NEWSPAPERS. Newspapers are the representatives of the millions of people in America, while books of poetry, history, and philosophy represent only certain classes of readers. A few facts taken from the census of 1850 will suffice to prove this assertion. In that year, the number of copies of newspapers and periodicals printed in the United States amounted to 422,600,000. If we subtract from the total population of the States (23,267,498) the number of the slaves (3,197,589), we find rather more than twenty newspapers and periodicals allowed for every free man, woman, or child, in the year 1850. The details of the same census include 350 daily papers, 150 appearing thrice in a week, 125 published twice in a week, 2000 weekly papers, and 175 magazines, quarterly reviews, &c.; making a total of 2800 newspapers and periodicals, of which more than two thousand have been commenced since the year 1820. The cheapness of newspapers in America explains their wide circulation. 'A city of 2000 inhabitants, which in England would not support a journal of its own of any description, has its daily in America; and cities of 20,000 people, which in England are content with their semi-weeklies or weeklies, in the United States support four or five dailies, with as many weeklies.' 'Even villages of a few hundred inhabitants have their papers, which, if not supported in the hamlet, draw patronage from the surrounding rural population; and almost every family takes at least one journal.' A recent traveller states that 'newspapers are seen everywhere, in the hands of the labouring as well as the wealthy classes. In the streets, at the doors of hotels, and in railwaycars, boys are seen selling them in considerable numbers. Nobody ever seems to grudge buying a paper. In the parlours of publichouses and hotels in England, a newspaper is handed from one person to another, because the purchase of a copy would be expensive; but we see little of this practice in America. Every morning at the Astor House, I should think some hundreds of hewspapers were bought by the guests. At breakfast, almost every man had a paper. And I believe I may safely aver, that no working-man of any respectability goes without his paper daily, or at least several times in a week. Newspapers, in a word, are not a casual luxury, but a necessary of life in the States; and the general lowness of price of the article admits of its widest diffusion. 1 Introduction to Trübner's Bibliographical Guide to American Literature. Many of these papers are only a cent-equal to a half-penny— each; but two or three cents are a more common price, and some are charged five or six cents. Compared with the expensively got-up and well-written papers of London, the American newspapers, though low-priced, are scarcely entitled to be called cheap. Much of their space is occupied with advertisements, and in some cases the whole readable matter amounts to a few paragraphs of news and remarks connected with party politics. Indulgence in personalities is usually, and with truth, regarded as the worst of their editorial features.' 1 As representatives of the leading journals, we may mentionThe National Intelligencer, published in Washington city; The Journal of Commerce, Evening Post, Courier, Inquirer, Tribune, and Times, in New York; The Pennsylvanian Inquirer, in Philadelphia; The Journal, at Louisville; and The Patriot, at Baltimore. These,' it is said, 'fairly represent the ability, scope, excellence, and tone of the respectable American press, and if more quoted from in Europe, would greatly contribute to remove the erroneous impressions respecting American newspapers.' 2 6 We find no statistics of the comparative numbers of the profligate papers of which Mr Dickens has given a very dark account.3 It is probable that a fair representation might be gained by comparing with his statement the remarks of the best American reviews, and the facts stated or implied in other notices of journalism; for example, Buckingham's Specimens of Newspaper Literature (1850), and a life of the editor of The Tribune, recently published. 'The profligate papers,' says a reviewer,4 'numerous as they are, and widely as their circulation ranges, neither express, nor guide, nor govern what can, with any propriety, be called the public opinion of the country; they may open their foul mouths in full cry upon a man of character, year after year, and through every state in the Union, but they can harm him no more than the idle wind. They are read, despised, and the next day utterly forgotten. A temporary prejudice may be raised, and that is all. Their cowardly malice, their ignorance, vulgarity, and profligacy, overshoot the mark.' Of invasions of private life, and attacks on personal character, it is not necessary to say more. With regard to public life, it is admitted that the violence and indecorum of party politics are prominent characteristics of a large portion of the newspaper press. A few 1 Things as They Are in America, by William Chambers. 1854. 3 American Notes for General Circulation. 4 North American Review, No. 118, Art. 9. specimens may be noticed, as warning examples of the abuse of journalism. The style indulged by many editors and correspondents of newspapers seems to have arisen from a desire to use the pen as a substitute for the tomahawk. Among the characteristics of speakers in Congress and elsewhere, none are more applauded, in certain prints, than their abilities of speech in the cutting, flaying, or withering style. Such passages as the following are frequent in the newspapers to which we refer : on who seems in that "We publish .... the Seminole war. blasts wherever it administered the 'The most withering speech was made by line to be one of the first men in the House.' to-day the powerful remarks of Mr His indignation, like the fire from the cloud, falls.' 'The excoriation that Mr Gother day to Mr P— was dreadful. Several of the Whig members were desirous of trying their hands on P—, but after the speech of Mr G―, nothing remained for them to do!'