The Periodical Press--Its Mechanism and Distribution.
THE ENGLISH PRESS GENERALLY.--THE "TIMES" AND THE OTHER
JOURNALS.--THE EVENING PAPERS.--THE PUBLICATION OF THE MORNING
PAPERS.--ANTICIPATION OF NEWS.--SPECIAL TRAINS.--PUBLICATION OF
WEEKLY PAPERS.--THE READING PUBLIC.--ADVANTAGES OF WEEKLY
PAPERS.--THE PROVINCIAL PRESS.--WHY IT CANNOT
FLOURISH.--TRANSMISSION OF NEWSPAPERS.--THE NEWSVENDERS.--A SCENE
IN THE "GLOBE" OFFICE.--YOUNG HOPEFUL, THE NEWSBOY.--MR. SMIRKINS,
THE PARTY-MAN.--THE NEWSVENDER'S EXCHANGE.
The Germans have, at all times, professed great respect for the English
press; and justly, too, considering the excellence of its political
articles, its miraculous versatility, the conscientiousness of its
reports, the general usefulness of its contents, the enormous
geographical sphere into which it finds its way, the grave and manly
tone of its language, and especially its thoroughly independent
position, and with it, its stupendous moral power. The English press is
more concentrated in its means than the German; it is more sober,
versatile, and honorable than the French; and it can be more relied
upon, and is more decent in its tone, than the American press. It
surpasses all three by the grand solidity of its deportment. It may well
be said, that no nation on earth, old or new, could ever boast of such a
political press as that of which the English nation can boast.
In one point only, the English political press is over-estimated. Its
issues and its profits are generally considered to be much larger than
they really are. It is not difficult to discover the grounds of this
erroneous view. People think mostly of the _Times_, because it is best
known and most frequently quoted. The condition of the English
journalistic press is estimated after this, its most important
representative. The premises are false, and so is the conclusion. We do
not here propose to open the ledgers of the English newspaper offices,
and to take down the number of copies sold. A great deal of falsehood,
and a great deal of truth, has been published in Germany on this
subject. We will here only say, that the _Times_ prints daily from
40,000 to 50,000 copies, and that the other journals together have an
issue of the same amount. This is enough to show, that no conclusions
can be drawn from the statistics of the _Times_ to the statistics of the
other great morning papers. These numbers prove also, that English
journalism has fewer readers than journals in Germany or France, though
certainly its geographical diffusion is by far greater. But it were
equally wrong to draw conclusions from the number of copies sold to the
number of readers. The position of the periodical press to the public is
so peculiar in this country, that a detailed account is necessary for
its proper understanding. We propose to give that account in the
following pages, and begin by stating the well-known fact, that the
English political papers are divided into morning, evening, and weekly
papers, into monthlies and quarterlies, and into metropolitan and
provincial journals. The essential difference between the morning and
evening papers, is to be found in the time of publication. The first
edition of the latter is published at four, or half-past four, in the
afternoon; a second edition is published at six o'clock; and, on
important occasions, a third edition, containing the parliamentary
intelligence of the evening, badly reported, and in execrable style, is
published at seven o'clock. Some of the evening papers, too, are cheaper
than the morning papers, and they are all half a sheet in size; but they
have the advantage of giving the contents of the day-mails, and the
accounts of the money-market. The evening papers generally contain much
less matter than the morning papers. Their sale too is small, and with
the exception of the _Globe_ and the _Sun_, they are none of them
independent, but form part of the property of certain morning papers.
The _Standard_, for instance, is but a later edition of the _Morning
Herald_; the same is the case with the _Express_, which belongs to the
_Daily News_; with the _Evening Mail_, which belongs to the _Times_; and
the _Evening Journal_, which is a satellite of the _Morning Chronicle_.
The sale of these papers is limited, and their expense is not generally
thought to be very large.
The morning papers are published in time for the early railway trains.
The first few thousands of the copies printed, are at once despatched
into the provinces, and the copies which are destined for metropolitan
circulation, reach the readers generally about nine o'clock, when a
great many Londoners are at breakfast. The _Morning Post_ alone is in
the habit, as it appears, of receiving very important intelligence, such
as "Elopements in High Life," or "the last odds against Black Doctor,"
between the hours of six and eight in the morning, for this fashionable
journal appears frequently at the break of day, with the exciting
heading, "SECOND EDITION!" The first edition, it seems, was sold in the
course of the night; perhaps between one and three, A.M. The less
important papers publish their second edition at twelve o'clock, and in
it their foreign correspondence, which has arrived with the morning
mails. In the case of any extraordinary event, they publish a third
edition at three o'clock.
