, 1876-77, section "Cronaca"; Hatin, Bibliographie de la Presie périodique, supplement; Annuario statistico Italiano, 1881, introduction, pp. 149 and 150, 328, 329; Charles de Mazade, "Les précurseurs Itallens," in Revue des deux Mondes, 1867, i. 906; André Folliet, "La presse Itallenne et sa législation," in Revue Moderne, vol. Ii. pp. 659-693, and vol. Iii. pp. 87-113,1869; Cesare Cantù, in Bibliografia Italiana, xiv. 909 sq., 1880.
Spain and Portugal.—In Spain no newspaper of any kind existed earlier than the last century.4 Even during the early years of the present its capital contented itself with a single journal, the Diario de Madrid. The Peninsular War and the establishment of the Cortes gave the first impulse towards something which might be called political journalism, but the change, from total repression to absolute freedom was too sudden not to be grossly abused. The Diario de las Cortes, the Semanario Patriotico (published at Cadiz from 1808 to 1811), and the Aurora Mallorquina (published at Palma in 1812-13) are the first of the new papers that attained importance. In 1814 the circulation or receipt in Spain of English newspapers was prohibited under penalty of ten years’ imprisonment.5 Most of the native journals fell with the Cortes in 1823. In the following year Ferdinand decreed the suppression of all the journals except the Diario and the Gaçeta of Madrid,6 the Gaqeta de Bayona, and certain provincial papers which dealt exclusively with commercial or scientific subjects. At the close of his reign only three or four papers were published in Madrid. Ten years after-wards there were 40; but the number was far more noticeable than the value. Spanish newspapers have been too often the more stepping-stones of political adventurers, and not unfrequently the worst of them appear to have served the turn more completely than the best. Gonzales Bravo attained office mainly by the help of' a paper of notorious scurrility,—El Guirigay. His press-law of 1867 introduced a sort of indirect censorship, and a system of "warnings," rather clandestine- than avowed ; and his former rivals met craft with craft. The Universal and the Correo were successively the organs of José Salamanca. At the end of 1854 the Political journals published in Madrid numbered about 40, the most conspicuous being the now defunct España and El Clamor Publico.
Hubbard’s agents assign to Spain in 1882 220 newspapers of all sorts, of which 68 appear in Madrid. The same authorities assign to El Correo a circulation of about 10,000 copies, to the Diario de Madrid [? Diario Español] a circulation of 12,275 copies, and to La Vanguardia Federal one of 16,000 copies ; all these are dailies. To the weekly paper, Correspondencia de España, they assign an average sale of 42,000 copies. Cadiz has 5 political newspapers, Seville 4, and Barcelona 4.
Portugal in 1882 is credited by the resident American consuls with 179 journals of all kinds and of various periodicity. Of this number 68 appeared in Lisbon. The strictly political daily papers of Lisbon are 6 in number ; those of Oporto 3.
See Ford, Handbook of Spain; S. T. Wallis, Spain, her Institutions and Public Men, 1853, p. 88-95 ; Charles de Mazade, "La Révolution et la réaction en Espagne," in Revue des deux Mondes, 1867, v. 501 ; "The Newspaper Press of Spain," in British Quarterly Review, A. 315-332; Hubbard, Newspaper Direc-tory, ii. 1852-1857, 1877-1893, 2458-9, and 2587-8.
Switzerland.—In 1873 the total number of political and general newspapers in Switzerland was 230. In 1881 they numbered 342, of which 45 may be described as class journals, 297 as political, general, and advertising. Of 226 of the whole number, 53 were of daily issue, 166 appeared twice or thrice a week, and 7 only were of weekly issue. Of 225 political journals, 185 are classed as "Pro-gressist" organs, 40 as "Conservative." Zurich claimed 44 ; Bern, 34 ; Vaud, 20 ; Basel, 13; and Geneva, 10. The aggregate average circulation is estimated approximately at 606, 000 copies, an average circulation of about 1770 to each newspaper.
A montbly compendium of the news of the day appeared at Rorschach, in the canton of St Gall, as early as January 1597. The editor was a German, one Samuel Dilbaum, of Augsburg. He varied his titles, so that his monthly newsbooks although really consecutive, do not wear the appearance of serial publications. Sometimes he called his issue Historische Relatio, sometimes Beschreibung, sometimes Historische Erzählung.
See Bleuter, "Statistique de la Presse, Suisse," In Journal des Économistes, 1882, xviii. 134; Weller, Die ersten deutschen Zeltungen, Tübingen, 1872; cf. Lagai, in Pierer, ubi sup.; and Hubbard, ii. 1897-1913, 2458-9, and 2588 (supplement).
Greece.—The few newspapers that made their sudden appearance in Greece during the war of liberation departed as bastily when King Otho brought with him a press-law, one of the provisos of which demanded caution-money by actual deposit. The journal Saviour was established, in 1834, as a Government organ, and was soon followed by Athena as the journal of the opposition. Ten years later 7 distinctively political papers had been established, along with 13 journals of miscellaneous nature. In 1877 there, were, of all sorts, 81 journals, of which 77 appeared in Greek, 2 in Greek and French, 2 in French only ; 37 of these were printed in Athens, 17 in the Ionian Islands. Of strictly political news-papers there were 12 at Athens and 3 in the Islands. In 1882 the American consul reported 89 periodicals in all, of which 52 were published at Athens.
See Lagai, in Pierer, ut sup., 745; Hubbard, ut sup., ii. 1779-1781, and 2458-9.
FOOTNOTES (page 431)
(1) Of these Turin published 100, Milan 80, Florence 51, Genoa 37.
(2) There are no means of separating, with assured accuracy, the newspapers strictly so called from other "periodicals" under the forms of return employed in the official publications of latest date.
(3) The city of Rome itself publishes 18; Naples, In 1881, followed closely with 16.
