press. It has raised itself to such a pitch of importance that it
has been not inaptly termed the fourth estate of the realm. But the
power which it wields is so enormous and so widespread that it
would be nearer the truth to concede to it the dignity of the first
estate. All classes see so clearly their interest in supporting it,
that the press has become, in effect, a general arbitrator, a court
of last appeal, to which kings, lords, and commons in turn address
themselves for support whenever the overwhelming force of public
opinion is to be conciliated or enlisted. It is in morals what a
multitude is in physics, and it may, without exaggeration, be said
that for all purposes of progress and of good the press of England
has in reality become something more than a single estate of the
realm, since it combines in itself, and exceeds the authority of
all. But while raised to this lofty pinnacle of greatness, it does
not, it dares not, it cannot from its very constitution permanently
abuse its power; and though isolated attempts have been, from time
to time, made in this direction, yet they have in the end, as was
to be expected, reaped nothing but disaster and disgrace. 'Great is
journalism,' says Carlyle. 'Is not every able editor a ruler of the
world, being a persuader of it?' Yes, truly a ruler of the world,
whose supremacy all other rulers must unhesitatingly acknowledge or
perish miserably and forever. Yes, truly a persuader of the world,
because he is the mouthpiece of the people, whose earnest, mighty
voice is making itself heard more and more irresistibly every day,
to the utter discomfiture and overthrow of the hydra-headed avatars
of the priestcraft and kingcraft and all the other mouldy and
rank-smelling relics of the dark ages. The press is the arch
apostle of civilization, progress, and truth--the Greatheart, whose
mission it is to combat and destroy the giants Pope and Pagan, Maul
and Despair, and all other misleaders and oppressors of men.
Language itself might be exhausted before all that could be said in
favor of the uses, benefits, and value of the press had found
fitting expression. The greatest and best of men have expatiated
upon this noble theme, but probably the truest and most eloquent
panegyric ever bestowed upon it is that of Sheridan:
'Give me but the liberty of the press, and I will give to the
minister a venal House of Peers--I will give him a corrupt and
servile House of Commons--I will give him the full sway of the
patronage of office--I will give him the whole host of ministerial
influence--I will give him all the power that place can confer upon
him to purchase up submission and overawe resistance--and yet,
armed with the liberty of the press, I will go forth to meet him
undismayed--I will attack the mighty fabric he has reared with that
mightier engine--I will shake down from its height corruption, and
bury it amidst the ruins of the abuses it was meant to shelter.'
Had Sheridan never uttered or written anything besides these burning
words, he would have merited immortal fame, and unquestionably obtained
it.
The press is not a thing of yesterday, for it is the slow growth of two
centuries; neither did it burst upon the world armed at all points, like
the fabled Athene. Yet in other respects the comparison holds good, for
the press, like Athene, unites in itself the attributes of power and
wisdom combined; it fosters and protects science, industry, and art; it
is the patron of all useful inventions; it is the preserver of the
state, and everything that gives strength and prosperity to the state;
it is the champion of law, justice, and order, and extends its
protecting ægis over the weak, the downtrodden, and the oppressed. It
has taken two centuries, as we have already said, to make the press what
it is; and a terrible uphill fight has it had to wage. Tyranny,
dogmatism, and intolerance in high places, and ignorance and
superstition in low, have ever been its sworn enemies. It has had its
saints and martyrs, more worthy of canonization in men's hearts than
many written high in the calendar of Rome. But though persecuted,
crushed, and at times apparently done to death, its vitality was
indestructible, and after every knock-down blow it rose again from the
earth, like Antæus, with renewed strength. It was always a vigorous
stripling, and even so far back as the days of David Hume its future
greatness and magnificent destiny was clearly marked out, so that he
wrote: 'Its liberties and the liberties of the people must stand or fall
together.' Liberty and the press in England are convertible terms, and
this is the true reason of the success and power it enjoys. It is also
the cause of the persecutions it has had to undergo. Tyranny and the
press are as necessarily opposed to each other as are the principles of
good and evil. The word 'tyranny' is not here intended to refer only to
the despotic rulers of states and kingdoms, but to include the
oppression practiced by the strong upon the weak, the rich upon the
poor, the great upon the small, whether nations or individuals. The
press, moreover, is the guardian of social, political, and religious
morality. The greatest as well as the most trifling affairs which
conduce to the well-being and comfort of the multitude are eagerly
