A newspaper, rightly conducted, is a potent power in promoting the
well-being of universal man. It is also a highly moral power--for it
quickens mind everywhere, and puts in force those principles which tend to
lessen human woe, and to exalt and dignify our common humanity. The daily
press, for the most part, aims to correct error--whether senatorial,
theological, or legal. It pleads in earnest tones for the removal of public
wrong, and watches with a keen eye the rise and fall of great interests. It
teaches with commanding power, and makes its influence felt in the palace
of the monarch, as well as through all classes of the community. It helps
on, in the path of honorable ambition, the virtuous and the good. It never
hesitates or falters, however formidable the foe. It never crouches,
however injurious to itself the free and undisguised utterance of some
truths may be. It is outspoken. When the nation requires them, it is bold
and fearless in propounding great changes, though they may clash with the
expectations of a powerful class. It heeds the reverses to which a nation
is subjected, and turns them to good account. It does not abuse its power,
and is never menaced. It is unshackled, and therefore has a native growth.
It looks on the movements of the wide world calmly, deliberately, and
intelligently. We believe the independency of the daily press can never be
bribed, or its patronage won by unlawful means. Its mission is noble, and
the presiding sentiment of the varied intellect employed upon it is "the
greatest good to the greatest number." It never ceases in its operations.
It is a perpetual thing: always the same in many of its aspects, and yet
always new. It is untiring in its efforts, and unimpeded in its career. We
look for it every day with an unwavering confidence, with an almost
absolute certainty. Power and freshness are its principal characteristics;
and with these it combines a healthy tone, a fearless courage, and an
invincible determination. That it has its imperfections, we do not
deny--and what agency is {334} without them? It is not free from error, and
no estate of the realm can be. The purity of the public press will be
increased as Christianity advances. There is no nation in the world which
can boast of a press so moral, and so just, as the daily newspaper press of
Great Britain. The victories it achieves are seen and felt by all: and when
compared with the newspaper press of other countries, it has superior
claims to our admiration and regard.
Taking _The Times_ as the highest type of that class of newspapers which we
denominate the daily press, these remarks will more particularly apply. The
history of such a paper, and its wonderful career, is not sufficiently
known, and its great commercial and intellectual power not adequately
estimated. The extinction of such a journal (could we suppose such a
thing,) would be a public calamity. Its vast influence is felt throughout
the civilised world; and we believe _that_ influence, generally speaking,
is on the side of right, and for the promotion of the common weal. It is
strange that such an organ of public sentiment should have been charged
with the moral turpitude of receiving bribes. That it should destroy its
reputation, darken its fair fame, and undermine the very foundation of its
prosperity, by a course so degrading, we find it impossible to believe. We
feel assured it is far removed from everything of the kind: that its course
is marked by great honesty of purpose, and its exalted aim will never allow
it to stoop to anything so beneath the dignity of its character, and so
repugnant to every sense of rectitude and propriety. It is no presumption
to assert that, under such overt influences, it remains unmoved and
immovable; and to reiterate a remark made in the former part of this
article, "its independency can never be bribed, or its patronage won by
unlawful means." Looking at it in its colossal strength, and with its
omnipotent power (for truth is omnipotent), it may be classed, without any
impropriety, among the wonders of the world.
Allow me to give to the readers of "N. & Q." the following facts in
connexion with _The Times_, and on the subject of newspapers generally.
They are deserving of a place in your valuable journal. There were sold of
_The Times_ on Nov. 19, 1852, containing an account of the Duke of
Wellington's funeral, 70,000 copies: these were worked off at the rate of
from 10,000 to 12,000 an hour. _The Times_ of Jan. 10, 1806, with an
account of the funeral of Lord Nelson, is a small paper compared with _The
Times_ of the present day. Its size is nineteen inches by thirteen: having
about eighty advertisements, and occupying, with woodcuts of the coffin and
funeral car, a space of fifteen inches by nine. Nearly fifty years have
elapsed since then, and now the same paper frequently publishes a double
supplement, which, with the paper itself, contains the large number of
about 1,700 advertisements.[1] 54,000 copies of _The Times_ were sold when
the Royal Exchange was opened by the Queen; 44,500 at the close of Rush's
trial. 1828, the circulation of _The Times_ was under 7,000 a day; now its
average circulation is about 42,000 a day, or 12,000,000 annually.[2] The
gross proceeds of _The Times_, in 1828, was about 45,000l. a year: and,
from an article which appeared twelve months ago in its columns, it now
enjoys a gross income equal to that of a flourishing German principality.
We believe we are correct when we assert, that there were sold of the
_Illustrated London News_, with a narrative of the Duke's funeral (a double
number), 400,000 copies. One newsman is said to have taken 1000 quires
double number, or 2000 quires single number: making 27,000 double papers,
or 54,000 single papers (twenty-seven papers being the number to a quire),
and for which he must have paid 1075l.[3] It is a remarkable fact, that
Manchester, with a population of 400,000, has but three newspapers;
Liverpool, with 367,000, eleven; Glasgow, with 390,000, sixteen; Dublin,
with but 200,000, no less than twenty-two. The largest paper ever known was
published some years ago by Brother Jonathan, and called the _Boston
Notion_. The head letters stand two inches high; the sheet measures five
feet ten inches by four feet one inch, being about twenty-four square feet;
it is a double sheet, with ten columns in each page; making in all eighty
columns, containing 1,000,000 letters, and sold for 31/2d. In the good old
times, one of the earliest provincial newspapers in the southern part of
the kingdom was printed by a man named Mogridge, who used to insert the
intelligence from Yorkshire under the head "Foreign News."
It is curious to search a file of old newspapers. It is seldom we have the
opportunity of doing so, because we rarely preserve them in consecutive
order. It is easy to keep them, and would repay the trouble, and their
value would increase as years rolled on. Such reading would be very
interesting, and more so than we can at all imagine. It is a history of
every day, and a record of a people's sayings and doings. It throws us back
on the past, and makes forgotten times live again. Some of the early
volumes of _The Times_ newspaper, for instance, would be a curiosity in
their {335} way. We should read them with special interest, as reflecting
the character of the age in which they appeared, and as belonging to a
series exercising a mighty influence in moulding and guiding the commercial
and political opinions of this great nation. The preservation of a
newspaper, if it be but a weekly one, will become a source of instruction
and amusement to our descendants in generations to come.