(4) Lagai article "Zeltungen," in Pierer’s Universal Lexicon, 1878) cites a Gaçe-ta de Madrid of 1626, but gives no evidence whatever.
(5) A contemporary communication to Gent. Mag., lxxxiv. part 2, 176.
(6) The present El Diario Español is a paper of more recent date.
Roumania and Servia.—Bucharest has now 4 daily newspapers (Romanulu, Timpul, Teleyraphulu, Tagblatt), and Galatz one (Vocea Covurluiului). Roumiania has in all 19 journals, with an estimated average aggregate circulation of 32,700 copies. Servia at the end of 1877 had 19 political journals. The Government organ (Serbske Novine) dates from 1841, the independent journal (Vidov Dan) from 1861, the clerical organ (Pastié) from 1868.
See Lagai, ut sup.; Hubbard, ut sup., ii. 2458 sq.
Turkey.—During the embassy (1795) of Verninac Saint-Maur, envoy of the French republic, a French journal was established at Pera. This, possibly, is the pioneer of all Turkish newspapers. Thirty years later (1825) the Spectateur de l’Orient was founded at Smyrna, also by a Frenchman (Alexander Blacquet?). It was after-wards published under the titles Courrier and Journal de Smyrne, and its latest editor was a third Frenchman, Bousquet des Champs. In like manner, the Moniteur Ottoman, first of strictly Constantinopolitan journals, was founded by the above-named Blacquet in 1831. It soon changed its language to Turkish, and was edited by Franceschi. The second Smyrna newspaper, Echo de l’Orient, estab-lished in 1838, was transferred to Constantinople in 1846. But not one of these papers has survived until now. In 1876 the total number of journals of all kinds published in the capital was 72 (namely, 20 in French, 16 in Turkish, 13 in Armenian, 12 in Greek, 11 in as many other tongues) ; in 1877 it was 80. In 1882 the whole number published in all the Turkish dominions, Asiatic as well as European, is reported as 121 of all kinds an d of all varieties of periodicity. Among the papers printed in Constantinople ire four Bulgarian journals ; the Istoch no Vreme is edited by an Englishman. Three other official newspapers for Bulgaria are published by the Turkish Government at Rustchuk, Adrianople, and Salonica. The Arabic Jawáib of the notorious and learned Fáris al-Slidiák has long been one of the best-known Oriental journals.
See Bibliografia Italiaña, 1876, "Cronaca," p. 50; Lagai, ut sup.; Hubbard, ii. 1914-1918, 2458-9, 2588 ; Zeitung für Staatswissenschaft, 1876.
NEWSPAPERS OF INDIA AND CHINA.
India.—For a considerable period under the rule of the East India Company, the Indian press was very unimportant both in character and influence. It was permitted to shape its course and to gain a position as it could, under the potent checks of the deportation power and the libel law, without any direct censorship. Nor was it found difficult to inflict exemplary punishment on the writers of "offensive paragraphs."
Prior to Lord Wellesley’s administration the most considerable newspaper published at Calcutta were The World, The Bengal Journal, The Hurkaru, The Calcutta Gazette (the organ of the Bengal Government), The Telegraph, The Calcutta Courier, The Asiatic Mirror, and The Indian Gazette. Not one of these eight journals has survived, as a substantive publication,1 until now. Mr Duane, the editor of the first-named paper, was sent to Europe in 1794 for "an inflammatory address to the army," as was Mr Charles Maclean, four years afterwards, for animadverting in The Telegra,ph. on the official conduct of a local magistrate. Lord Wellesley was the first governor-general who created a censorship (April 1799). His press-code was abolished by the marquis of Hastings in 1818. The power of transporting obnoxious editors to Europe of course remained. Perhaps the most conspicuous instance of its exercise was the removal of the editor of The Calcutta Journal (Silk Buckingham), which occurred immediately after Lord Hastings’s departure from India, and during the government of his temporary successor, Mr John Adam. Buckingham’s departure was followed closely (14th March 1823) by a new licensing Act, far exceeding in stringency that of Lord Wellesley, and (5th April 1823), b y an elaborate ‘Regulation for preventing the Establish-ment of Printing-Presses without Licence, and for restraining under certain circumstances the Circulation of Printed-Books and Papers." The first application of it was to suppress The Calcutta Journal.
In the course of the elaborate inquiry into the administration of India which occupied both Houses of Parliament in 1832, prior to the renewal of the Company’s charter, it was stated that there were, besides 5 native journals, 6 European newspapers :—three daily, The Bengal Hurkaru, John Bull, and The Indian Gazette; one published twice a week, The Government Gazette; and two weekly, The Bengal Herald and The Oriental Observer. At this period every paper was published under a licence, revocable at pleasure, with or without previous inquiry or notice. At Madras, on the other hand, the press remained under rigid restriction. The Madras censorship was removed whilst the parliamentary inViry of 1832 was still pending.
One question only, and that but for a brief interval, disturbed Lord William Bentinck’s love of free discussion. The too famous "Half-Batta" measure led him to think that a resolute persistence in an unwise policy by the home Government against the known convictions of the men actually at the helm. in India and an unfettered press were two things that could scarcely co-exist. it was on this occasion that Sir Charles Metcalfe recorded his minute of September 1830, the reasoning of which fully justifies the assertion—"I have, for my own part, always advocated the liberty of the press, believing its benefits to outweigh its mischiefs; and I continue of the same opinion." This opinion was amply carried out in the memorable law (drafted by Macaulay, and enacted by Metcalfe as governor-general in 1835), which totally abrogated the licensing system. It left all men at liberty to express their senti-ments on public affairs, under the legal and mora responsibilities of ordinary life, and remained in force until the outbreak of the mutiny of 1857.