canvassed. The faults and vices which disfigure and disgrace even the
most advanced forms of civilization are unshrinkingly laid bare, and the
proper remedies prescribed. The political conduct of nations and of
public men is carefully scrutinized, and every false step that they may
make is immediately noted, commented upon, and held up to public
reprobation. Religious questions, although, ever since the world began,
they have been approached in a very different spirit to those of any
other description, and have been debated with greater heat and passion
than the bitterest political disputes, and with a lamentable disregard
of logic and common sense, are now-a-days treated with a candor and
fairness that has never yet characterized them. The press is, in fact,
the great physician of the mind, whose duty it is to impart a healthy
tone to the inner nature of man, to check the ravages of disease in it,
and, wherever it may imagine any traces of poison to lurk, to administer
a prompt and immediate antidote. It may not always and at once prosper
in its endeavors. Wrong-doing may still, in some cases, prove too
strong, vices may have become inveterate, diseases chronic, and the
poison may have been too completely absorbed. But not, therefore, is the
press discouraged: like Robert Bruce's spider, it returns again and
again to its task, and--success does and must crown it in the end.
But while faithfully performing these lofty duties, in the discharge of
which it employs the trained minds and practised pens of the greatest
literary talent of the time, the press has other functions, which, if
not of such paramount importance, yet possess no small utility and
value. By no means the least of these is that of merely furnishing the
news of the day; and that this was the primary intention of the
newspaper its very name proves. Comment, argument, and reasoning were
after additions. There are thousands of persons at the present day even,
who patronize a newspaper solely for its news, and who do not trouble
their heads about any other portion of its contents. The births,
marriages, and deaths are eagerly perused by many who expect to meet in
that domestic chronicle with the names of their friends and
acquaintances. The court news and the movements of royalty and the upper
ten thousand have great charms for a large section of the community.
Accidents and offences and sensation headings, such as 'horrible
murder,' 'melancholy suicide,' 'terrific explosion,' 'fatal shipwreck,'
'awful railway collision,' and the like, have powerful attractions for
that class which is--alas for human nature!--only too numerous, and
which likes to sup full of horrors--in print. In the same category with
these may be placed police news, and the proceedings in the divorce
court, the full reports of which are a blemish from which not even the
greatest of English journals are free. There have been found able and
honest men to defend these reports on the ground of the 'interests of
morality,' than which there is not a more abused phrase in print. But to
the man of ordinary common sense it would appear that more harm than
good results from them. Where can the viciously disposed man or the
novice in crime apply with better prospects of instruction in the
pursuit of his evil designs than to the columns of the newspaper? It is
perhaps not too much to say that for every two persons whom these
reports deter from crime, there are three who have been either initiated
or hardened in wickedness and sin by their means. This is a matter which
calls loudly for reform; and let it, with all sorrow and humility, be
confessed, one in which the better American journals shine vastly
superior to their English brethren. To the general reader for
amusement's sake only, those scraps _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam
aliis_ with which editors fill up odd corners supply ample
gratification. But those who read for amusement's sake only, or from
mere idle curiosity, are by no means the majority, and a tolerable
insight may be obtained into a man's character and bias of mind by
observing what is the part of the paper to which he first turns when he
unfolds it. The man who is absorbed in business pursuits turns to the
prices of stocks and shares, the values of articles of merchandise, and
the rates of discount and exchange. He will also probably glance at the
'latest intelligence' and the most recent telegrams, but only with the
view of forming an opinion as to how the world of commerce and
speculation will be affected thereby. The politician finds matter to his
taste in the leading articles, the Parliamentary debates and the letters
of foreign correspondents, and, perhaps, after a careful perusal of
them, flatters himself that he has at last mastered the intricacies of
the Schleswig-Holstein question, or has arrived at an understanding of
the Emperor Napoleon's policy in Rome. The scientific man and the
literary man have their attention fixed by the reports of the meetings
of the various learned societies, the accounts of new discoveries and
inventions, and the reviews of new publications. This enumeration might
be extended almost _ad infinitum_, but to sum up briefly, whatever a
man's taste or predilections may be, he will be able to gratify them to
his heart's content.