It is impossible to speak too highly of the despatch and correctness of
the printing in the English newspaper offices. Where so much praise is
due, there has, as a matter of course, been some exaggeration likewise;
and the newspaper offices are the subjects of many a popular myth, which
it is worth while to reduce to simple truth. Both Englishmen, and the
foreigners that are within their gates, will now and then, at eight
o'clock in the morning, read "our own correspondent's" letter in the
_Times_, and be struck with some remarkable piece of intelligence it
contains. An hour or so afterwards, perhaps, the postman brings them a
letter from some continental friend, and lo! that letter contains the
very news which they have read, printed in large type, in the morning
paper. Now, however expeditious compositors, printers, and newsmen may
be, the setting up of matter, the striking it off, and distributing it
through the various channels of trade, to the farthest ends of the town,
require a certain amount of time. How, then, is it possible, since my
private letter and the _Times_ correspondence came by the same
mail--how, in the name of all that is strange, does it happen, that the
paper prints the news so much sooner than I receive it through the Post
Office? Why it looks "nae cannie," as a Scotchman would say!
Still the result is brought about by the most natural and simple means.
The morning papers have their continental correspondence sent by mail,
but the letters are not directed to London, but to an agent in Dover.
That agent, who is generally connected with the railroad or the Post
Office, receives his parcels immediately after the arrival of the
steamers from Calais and Ostend. He directs them to his principals in
London, and sends them off with the express train. Of course the mail
letter-bags reach London by the same train; but the mail-bags have to go
to the Post Office, where the letters are taken out and sorted, and
distributed among the various district offices, which, in their turn,
distribute them among the letter-carriers. The letters cannot,
therefore, reach their various destinations before eight o'clock, though
it frequently happens that they come at a much later hour. But the
parcels sent direct from Dover are emancipated from the necessary delays
of the Post Office. A messenger receives them as the train dashes into
London Bridge Station; they are at once hurried away to the printing
offices, set up, printed, and despatched to all the news-shops of
London. And while this is going on in the printing office, the Post
Office clerks are opening the mail-bags, and sorting and stamping the
letters for the regular delivery. A certain portion of time, say a few
hours, are necessarily lost at the Post Office; and this loss of time to
the public, and the advantage to which the newspapers turn it, has
puzzled many persons, particularly strangers. All the popular tales of
special trains and steamers are mere fables. The _Times_, with all its
power of capital, cannot have faster vessels than the mail steamers that
run between Calais and Dover; and if at Dover it were to engage a
special train, that train could not go faster than the express. But even
if greater speed were attainable, the experiment would be too costly for
daily use.
On important occasions, indeed, in the case of unexpected arrivals of
interesting continental news, or when large and important meetings are
being held in the provinces, and the intelligence to be conveyed to town
is too heavy for the telegraph, the great London journals do not shrink
from the expense of special trains, which convey to them the reports of
the proceedings, as taken down by their correspondents. But in the
transmission of mere news--of those "facts," to which Mr. Cobden would
confine the newspapers--the telegraph is at once cheaper and more
expeditious.
A few years ago, when there were no railroads, and when the steamers
were neither frequent in their passages nor punctual in their arrivals,
the _Times_ had organised its own system of couriers, and for a long
time it competed with the _Morning Herald_ as to the greatest expedition
in the conveyance of the Overland Mail from Marseilles to London. At one
time the _Times_ had the best of it; on another occasion the couriers of
the _Times_ were beaten by the couriers of the _Herald_; the agents of
the papers sowed their money broad-cast on the route between Marseilles
and Calais; they outwitted one another in retaining all the post-horses,
until these expensive manoeuvres were finally rendered unnecessary by the
railway service and the submarine telegraph. In this respect, too, the
most fabulous stories have long been current in Germany, where, it is
generally believed, that the _Times_ has its score or so of special
trains steaming away on all the railroads of England from year's-end to
year's-end. The English newspaper service is by this time established on
a firm, expeditious, and economical basis; and extraordinary means are
resorted to only on extraordinary occasions.