In 1853 Garcin de Tassy, when opening at Paris his annual course of lectures on the Hindustani language, enumerated and gave some interesting details concerning twenty-seven journals (of all sorts) in Hindustani. In 1860 he made mention of seventeen additional ones. Of course the circulation and the literary merits. of all of them are relatively small. One, however, he said, bad reached a sale of 4000 Copies.2
In 1857 Lord Canning’s law, like that of 1823, on which it is closely modelled, absolutely prohibited the keeping or using of printing- presses, types, or other materials for printing, in any part of the territories in the possession and under the government the East India Company, except with the previous sanction and licence of Government, and also gave full powers for the seizure and prohibition from circulation of all books and papers, whether printed within the Indian territories or elsewhere.
The Act (March 1878) which now regulates the important part of the subject that concerns the vernacular press of India runs thus:—"Printers or publishers of journals in Oriental Ianguages must, upon demand by the due officer, give bond not to print or publish in such newspapers anything likely to excite feelings of disaffection to the Government or antipathy between persons of different castes or religions, or for purposes of extortion. Notifica-tion of warning is to be made in the official gazette if these regula-tions be infringed (whether there be bond or not); on repetition, a warrant is to issue for seizure of plant, &c.; if a deposit have been made, forfeiture is to ensue. Provision is made not to exact a deposit if there be an agreement to submit to a Government officer proofs before publication."
The total number of journals of all kinds published within all the territories of British India was reported by the American consular staff in 1882 as 373, with an estimated average aggregate circulation per issue of 288,300 copies. Of these, 43, with an aggregate circulation of 56,650 copies, were published in Calcutta; 60, with an aggregate circulation of 51,776 copies, at Bombay.
See Minutes of Evidence on the Affairs of the East India Company, February to July 1832,1. 98-101, 166-180 (Company’s edition); Report of the Select Committee of House of Commons on the Affairs, &c., l6th August 1832, 31, 32; Report from Select Committee on the Suppression of the Caleutta Journal, 4th August 1834; Second Report from Select Committee on Indian Territories, 12th May 1853, 64-68; Further Papers on the Mutinies in the East Indies, 1857, No. 4 89-96; Returns relating to the Restriction e the Liberty of the Press in India, 24th August 1857; Selections from the Papers of Lord Metcalfe, 1855, 311 sq.; The Oriental Herald, 1824,1. 6-77, 123-142, 197-224; Letters to the Marquis of Hastings on the Indian Press, 1824, 61, &c.; Memoirs and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley, L 281, it. 128 sq.; Wilson, History of British India, from 1805 to 1835,1848, iii. 581-585; An Act for the Better Control of Publications in Oriental Languages, March 1878; Hubbard, Directory, ii. 2458 sq.
China.—The Peking Gazette is said, traditionally, to date from the 10th century of the Christian era, but this is unsupported by evidence. The Gazette consists of three parts:—(1) Kung-men-ch’ae, "Copy of the Palace Gate," a sort of court circular; (2) Shang-yü, "Imperial Decrees"; (3) Tsow-pao, "Memorials from Officers of State." The answers to the documents printed in (3) sometimes appear subjoined as "apostils," sometimes as decrees in (2).3 During part of the last century the Gazette was printed in the imperial palace from movable types of copper (probably brought into China by the Jesuits), afterwards from wax tablets, and for the last sixty years from movable types of wood.
Since 1858 several newspapers on the European model have been established in various large mercantile towns of China. The most notable is the Seng-pao of Shanghai, which circulates throughout many provinces. The Daily Press of Hong-Kong dates from 1860, the North China Herald from 1862. Of all sorts of journals China is credited with 22, of which 14 appear at Hong-Kong, the Gazette only at Peking.
See Sir Rutherford Alcock, "The Peking Gazette" in Fraser’s Magazine,
February and March 1873; W. F. Mayer, in China Review, of 1877; Bibliographie de la France, 1877, pp. 103, 104; journal des Économistes, xvi. 228, 1881.
FOOTNOTES (page 432)
(1) The Hurkaru and The Indian Gazette were long afterwards combined under the new leading title, Indian Daily News (with the old name appended), and the joint publication survives, circulating, in 1882, about 1700 copies. All the Cal-cutta newspapers, properly so called, are comparatively of short duration, and also of narrow circulation. None at present exceeds 2000 copies, and only one Englishman’s Overland Mail—attains so high. The sporting journal, Asian, sells about, 4500.
(2) Some valuable notices of vernacular journals In various tongues have been published from time to time in Trübner’s Oriental and American Record.
(3) Of the former kind the following is a recent example. Li-Hung-Chang reports
that the leader of the Nien-fei (northern rebels) "did really die by drowning," as lately announced. The emperor apostils, "I am greatly d0ighted to hear it."
NEWSPAPERS OF SOUTH AFRICA.
The chief papers of the Cape Colony are The Evening Express (6000,) and The Cape Argus (5000). At Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, in 1882, four papers were published—three in Dutch, one in English.
NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES.