There is, however, one portion of the newspaper which must not be passed
over without especial notice, and which is so varied in its contents
that it appeals to all classes. This is the advertisements. The man who
wishes to buy may here ascertain whither he must bend his steps to
obtain the article he desires, and the man who wishes to sell may here
meet with a purchaser; and it is truly wonderful to observe how the two
great requirements of demand and supply, in all their varied
ramifications, are satisfied or seem to be satisfied in these columns.
If one may put faith in them, it is possible to gratify every mortal
wish and every mortal want through their instrumentality, on one
condition, and that condition is--money. But even this condition may be
satisfied through the same medium. Are there not untold fortunes
invested in Government securities and unclaimed for years, only waiting
for the lawful owners or rightful heirs to come forward and obtain them
through the agency of those obliging gentlemen who make it their
business to investigate such matters? Are there not also numbers of
benevolent philanthropists eagerly longing for opportunities to lend
money in large or small amounts, on personal security only, to such
persons even as are not fortunate enough to be rightful owners or lawful
heirs? The curious part of the affair, however, is that there are also
so many people who want to borrow money upon the same terms. Do these
two classes, we wonder, ever come together through the intervention of
the advertisement, and does the result wished for on both sides follow,
or does it not? If it does, why need both sets of advertisements appear
at all? And if it does not, what is the use of repeating either of them
day after day and week after week? The man of imagination must take
especial delight in the advertising columns. What splendid feasts they
afford him to banquet upon! Some of them, in a few pithy lines, contain
the plot of a three-volume novel or the materials for a grand sensation
melodrama. What tragedies and what comedies he may weave out of one or
two mysterious and almost unintelligible sentences! What reveries he may
indulge in, what castles in the air--the most harmless and inexpensive
of building operations--he may construct, provided he start with the
hypothesis, 'If I were to buy this,' or 'If I were to invest in that,'
and all the time he has neither the intention nor the ability of
purchasing the one or of investing in the other! How seductive are the
notifications by auctioneers and land agents of the 'charming and
valuable territorial estates, with the disposal of which they have had
the honor of being intrusted'! The dweller in towns, who, chained to the
one unceasing, unvarying round of official toil, still sighs for the
country, and, like Virgil, envies the 'fortunati agricolæ,' may here
give the reins to his fancy, and indulge his rural proclivities _ad
libitum_. When the day's labors are over, and he sits in slippered ease
'by his own fireside,' what greater enjoyment can he have than to
abandon himself in true Barmecidal fashion to the tempting dainties
which the last page of the supplement to the _Times_ offers to his keen
appetite! How he revels in the luscious descriptions of 'noble parks,'
'swelling lawns,' 'ancestral woods,' 'silver lakes,' and 'endless
panoramas of scenery unequalled in the world'! How proudly he lingers
over the pictures of 'baronial castles,' and 'time-honored manorial
residences, indissolubly linked with the proudest names and proudest
deeds of England's history'! If he be a sportsman--and what Englishman
is not, more or less?--how intoxicating to him is the enumeration of
'game of all sorts, and countless myriads of wild fowl,' only waiting
his advent to fall victims to his prowess! If he be a philanthropist,
what visions of model farms, model cottages and model schools, of a
happy and contented peasantry, of comely, smiling matrons, and troops of
ruddy-cheeked children may he not conjure up! If he be ambitious, what
dreams of greatness crowd upon him--the revered benefactor of the
parish, the respected chairman of the bench of magistrates, nay, even
the county member returned to Parliament without a dis-sentient voice!