The weekly political papers are published on Saturday, and some of them
on Sunday morning, while a few publish a second edition on Monday
morning. They live on the news of the daily papers; the better class
among them have a single correspondence, a weekly Paris letter, but
they have not the telegraphic despatches, nor do they maintain a staff
of correspondents and reporters. They simply condense the news as given
by the morning journals, while some of them spice the abstract with an
original remark or two for the convenience of a peculiar class of
readers. Besides these they have a few leading articles, and "Letters to
the Editor." These letters are, in many instances, more interesting than
any other part of the paper, and under an able editor their moral effect
is greater even than that of the leading articles. This department has
been utterly neglected by German journalism, though there can be no
doubt of its being eminently suited to the capabilities and necessities
of the German public.
We have no intention of discussing the literary and political merits of
the various "Weeklies." Their importance and popularity, too, is not a
theme for us. These things are, moreover, well known in Germany. But in
our opinion, it is worth while to inquire into the circumstances to
which the weekly press in England owes its circulation and popularity,
while it never prospered either in France or in Germany. A combination
of causes produces this result. The morning papers are too expensive and
too voluminous for the middle classes, especially in the country. Their
price is a high one, not only according to the German, but also to the
English mode of reckoning. But in the present state of the law, it is
impossible to produce a daily paper which can compete with the other
journals at a lower price. It has been proved to the satisfaction of
Parliamentary Committees, that what with the paper, stamp, and
advertisement duty, a great journal can only pay if it has an immense
circulation. Still more strikingly has this been shown in the struggles
and sufferings of the _Daily News_. That paper was set up in opposition
to the _Times_. The Manchester men advanced a large capital, _à fonds
perdu_, and the competition commenced with an attempt at underselling.
The "Daily News" was sold at threepence per number; and the consequence
was, that the funds of the party were really and truly "_perdu_." The
price was raised to fourpence; still the concern was a losing
speculation. Finally the _Daily News_ condescended to take fivepence, as
the other journals do, and it is now more prosperous.
But fivepence is a high price for a paper, even according to English
ideas. It is very silly to say, that in England a sovereign is to the
Englishman what a florin or a thaler is considered to be to the German.
The remark may hold good in the case of the favoured few--the dukes,
cotton-lords, and nabobs; but among the middle classes, the relative
value of a sovereign and a thaler assumes a very different aspect. The
middle class forms the bulk of newspaper readers; it is not so easy for
that class to pay six pounds per annum for the "Times" or "Daily News,"
as the payment of six thalers (the average price of a _Zeitung_) is to
the middle classes in Germany.
Besides being too dear, the morning journals are too large for the
majority of the public. Many persons cannot spare the time to read all
the parliamentary intelligence, and the police and law reports, and the
railway and mining articles; others are too lazy, while the majority of
provincial readers combine the two objections with a third. They are too
busy, lazy, and generally too indifferent. They would take a comfortable
view of the events. They are not over curious, and will not be compelled
to swallow a daily dose of news. They are not so hot-blooded as a French
_portier_, who cannot think of going to sleep without a look at least at
the evening papers; and in politics they enjoy a greater degree of
phlegm than all the continental nations together. They say, and are
justified in so saying, "We live in a quiet country, where everything
and everybody has his place. Nothing whatever can happen that we are any
the worse off for knowing a few days later. A dissolution perhaps? Why
let them dissolve the parliament, there will be a general
election--that's all. Resignation of ministers? There are as good fish
in the sea as ever came out of it. A foreign war? Very well, we'll pay
for it, but they wont invade us, thanks to the sea and the wooden walls
of England. All of which proves that a man need not be in a confounded
hurry to know the last news!"
And as for the working classes they want money, time, and, indeed, they
want the _mind_, for the daily press. Weeklies are cheaper and more
palatable. Their news is more condensed; it is more popular; they
contain a deal of demonstration and furnish useful reading all the week
through.