Boston was the first city of America that possessed a local newspaper; but the earliest attempt in that direction, made in 1689, and a second attempt, under the title Publick Occurrences, which followed in September 1690, were both suppressed by the Government of Massachusetts. Only one copy of the first and two copies of the second of these two pioneers are now known to exist. One copy of the Publick Occurrences may be seen in the State Paper Department of the Rolls House in London. The other was recently exhibited at Philadelphia. The paper is a small quarto sheet, one of the four pages of which is blank, while the other three contain a record of passing Occurrences, not unlike the contemporary news of the English press; and there is little in the paper to justify, in any sense, the governor’s assertion that "it contained reflexions of a very high nature." Although it purports to be "printed by Richard Pierce for Benjamin Harris," it is probable that the latter was both printer and editor, as he had already been of a London paper (The Post), and was again at a subsequent period. Nearly fourteen years afterwards (April 24, 1704), the first number of The Boston News-Letter was "printed by B. Green, and sold by Nicholas Boone’; but its proprietor and editor—so far as it can be said to have had an editor, for extracts from the London papers were its staple contents—was John Campbell, postmaster of the town. In 1719 he enlarged his paper, in order, as be told his readers, "to make the news newer and more acceptable; . . . . whereby that which seem’d old in the former half-sheets becomes new now by the sheet . . . . . This time twelvemonth we were thirteen months behind with the foreign news beyond Great Britain [or, in other words, the attention of the Bostonian politicians was engrossed on the siege of Belgrade, when their. contemporaries in the mother country were intent on the destruction of the Spanish fleet on the coast of Sicily], and now less than five months; so that . . . . we have retrieved about eight months since January last"; and he encourages his subscribers with the assurance that if they will continue steady "until January next, life permitted, they will be accommodated with all the news of Europe . . . . that are needful to be known in these parts." But Campbell’s new plans were soon disturbed by the loss of his office, and the commencement of a new journal by his successor in the postmastership, William Brooker, entitled The Boston Gazette, "published by authority’ (No. 1, 21st December 1719). The old journalist had a bitter controversy with his rival, but at the end of the year 1722 relinquished his concern in the paper to Benjamin Green, by whom it was carried on with higher aims and greater success.
Green conducted the paper until his death, at the close of 1733, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, John Draper, who published it until December 1762. By Richard
Draper, who followed his father, the title was altered to Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter; and the maintenance of the British rule against the rising spirit of independence uniformly characterized his editorship and that of his widow (to whom, at a subsequent period, a pension was granted by the British Government). It was the only paper printed in Boston during the siege, and zeased to appear when the British troops were compelled to evacuate the city.
The Boston Gazette began, as we have seen in 1719. James Franklin, elder brother of the celebrated Benjamin Franklin, was its first printer. It lasted until the end of 1754, its editorship usually changing with the change of the postmasters. On the 17th August 1721 James Franklin started The New England Courant, the publication of which ceased in 1727; and two years later Benjamin Franklin established The Pennsylvania Gazette, which he continued weekly until 1766.
To The Boston Gazette and the Courant succeeded The New England Weekly Journal (20th March 1727 ; incor-porated with The Boston Gazette in 1741), and The Weekly Rehearsal (27th September 1731), which became The Boston Evening Post (August 1735), and under that title was for a time the most popular of the Boston newspapers. It aimed at neutrality in politics, and therefore did not survive the exciting events of the spring of 1775. Several minor papers followed, which may be passed over without notice. A new Boston Gazette, which began in April 1755, has, however, claims to be particularized. For a long time it was the main organ of the popular party, and expounded their policy with great ability, and in a dignified temper. Otis, John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Warren were amongst its writers.
The Massachusetts Spy, under the indefatigable editor-ship of the American historian of printing, Isaiah Thomas, did yeoman's service in this struggle, although of a different kind from that of The Boston Gazette. The latter spoke chiefly to the thinkers and natural leaders of the people. The Spy was a light and active skirmisher who engaged his antagonists wherever he met them, and frequently carried the war into the enemy’s country. In July 1774, during the operation of the Boston Port Act, and soon after the landing of four British regiments, it adopted Franklin’s odd device, representing Great Britain as a dragon, and the colonies as a snake divided into nine parts with the motto, "join or die." But Boston grew too hot for the patriotic printer, and he had to remove to Worcester on the day of the battle of Lexington. Here the paper continued to be published until 1786,—the lack of the stirring revolutionary matter being occasionally supplied by the republication in its columns of entire books, such as Robertson’s America and Gordon’s History of the Revolution. This journal, like so many more, was for a time killed by a tax. The stamp duty imposed in March 1786, though amounting to but two-thirds of a, penny, and very speedily repealed, led to the suspension of the Spy until April 1788. At that period it was resumed; and it still continues, being the oldest newspaper in Massa-chusetts.
The Boston Sentinel is on many grounds a memorable newspaper. It was founded and for nearly forty years edited by Major Bursell, a man who combined ability with singular moderation of temper, and with singular modesty and disinterestedness. He printed the Acts of Congress for a very long time without charge. William Lloyd Garrison’s once well-known Boston Liberator was founded on New Year’s Day 1831. For a time its editor was also writer, compositor, and pressman. In December of that year the assembly of his State offered a reward of 5000 dollars to any one who would cause him to be apprehended and brought to trial. He continued the paper to the 'last day of 1861, and lived to witness the abolition of negro slavery.
At the commencement of the struggle for independence in 1775 Massachusetts possessed 7 newspapers, New Hampshire I (The New Hampshire Gazette, founded in 1756), Rhode Island 2, and Connecticut 3,—making 13 in all for the New England colonies. Pennsylvania had 8, of which the earliest in date was The American Weekly Mercury (No. 1, 22d December 1719); and New York but 3, the oldest of them being The New York Gazette, the publication of which had commenced on the 16th October 1725. Up to that period (1725) Boston and Philadelphia were the only towns possessing a newspaper throughout America. In the middle and southern colonies there were, in 1775, in the aggregate, 10 journals, of which Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina possessed each 2, South Carolina 3, and Georgia 1. The total number of the Anglo-American papers was 34, and all of them were of weekly publication.
The New Hampshire Gazette still exists, and is the "father" of the New-England press. In 1810 this State possessed 12 papers - in 1828, 17; in 1840, 27; in 1850, 32,—viz., 22 described as "political," and 10 as "mis-cellaneous." The earliest paper established in Vermont was The Green Mountain Postboy, first published in April 1781. In 1850 the number of newspapers was 30, 27 of which are described as "political." Maine possessed in 1850 29, 4 of them of daily publication. Rhode Island had 13, of which 5 were daily; Connecticut had 28, including 7 daily papers; Massachusetts possessed in 1850 no less than 91 newspapers, about two-thirds of them published in Boston. Of the whole number, 22 were of daily and 54 of weekly publication.