His fancy runs riot, and there is no limit to the bright future which
the skilful hand of the cunning knight of the hammer unfolds before his
enraptured gaze.
To the energetic, enterprising man, how tempting must be those
prospectuses of schemes for the development of the vast and in many
cases untried natural, industrial, and commercial resources of the
country, which, combining in an eminent degree both pleasure and profit,
invite his coöperation upon the joint-stock principle! How delightful to
him must be those announcements of wonderful inventions--secured by a
patent--and of old-established business firms, which offer a safe
investment for his spare hundreds and thousands by way of partnership,
with the certainty of immediate and enormous returns! To the invalid and
the valetudinarian, how cheering must be those modest and disinterested
encomiums upon the virtues of certain nostrums and specifics, which
cannot but carry conviction to his mind that there is a certain cure for
'all the ills that flesh is heir to!' And lastly, not to enlarge the
list any further, what a glow of heartfelt pleasure and gratitude must
the really good and benevolent man experience when he peruses the
reports of charitable societies, with their statistics of poverty,
misery, and privation, which afford him a channel for the dispensation
in works of mercy of the superfluous wealth with which a bountiful
Providence has blessed him!
Such being the manifold uses and advantages of the newspaper, we are
tempted for a moment to pause and reflect upon what would be the
condition of the world without it. What a dreary waste it would be! Man
is an inquisitive animal, and at the present day is just like the
Athenians of old, going about seeking for some new thing. What would
become of him if the provender supplied him by his newspaper were
suddenly cut off? The consequences to society and to individuals would
be frightful to contemplate, and the mind especially recoils with horror
from the fate which would assuredly overtake those elderly
club-loungers, whose sole aim and object in life appears to be the daily
perusal of their favorite journal. How disastrous would be the effects
of such a stoppage to those persons who are compelled to pass the
greater portion of their lives together! They could not possibly
contrive to get through the day, and before long life itself would
become burdensome to them. Vast numbers of people have no ideas of their
own, and are therefore compelled to borrow them elsewhere. How important
is the part which the newspaper plays in that elsewhere! Paterfamilias
comes down to breakfast--his newspaper fresh, clean, and tidily folded,
lies invitingly on the table--he eagerly seizes it, and is forthwith
furnished with topics of conversation with his family. When he is
thoroughly posted up in the news of the day, he sallies forth, and is
ready to interchange ideas at secondhand with any acquaintance he may
meet. What would become of Paterfamilias, his family, and his friends,
if they were deprived of this resource? The whole framework of society
would be unhinged, business and pleasure would alike come to a
standstill, and the world would again relapse into barbarism and chaos.
But let us turn from these fanciful speculations to a sober recital of
facts in connection with the history of the press.
The derivation of the word 'newspaper' has been the subject of much
dispute. Some learned and ingenious writers, disdaining the obvious
'new,' have gone very far afield in their researches. Among other
derivations which have been suggested, is one taken from the four
cardinal points of the compass, N. E. W. S.; because the intelligence
conveyed came from all quarters of the globe. This suggestion is
contained in an old epigram:
'The word explains itself without the Muse,
And the four letters tell from whence comes News;
From N. E. W. S. the solution's made,
Each quarter gives account of war and trade.'
And also, probably in jest, in the 'Wit's Recreations,' published in
1640:
'Whence news doth come if any would discusse,
The letters of the word resolve it thus:
News is conveyed by letter, word, or mouth,
And comes to us from North, East, West, and South.'