It is therefore not at all astonishing that the weekly press should have
experienced an enormous increase within the last few years, while the
few daily papers that were started in that period, proved utter
failures; while the majority of even the old established papers were far
from being prosperous. Hence, too, the enormous sale of the weeklies,
whose prices range from three-pence to nine-pence. First and foremost in
prosperity is the _Illustrated London News_, whose sale is said to
amount to 100,000 copies. The _Weekly Dispatch_, selling from 60,000 to
80,000 copies, comes next. It is a radical paper, though I doubt whether
any German reader would ever discover its radicalism. The _Weekly
Dispatch_ is the favourite of the lower classes. The _Examiner_ and the
_Spectator_, though superior in point of style and political ability,
are less read than the Germans generally believe; but _Punch_ (for
_Punch_ too is essentially a political paper), is prosperous, easy,
comfortable, and influential, as indeed it fully deserves to be.
The non-political papers, the monthlies and quarterlies, the clerical
journals whose name is legion, the critical papers, the penny weekly
papers which fatten on stolen property, the military and naval gazettes,
the papers devoted to banking, architecture, gas-lighting, agriculture,
mining, railways, colonial affairs, and all imaginable professions and
branches of industry, these we mention only to say that we must leave
them to scientific and professional travellers. But we add a few words
on the provincial press of England.
It is insignificant. Any interest it may possess springs from local
causes, as is the case with the Glasgow, Manchester, and Liverpool
papers. This applies also to the Irish journals, whose tone, generally
speaking, bears traces of more genius and less conscience than the tone
of the English press.
The English provincial press in particular can advance no claims to
Irish genius. It wants originality, unless it be original deliberately
and with speculation aforethought to say the thing which is not true; to
bring news of ministerial changes, which is news indeed to the
officials of Downing-street, and to perpetuate the fiction of a highly
distinguished omnipresent and omniscient "London Correspondent," who is
a member of all the clubs; who passes every one of his evenings in all
the theatres and at all the fashionable parties, and who is on terms of
the most bewildering intimacy with all the great men of the day. A great
many of these papers drag out a weary and unprofitable existence, while
others make much money. The expenditure of most of them is confined to
the cost of the paper and printing; the taxes due to the state and the
outlay of a modest capital on scissors and paste.
There is no possibility of improvement in this respect, since in England
a political paper cannot thrive unless it be established in London. The
owners of the provincial newspapers cannot help it; they have no control
over the political and geographical circumstances which determine the
fortune of the English press.
Not only does it stand to reason that a metropolitan journal is in a
more favourable position than a provincial journal, since the national
life and action radiates and is concentrated in the mighty heart of the
country; but London, with its population of two millions and a half, is
not merely the capital of a vast empire, it is also an _imperium in
imperio_, a kingdom in itself. Many kingdoms have a less population than
London has, and many countries furnish not half the amount of matter for
journalism which London supplies. And though they had the matter it
would be divided over a vast area, and its instant collection and
publication would be impossible. Concentration has incalculable
advantages for the daily press, as is plainly shown by the great
journals of Paris and London.
In another respect, too, the London papers are favoured by
circumstances. The geographical extent of England is so small compared
to its political power, the country is so completely covered with a
network of railroads and telegraphs, that space is lessened in a
marvellous degree. Thus is the London press enabled to collect
intelligence in all parts of the country _in less than no time_, as the
English say, to gather it by centripetal attraction and send it forth by
centrifugal radiation. Sitting on the banks of the Thames, a short
railway journey from the narrowest portion of the channel and thus, of
all the large towns, most near to the Continent, London is the most
efficient mediatrix and exchanger of news between the Continent and
England and the Continent and America. As capital of England, of a
country which has always carried the mails of all the nations and parts
of the world to all the nations and parts of the world, London is the
great political, mercantile, and scientific storehouse of the world. No
other periodical press can boast of such favourable circumstances; and
the London press is safe from the competition of the periodical journals
of the seaport-towns, because distance in England is of very little
moment in the communication of intelligence, and, because favoured as it
is, it can afford to pay, and occasionally to pay largely too for extra
means of speed and priority of information.
Let us now turn to the mechanical means and contrivances by which the
London papers are distributed among the public.