Pennsylvania had in 1810 71 newspapers; in 1850, 210, with a collective circulation of 338,336 copies; in 1870, 540, with a circulation of 3,419,765 copies; and in 1880, 973, with a circulation of 5,031,061 copies.
The Aurora was the most notable of the early Phila-delphia papers, next to Franklin’s Gazette. Its stility to Federalism, and to Washington as the main pillar of the Federalists, was violent. The Daily National Gazette, started in 1820, soon became prominent for its union of literature with politics.
The earliest journal of Maryland was William Parker’s Maryland Gazette, established in 1727, when in all America it had but six existing predecessors. Discontinued in 1736, it was revived in 1745 by Jonas Green, to exist to the present day as the flourishing patriarch of American journals. In Maryland there were, at the census of 1850, 40 newspapers; at that of 1870, 88, with an aggregate circulation of 235,450 copies. In March 1880 Baltimore had 4 daily newspapers—a number equal to that of Boston, and surpassed only by Philadelphia, New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago.
New Jersey had no really established newspaper before the Revolution, although the first number of an intended journal was published in 1765, under the title of The Constitutional Gazette, containing matters interesting to Liberty, but no wise repugnant to Royalty. The earliest regular paper was The New Jersey Gazette, which began in December 1777. New Jersey in 1850 had 45 newspapers; in 1870, 122.
Virginia, notwithstanding its illustrious precedency,—the province of Raleigh, the cradle of Washington,—possessed neither newspaper nor printing office until 1736, so that (as respects one-half at least of the wish) there was once a prospect that the devout aspiration of Sir William Berkeley might be realized. "Thank God," said this Virginian governor in 1671, "we have neither free school nor print-ing press, and I hope may not have for a hundred years to come." The earliest journal established in the State was The Virginia Gazette, commenced in 1736. The Richmond Inquirer, which started in 1804, early attained a leading position. In 1810 the total number of Virginian papers was 23 ; in 1828, 37 ; ait the census of 1850, 67; in 1870, 173, with an average total circulation of 198,272 co pies. North Carolina had, in 1850, 37 journals, with an aggregate circulation of 25,439 copies; in 1870 it bad 64, with 64,820; South Carolina in 1870 had 55, with 80,900; georgia 110, with 150,987 of circulation; Florida 23, with, 10,545 ; Alabama 89, with a circulation of 91,165 copies.
In New York, the Gazette already mentioned was followed by The Weekly Journal (No. 1, 5th November 1733), still memorable for the prosecution for sedition which it entailed on its printer, John Peter Zenger, and for the masterly defence of the accused by Andrew Hamilton. "The trial of Zenger," said Gouverneur Morris, "was the germ of American freedom." Gaines’s New York Mercury was published from 1752 to 1783. Rivington’s Royal Gazette was established in 1773, and in the first year of its existence is said to have attained a circulation of 3600. After the Revolution this paper was continued under the title Yew York Gazette and Universal Advertiser. The- first daily newspaper published in the city or State of New York was The New York Journal and Register, commenced in 1788. In 1810 the aggregate number of papers published within the State was 66, of which 14 belonged to New York city. Ten years later the city press included 8 daily journals, with an aggregate daily circulation of 10,800 copies. No one paper circulated more than 2000, and but two—The Evening Post and The Commercial Advertiser—attained that number. In 1832 there were 13 daily journals, with a collective daily circulation of' 18,200. In 1850 the number of daily papers was 51, with an aggregate annual circulation of 63,928,685.
The penny press of America began in New York, and the pioneer was The Daily Sun, (No. 1, 23d September-1833), written, edited, set up, and worked off by Benjamin Franklin Day, a journeyman printer. Its circulation at first was 600 copies; in 1854 its average issue was 36,525 copies. Its success has been described with sufficient significancy as mainly owing to "piquant police reports," at least at the outset. It was afterwards reorganized, and. made to take a more vigorous political course, chiefly on, the Democratic side. Without increasing its size or chang-ing its price, it has thus become one of the most profitable journals in New York. The New York Herald followed in May 1835. Exceptional and eccentric forms of advertisement were persistently used to gain notoriety for the new paper, and its commercial success was great. Within twenty years it had attained a circulation of 36,158 copies,—which was at that date about five times the circulation of any London newspaper, The Times only excepted,—and the issue has since greatly increased. The. Herald is said to be still "the most fickle, coarse, and-blustering of American papers," but it is none the less conducted with conspicuous skill and enterprise. It often, contains several columns of "exclusive" telegrams, obtained by a lavish outlay. In a single number during 1882, forty columns of original matter appeared. In anothernumber (also of 1882) one hundred columns of advertise-ments appeared, containing nearly 4000 several insertions-. The one fact explains the other. James Gordon Bennett, the founder, proprietor, and editor of the Herald, gradually yielded its management in the later years of his life to his only son, of the same name, who succeeded to the absolute control on his father’s death. The elder Bennett left a large fortune; and of part of this a noble use was eventu-ally made. Besides the expenditure on the world-famous mission in search of Livingstone, a generous but unfor-tunate Arctic exploration enterprise was fitted out from the same fund. A popular sulbscription for the relief of the suffering in Ireland was also started with a gift of a hundred thousand dollars from the Herald. The New-York Tribune was established in 1841 by Horace Greeley, who remained its editor and one of its proprietors until his death, shortly after his defeat for the presidency in 1872. It was also, at the outset, a penny paper, but it differed from its cheap rivals in being a vigorous political propagandist, and in giving hospitable attention to literature and to novel ideas in social and political economy. Thus it allowed contributors to expound and defend the doctrines of Fourier; it encouraged various efforts at founding associations more or less communistic and educational ; after the failure of the famous Brook Farm experiment, it took the president and three other conspicuous members of that association upon its staff ; it was early in giving serious notice to the so-called manifestations of spiritualism ; it advocated co-operation instead of trades unions and strikes as the best remedy for the wrongs or misfortunes of labour; and it led in the warfare upon slavery through political agencies. The Tribune made the first great use of the Atlantic cables for transmitting war correspondence, in its voluminous reports of the Franco-Prussian war. Another of its notable feats was the translation of the "cipher dispatches," revealing the effort by some of Mr Tilden’s partisans to purchase electoral votes for him, in the disputed presidential election of 1876. Its circulation in 1851 was 19,000 copies, of which somewhat more than half was sold within the limits of the city. It had gained in 1857 a daily circulation of about 29,000 copies, and in addition issued as a weekly paper 163,000 copies, irrespectively of certain special issues for California and for Europe. The circulation in both forms is now, in 1883, greatly increased but there are no quite trustworthy records of the present issues of the New York press. The .Yew York Times was established by Henry J. Raymond in September 1851 ; and, though absent at times in the dis-charge of his duties as lieutenant-governor of New York and member of congress, he continued its editor and chief proprietor until his death in June 1869, It was intended to satisfy the wants of those who preferred a journal of the Tribune’s general political tendencies and literary character, but with a more moderate and conservative spirit. The Times also began as a cheap paper; and it was successful almost from the first. Its greatest good fortune came after the death of its founder, in its discovery and vigorous exposure of the frauds and robberies committed by the "Tweed Ring," in the municipal government of New York, a work for which it received great praise and profit. These are amongst the prizes of New York journalism. How numerous the blanks are may be inferred from the statement that between the years 1820 and 1850 32 daily newspapers were founded and abandoned.