The transmission of newspapers in Germany is a government monopoly: it
belongs to the post. The post-offices in Germany accept subscriptions to
the various newspapers and forward them to the subscribers. The English
post-office has nothing whatever to do with newspaper subscriptions. It
forwards newspapers exactly as it forwards other parcels, whenever they
are posted, but it does not undertake to obtain them from the
publishing-office. The newspaper-offices, too, know nothing of the
continental system of _abonnement_; they sell their papers over the
counter, and for cash, exactly as all other wholesale dealers do. Under
these circumstances, the public want retail shops, and such retailers
are to be found in the newsvenders.
Generally speaking, the newsvenders occupy small shops in or near some
of the principal streets, where they frequently carry on the business of
stationers as well. They supply their London customers with papers; they
send papers to their customers in the provinces, and they lend papers by
the hour or day. For success in the various branches of his business,
the newsvender wants a good connexion and a small capital. His connexion
once established, he can make a guess at the numbers of each paper he is
likely to want, and for these he sends to the various publishing-offices.
The news-boys are the chief "helps" and props of his trade.
In the dawn of morning, even before the publication of the great
journals has commenced, the newsvender, represented by his boy, is at
his post in the outer room of the publishing-office. These
plenipotentiaries of the various newsvending firms sit and gape and rub
their eyes, or warm their hands by the fire, until the first batch of
papers is hurried into the room. A thin, sleepy man, who has hitherto
been hid in a kind of cage, gets up from his office chair and takes
charge of the bulky parcel. The boys at once make a rush towards the
cage, and the taller ones elbow their way up to it, while the small boys
must be content to wait until their turn comes. "Fifty copies!" "One
hundred copies!" "Two hundred copies!" Each bawls out the number he
wants, puts down his money, and runs off through the moist, cold,
morning air to another newspaper-office, or back to the shop, where the
various numbers are put into wrappers as fast as it is possible for
human hands to perform that operation, and despatched by rail to the
various country customers. All this is done at express speed; and the
newsvender's boy, though gifted with a leaning to politics, can hardly
find the time to stop by a street lamp and read the last "Submarine from
Paris."
He is hard at work all the morning. When the parcels have been
despatched into the provinces, he is at once compelled to devote himself
to the other important section of his daily duties, and provide for his
master's town customers, of whom there are two classes, purchasers and
hirers of newspapers. The former receive their papers about nine o'clock
through the medium of the news-boy. The latter receive their papers at
various times according to the terms of the contract. Some keep a paper
two hours, some keep it three or four, and the terms are, for the short
period, 6d., and for the longer, 1s. per week. It is the newsboy's
business to know all the various customers of this kind, and to call
with the paper, and for it, at the exact time desired by each individual
reader.
He is less occupied between the hours of eleven and three. If not
compelled to "mind the shop," the newsboy, if gifted with a correct
estimation of his political position, will devote these leisure hours to
the perusal of the various journals within his reach. If not of an
intellectual turn, he indulges in a comfortable fight with some
sympathetic printer's devils, in some quiet square or court. Duty calls
him again at three o'clock. He has to call for the newspapers which are
"out," and he has to secure the supply of evening papers at the moment
of their publication--all for that evening's country mail. The
publishing-offices of almost all the London papers are to be found in
the line of road and the parts that thereunto adjacent lie, from the
Strand to St. Paul's, where journals of diametrically opposite
tendencies reside in dangerous proximity to one another. In this quarter
of the town they are near to the Exchange, the post-office, and the
chief railway-stations; and the chief newsvenders, too, live generally
in the narrow lanes and alleys which run out of the principal streets.
Those who wish to study the natural history of the news-boy, should take
their stand in the publishing office of an evening paper, at half-past
three or four o'clock in the afternoon. A small apartment, divided into
two smaller apartments by means of a wooden partition, and the outer
half dusty and dirty to the last degree, and crowded with boys, who
there wait for the paper, which is just going to press. It happens, now
and then, that the publication is delayed for half an hour, or so; on
such occasions, the youths in attendance display a remarkable amount of
ingenuity in their praiseworthy efforts to kill the time. The innate
street-boyism of these small creatures is tinged with a literary
colouring. The little "devils" are evidently inspired with the devilries
of the newspapers which they sell. Some are free-traders, others are
protectionists; not from conviction, but from the urgent desire of their
nature to have a good and sufficient reason for wrangling and fighting.
We watched their proceedings on one occasion, at the time when Lord
Derby and Mr. Disraeli were "in," as a very ragged boy said, in so
sententious a manner, that it would have done honour to a very old
member of the House of Commons.