The prices of the more important Now York papers were advanced to three, and finally, during the war of the Rebellion, to four cents. They all came to make regular issues on Sunday also, when the price was generally five cents. In September 1884 the Times suddenly reduced its price from four to two cents. The Herald did the same; but the Tribune stopped at three cents, being now the only one of the great morning journals to charge over two cents. There are also several one-cent papers, with considerable circulations. Their inroads upon the larger journals, and that from the World, an eight-page Democratic newspaper sold at two cents, are supposed to have forced the reductions in price above named, which are obviously to make a great change both in the character and prosperity of the press of New York.
The expenditures upon the New York newspapers have greatly increased since 1860. Forty columns of news and editorial comment are often given in a single eight-page paper; extra sheets are frequent, and are always given when advertisements require it. The Herald sometimes- prints as many as 32 pages in one issue. Nearly all the news is now received by telegraph, and a large part of it is collected for each paper by its own staff of correspond-ents and reporters. Several papers lease telegraphic wires to Washington for their own use. A large staff of reporters is also maintained by each for occurrences in and about the city-twenty-five to fifty reporters not being an unusual number for any of the more important journals.
The New York Associated Press is the chief news agency of the American continent. It is a partnership between the Herald, Tribune, Times, Sun, World, Journal of Commerce, and Mail and Express for the collection of such news as its members may wish to use in common, and the sale of it to others. This and the Western Associated Press—an organization of a large number of the more important newspapers of Chicago, Cincinnati, St Louis, and other cities in the Mississippi valley—are now consolidated in a working arrangement, under the man-agement of a permanent joint executive committee, who appoint agents, contract with telegraph companies, dis-tribute the news to the members of the two associations, and sell it to a great number of individual papers and other associations. They transmit proceedings of Congress and the State legislatures, public documents, market news, the dispatches by ocean cables, and, in general, accounts of all public occurrences of interest.
Until the reductions of 1883, the prevailing price for first-class papers, of eight or more pages, was, in New York, four cents ; in Chicago, Cincinnati, St Louis, and elsewhere, five cents. The past ten years, however, had been notable for the growth of another class of journals, of about half the size, generally of only four pages, which aimed at a greater condensation of routine news, and often at giving special prominence to "sensations." These were sold at two cents, and frequently attained great success. The New York Sun, Boston Herald, Philadelphia Times, Chicago News, and San Francisco Chronicle were good examples. Equally successful, if generally less sensational, were the Philadelphia Ledger, Baltimore Sun, Washington Star, and San Francisco Call. The wide circulation and handsome profits of this class of journals have developed a considerable reaction against large papers, extreme ful-ness of news detail, and long editorial comment. Most of the newspapers started or projected now are of this two-cent class.
The great distances in the United States, the excellent and cheap telegraphic service, and the facilities afforded by the Associated Press combine to promote the growth of what would be called in England "provincial journals." Cincinnati, Chicago, and St Louis being each over a day's and a night’s journey from New York, Boston, or Phila-delphia, are able to build up first-class papers of their own. In Chicago the Tribune, Times, and Inter-Ocean are all strong and enterprising eight-page journals, often sending out double or sixteen-page sheets, maintaining large corps of correspondents, and leasing private wires from New York and Washington. Substantially the same may be said of the Commercial Gazette and the Enquirer of Cincinnati, of the Globe-Democrat and the Republican of St Louis, and of the Times-Democrat of New Orleans. Some of these papers realize net profits of over a hundred thousand dollars in a single prosperous year.
Nearly every town of 15,000 inhabitants has its own daily paper. Scarcely a "county seat’ in the settled part of the United States is without its weekly paper—even if the population should be below 1000. In the older counties, villages of a few hundred inhabitants in the "out-townships" are also apt to have a weekly. These are often of the class known as "patent outsides," for which the first and fourth pages, composed of reprint matter and advertisements, are made up and printed in a central office, doing such work by wholesale for hundreds of papers, while the half-printed sheets are then forwarded to the local office, to be filled out with village news and advertisements.
Only one illustrated daily paper is published in America, the Daily Graphic of New York. It prints regularly woodcuts and other engravings on four of its eight pages. The illustrated weeklies are numerous,—the best known in New York being Harper’s Weekly, Harper’s Bazar, and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Paper.