"Eh, Jim!" cried a diminutive boy, with black eyes, red cheeks, and
fuzzy brown hair. "Eh, Jim! sold no end of
[Illustration: THE NEWSPAPER BOYS.
p. 215]
_Heralds_, I dare say. You're in, you know; clodhoppers that you are!"
"_Herald's_ a ministerial paper; beats the _Times_ hollow, don't it?
Kick's it into the middle of next week, eh? Well, I hope it'll do your
master some good, but it don't do you no good, Jim, my boy; you're as
lean as a bone, you are!"
To which, Jim, a light-haired, spare-made, freckled youth, replies:
"You're the parties as gets fat, so you are. Them as is 'onest people,
never gets fat! How's the _Globe_? eh! Don't you think one publication a
week is more than enough? You've got no news, noways, now that _we_ are
_in_."
Saying which, he takes off his cap--the beak of it went a long time ago,
on the battle-field of Holywell-street--and flings the dirty missile
into Tom's face; and Tom, who would parry it, puts his fist into Dan's
face; whereupon, Dan, starting back, kick's Jack's shins; and Jack gives
it to Dan, and Dan to Tom, and Tom to Jim, and there is a general
_melée_. The quarrel is finally settled by the armed intervention of
four tall boys, who for some length of time watched the chances of the
fight from a bench in the furthest corner of the room. A few blows and
kicks, the combatants are separated, and the publishing office is
tranquil. At this juncture, the inner door is opened, and a man with
spectacles, and a large parcel of wet _Globes_ makes his appearance. The
four tall youths rush up to the wooden partition, to the exclusion, the
manifest disgust of the smaller fry of boys. All their movements betray
the consciousness of their _Flegeljahr_ dignity. Mr. Smirkins, the
publishing clerk, who has just entered, treats them with marked
distinction. He greets them with a smile; tells them it is "rather wet
to-day;" and goes the length of inquiring after the state of their
health. One of them, a genteel youth, with very stiff shirt collar, and
a very new hat, is quite a favorite with Mr. Smirkins. That gentleman
has, for the last years, devoted his time and talents to the _Globe_
office, and has come to consider himself, not only as an integral part
of that Whig paper, but also as an important link in the heavy chain of
the Whig party. He mentions the Whigs, as "our party;" and in speaking
of the _Globe_, he says, "we." The advent of the Derbyites to power, has
been a severe trial to Mr. Smirkins' feelings; he is less fat and
jovial now, than he was under Lord John Russell. He looks care-worn. A
faithful servant of his party, he grieves to see the _Globe_ neglected
by those high in office.
"How many copies?" says he to the youth with the shirt-collars. "Ten?
Here they are. I dare say you take a good many _Standards_ since
_we_----"
No! the truth is too harsh for Mr. Smirkins. He cannot conclude the
sentence, so tries another mode of expression.
"The _Standard's_ looking up, I dare say?"
But the youthful newsvender has all the discretion of a London man of
business. He replies to Mr. Smirkins' question with a few "Hem's and
Hah's"; and Mr. Smirkins, foiled in his attempts to obtain intelligence
of the prosperity of the other party, goes on distributing his papers
among the boys; and the boys, rushing out to distribute them all over
the town, make great haste, that they may be in time at the newsvenders
Exchange.
These boys, strange though it may appear, have their own exchange where
they meet at five o'clock. Not indeed in colonnade and marble halls, not
even in a tavern parlour, but in the open air, at the corner of
Catherine-street, Strand. There they meet, shouting, squabbling and
fighting in hot haste, for they have not much time to lose. All the
papers must be posted by six o'clock. Here spare copies of the _Herald_
are exchanged for spare copies of the _Daily News_, the _Times_ is
bartered against the _Post_, according to the superfluities and
necessities of the various traders. The exchanges, of course, are made
on the spot, the papers are posted, and the newsvender's business is
over for the day. On Saturdays, however, many of their shops are kept
open till long after midnight, for the accommodation of the working
classes and the sale of the Sunday papers. Tom and Jim and Dan and Jack
have received their week's wages, and take a stroll in Clare Market or
join their friends, the baker's and fishmonger's boys, in some bold
expedition to distant Whitechapel.