Elaborate as are the newspaper returns given in the successive census reports of the United States, they are only to be relied upon for precise information when limited to papers of daily issue. The classification of the main returns is headed "periods of issue" and, although there is a subsidiary classification, according to character, this fails to elicit even the simple distinction between newspapers and magazines. Of the 5871 publications shown by the census of 1870, 4333 are classed as political. The 11,314 of the 1880 census are classified thus:—devoted to news, politics, and family reading, 8863 ; religious, 5531 ; agricultural, horticultural, &c., 173 ; commerce and trade, 284 ; financial, 25 ; insurance and railroads, 54 ; general literature (including magazines), 189 ; medicine and surgery, 114 ; law, 45 ; science and mechanics, 68 ; freemasonry, oddfellowship, temperance, &c., 149 ; educational, 248 ; children's periodicals, 219; miscellaneous, 330. The Sunday newspapers (included in the above figures) numbered 252. The arrangement is different from that of former returns and, in this absence of uniformity, we cannot give any precise statement, at once comparative and detailed, of the progress of American journalism.
Nor will the Directories of the well-known advertising houses of agency—such as those of Pettengill and of Hubbard—serve the purpose, for reasons which are thus stated by the able statistician who edited the "Population and Social Science Tables" in the censuis report of 1870. ‘There are," he writes in his prefatory remarks, "very considerable numbers of issues of . . . . sheets, intended for distribution at places of public amusement, and a dozen other forms of advertisement, ‘more or less disguised under a show of presenting news or criticism’ to the public . . . . . To swamp statistics [of newspapers] . . . by inconsiderately admitting hundreds of . . . advertising sheets, would be undoubtedly an "abuse." But shoals of such are recorded in Pettengill’s Directory and in Hubbard’s Record.
The following figures are from the official returns for 1850, 1870, and 1880. "Class papers" are included among the newspapers for 1850 and 1870, while the heading in the census tables of 1880 is "newspapers and periodicals." The 1880 returns do not furnish statistics of annual circulation. The aggregate circulation per issue of the 971 dailies in 1880 was 3,566,395, and that of the 10,343 other papers (8633 of which were published weekly and 1167 monthly) 28,213,291.
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Of the 11,314 periodicals in 1880, 10,515 were in English, 641 in German, 49 in anish and Scandinavian, 41 in French, and 26 in Spanish. The number of "journalists" in the United States in 1880 was returned as 12,308 (12,020 males and 288 females).
If we adopt Hubbard’s newspaper statistics of 1880 for the United States collectively,—including, as they do, a considerable number of sheets which contain advertisements only, and which therefore are rejected from the official lists adopted by the statists of the census office at Washington, while, on the other hand, trade-
FOOTNOTE (page 436)
(1) Including Methodist, 75 ; Roman Catholic, 70 Baptist, 63 Presbyterian, 42 ; Episcopal, 32 ; and ‘unsectarian,’ 96.
journals and class-journals (embraced in the census returns), which contain no "news" and no politics, are excluded,—and add to them the number of newspapers published within the Dominion of Canada, we obtain a grand total for the North American continent, as a whole, of 10, 131 "newspapers" of all sorts. Of these, 899 are published daily, 8428 weekly or twice or thrice a week, and 804 at longer intervals. The aggregate circulation of the whole number amounts to about 20,680,000 copies; and the aggregate annual issue of the whole somewhat exceeds 1,836,476, 000 copies.
That, on the whole, industrialism has too much over-weighted literature in the development of American journalism is the state-ment of the most observant and thoughtful of American publicists and statesmen. It is the shady side of a theme which, in many of its aspects, has much of brightness and of mental energy. The fact was recognized by an eminent judge many years ago in the ordinary course of his official duty. ‘The copyright law,’ said Mr Justice Thompson, from the bench of the State of New York, in the cause Clayton v. Stone, "is an Act for the encouragement of learning, not of mere industry. A newspaper . . . is not such a publication as falls under the protection of the copyright laws."
See the different Census Reports of the United States, Washington, 1853, 1872, and 1882-83; Buckingham,Specimens of Newspaper Literature, 2 vols., Boston, 1850; Coggeshall, The Newspaper Record, Philadelphia, 1856; Sparks, Life and Works of Franklin, i. 23, 123, &c.; Life and works of John Adams, ii. 405; Proceedings of the New York Historical Society for 1844; Historical Notices of Newspapers published in New Hampshire, in Farmer and Moore’s collection, iii. 174 sq.; Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, 31 sq.; Minutes of Evidence before the Select Committee on Newspaper Stamps (evidence of Mr H. Greeley), pp. 389-395, 438-448; Andrews History of British Journalism, i. 298-305 1859; Hubbard, Record, &c., New Haven, Conn., 1880, and other publications; papers by C. de Varigny, on "American Journalism," in Revue des Deux Mondes, 1877, ii. 113-143; F. Hudson, Journalism in the United States, New York, 1873.
NEWSPAPERS OF BRITISH AMERICA AND CENTRAL AMERICA.
The virtual senior of the Canadian press is the Gazette, still published at Montreal, which may fairly be considered as the continiiation (or at least the representative) of the original Gazette, established in that city in January 1765. It is now a daily paper—one of 10 dailies, throe of which (La Minerve, Le Nouvel Monde, and L’Évènement) appear in French. There are also 3 weekly papers. Toronto has now 3 daily journals, and Ottawa 4. The Halifax Gazette (pioneer of the Nova Scotia press) was established in January 1751, but it had an existence of less than twenty years. Halifax now publishes 4 daily papers. In all parts of British America, collectively, 67 daily newspapers were published in 1882, with an aggregate circulation of each issue estimated (by the American consular agents) at 237,788. The total number of journals of all kinds published in the British-American provinces is stated at 624, with an average circulation for each issue of about 2600 copies.
The press of the West Indies begins at Barbados with Keimer’s Gazette of 1731, followed by Grenada in 1742. In 1882 there were in the West Indies 47 daily papers with an estimated average circulation, per issue, of 1813 copies. Kingston (in Jamaica), with a population of 38,556, had five daily papers, at the head of which appears The Gleaner (1300 copies). Havana (in Cuba), with a population of about 300,000, has 11 daily papers, of which the four chief are thus reporte—Diario de la Marina (circ, 10,000), La Voz do Cuba (8000), El Triunfo (8000), La Discusion (6000).
The principal newspaper of San José, the capital of the republic of Costa Rica (population about 18,000), is The Central American Reporter, a daily journal (circ. 3000). S. Salvador, capital of the republic of that name, has a daily journal, El Boletin Oficial, which circulates 2000 copies.
The city of Mexico (population about 230,000) has 24 daily papers, of which El Diario Oficial (4000 copies) and La Patria (5000) are the chief.
NEWSPAPERS OF SOUTH AMERICA.
(1) Brazil.—The chief daily newspaper of Rio de Janeiro is the Journal de Commercio, which dates from 1823, and has a circulation of about 16,000. The official organ, Gazeta de Noticias, is said to circulate 24,000. The Cruzeiro follows with 12,000, and O Apostolo, the principal organ of the Roman Catholics, with 7000. There are in all, 8 daily papers. Among the papers of less frequent publication are one in French (established in 1863) and also one in German.
(2) Argentine Republic.—The chief papers of Buenos Ayres are The Standard and River Plate News (3500) and La Tribuna Nacional (3000).
(3) Chili.—In Santiago are published El Ferro Carril and El Diario Oficial (5000).
(4) Peru.—Lima, with a population exceeding 100,000, has no journal with a larger circulation than La Patria (2500).
(5) Uruguay.—Montevideo (population 110,000) has 17 daily papers, of which the principal are—El Ferro Carril (6000), El Siglo (5000 ), and La Nacion (3000).
(6) Venezuela.—The chief papers of Caricas are El Monitor (7500), La Opinion Nacional (5000), and La Gazeta Oficial (5000).
NEWSPAPERS OF AUSTRALASIA.
(1) New South Wales—Sydney (pop. 220,427) has 5 dailies, of which The Sydney Morning Herald is chief; 18 weeklies, The Australian Town and Country Journal and Sydney Mail leading and 10 monthlies.
(2) Victoria.—Melbourne (282,981) has 5 dailies—Argus and Age leading (latter averaging 55,000); 15 weeklies—Australasian and Leader leading- and 18 monthlies.
(3) South Australia.—Adelaide (38,479) has 4 dailies—S. A. Register and S. A. Advertiser leading; 9 weeklies—Adelaide Observer chief; and 6 monthlies.
(4) Western Australia.—Perth (5044) has 5 papers,1 daily (Morning Herald).
(5) Queensland.—Brisbane (31,109) has 3 dailies—Brisbane Courier, chief; 9 weeklies—Queenslander chief; and 5 monthlies.
(6) Tasmania.—Hobart (28,648) has 2 dailies—Mercury, chief; 2 weeklies—Tasmanian Mail, chief; and 4 monthlies.
(7) New Zealand.—Wellington (21,005) has 3 dailies—New Zealand Post and Times, chief; 1 weekly (New Zealand Mail) and 2 monthlies. Christchurch has 4 dailies.
COMPARATIVE STATISTICS.
It is almost impossible by any statistical detail to give an idea of the recent advances made—even as regards circulation merely—by the newspaper press; but an outline of the general results reached by three statists, who published their summaries respectively in 1828, 1866, and 1882, may have its utility.
The earliest summary is that of Adrien Balbi. It was published in the Revue Encyclopédique for 1828 (vol. i. pp. 593-603), along with much matter of more than merely statistical interest. The numbers of newspapers published in different countries at that date are given as follows :—France, 490; United Kingdom, 483; Austria, about 80; Prussia, 288; rest of the Germanic Confederation, 305 ; Netherlands, 150; Spain, 16 ; Portugal and the Azores, 17; Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, 161 ; Russia and.Poland, 84. The respective proportions of journals to population were—for Prussia 1 to 41,500, German states 1 to 45,300, United Kingdom 1 to 46,000, France 1 to 64,000, Switzerland 1 to 66,000, Austria 1 to 400,000, Russia 1 to 565,000. Europe had in all 2142 newspapers, America 978, Asia 27, Africa 12, and Oceania 9 ; total 316 8. Of these, 1378 were published in English-speaking countries (800 of them in the United States), having a population of 154 millions, and 1790 in other countries, with a population of 583 millions.
The second summary is that given by Eugène Hatin in an appendix to his very able Bibliothèque de la Presse périodique. His enumeration of newspapers is as follows :—France, 1640; United Kingdom, 1260; Prussia, 700 ; Italy, 500; Austria-Hungary, 365; Switzerland, 300; Belgium, 275; Holland, 225; Russia, 200; Spain, 200; Sweden and Norway, 150 ; Denmark, 100 ; United States, 4000. Here the proportions of papers to population are—Switzerland and United States 1 to 7000, Belgium 1 to 17,000, France and the United Kingdom 1 to 20,000, Prussia 1 to 30,000, Spain 1 to 75,000, Austria 1to 100,000, Russia 1to 300,000. Hatin assigns to Europe a total of 7000, to America 5000, and to the rest of the world 250, making in all 12,500.
The third summary is that of Henry Hubbard, published in his Newspaper Directory of the World (New Haven, Connecticut, 1882), a work the value of which is, marred by the exclusively commercial spirit that has moulded its compilation, and its want of literary character. Its scope embraces a very considerable number of serial publications which cannot be classed as newspapers. Still—all this being understood—Hubbard’s figures, which were collected (chiefly by the American consuls and consular agents in all parts of the world) about 1880, cannot be disregarded. The following are his general results :—
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(E.ED.—W.R)
The above article was written by: Edward Edwards and Whitelaw Reid.
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