. . . . We have a rich treat for our readers-we allude to the speech of Mr'Sin reply to Mr D- torturing ridicule, &c. Such withering sarcasm, such The poor doctor is literally flayed alive. Had he been on the rack of a thousand inquisitions, his torture could not have been more severe.' singeing which P. continued.... gave to G,' &c. "The tremendous Mr P to cut deep and serve up the party,' &c.1 In another passage, we have a finished portrait of a Mr Wwho seems to have been the beau idéal of a congressional gladiator: "It is fortunate that he is so abstemious [with regard to alcohol, we suppose], for were it otherwise, he would be exceedingly dangerous. As a debater, he is quick and full of energy-fire is not more scorching than he is. . . He is ferocious in his anger. His personal rage has no interpreter save in the firm-set mouth, the unflinching and withering eye, and the compact and sullen rigidity of every muscle," &c. . . . In another place, we read that "Colonel C's speech was.... enlivened by frequent sallies of real humour. He took hold of.... Senator A- and held him up before the searching fire of his sarcasm and rebuke, turning him first this way and then that, basting him now here and now there, as the blisters were seen to rise upon his epidermis, very much as a logcabin housewife manages a roasting goose." .... It is pleasant to turn from such passages to the facetic reported in some newspapers. The G newspaper, commenting upon a speech made in Congress by a Mr D-, says: 'It is not a speech accommodated to rhetoricians' rules; but it will be 1 These, and the following specimens of certain prints, are taken from an article in The North American Review, No. 110. found well suited to the strong-minded, true-hearted, well-affected husbandmen of the West. . . . . Strong sense, strong feeling, generous sentiments, make up their stamina; broad humour, careless gaiety, and hardy dispositions, with some little coarseness, characterise their manners. Mr D- -'s speech will be found in keeping with all these characteristics.' One passage from the said speech may be quoted: 'Mr D- said: "Sir, I delight in the very name of a log-cabin. In the times of which I am speaking, log-cabins were what the term means—a house made of round logs," &c. . . . . "So much for the description; now for the frolic. The frolic consisted in dancing, playing and singing love-and-murder songs, eating johnnycake and pumpkin-pies, and drinking new whisky and brown sugar out of a gourd. Our dancing, in my youthful days, and in my neighbourhood, was done to the performance of an old Irishman with one leg, with the heel of which he beat time, and a fiddle with three strings, to the air of— Judy put the kettle on, And we'll all take tea," &c. "Do you desire to know the feelings of the western people in relation to Harrison, Jackson, Johnson, and their relative services ? I can tell you. If a western man is asked his opinion of General Harrison, his answer will be, nineteen times out of twenty, that General Harrison is a very good man, and was a tolerable general. ... This, sir, I repeat, will be the general answer. In some instances, a higher opinion will be expressed-in some instances, a lower one. My colleagues on this floor, Whigs and Democrats, will bear me out in what I say; but when you hear Jackson and Johnson named, they are named in praise and song, in affection and pride. Yes, sir, in praise and song. Were you ever at a 'corn-shucking' in the West? If you were, you never left it without hearing the wool-hat and linsey hunting-shirt boys sing' 1. The same speaker, in the same oration-applauded for strong sense and broad humour―ventures again into versification, when he describes the modern Whig party as consisting of— 'Coxcombs and dandies, and loafers and nibblers; Shavers and blacklegs, and pedlers and scribblers; Bankers and brokers, and cunning buffoons; Thieves that steal millions, and thieves that steal spoons; Beggars in coaches and beggars on nags : As an example of success in American journalism, we may briefly notice here the biography of Horace Greeley, editor of The Tribune. The style is very diffuse, and English readers may imagine that too large a share of honour is awarded to the able editor. Horace Greeley is the son of a farmer in New England, and has raised himself from the station of a journeyman to that of the chief proprietor and editor of The New York Tribune. It is little more than twenty years since he arrived in New York with only ten dollars in his pocket, and commenced working, as a compositor, in West's printing-office, Chatham Street. After he had saved some small capital, he embarked in the new scheme of a penny paper, which proved a failure. It was followed by The New Yorker, a journal noted for its accuracy in the statement of matters of fact. A quotation from the editor's remarks, in mentioning the publication of certain works on mathematics, may supply a useful hint to many flippant reviewers. He says: 'As we are not ourselves conversant with the higher branches of mathematics, we cannot pretend to speak authoritatively upon the merits of these publications.' This, with certain critics, would be a simple non sequitur. In 1841, Mr Greeley started The New York Tribune, which is now the first liberal paper in America. A single fact in the history of The Tribune is so significant with regard to certain other papers, that it may be noticed here. Mr Dickens, as all the world knows, had been received with the highest honours in America. He had on various occasions argued publicly in favour of international copyright, contending for the just claims of both English and American authors on some share of the profit created by their own labour. His arguments were conducted with perfect fairness and respectful treatment of opponents. But for this offence, of having spoken honestly his own thoughts on a question in which he had, of course, a personal interest, he was virulently abused by certain newspapers, and was stigmatised as a base mercenary,' as one who had endeavoured to rob the Americans while they were paying homage to him. It was even asserted and credited, that he was the hired agent of English publishers, who paid his travelling expenses! Subsequently, when he gave in the American Notes a very dark picture of a large portion of the newspaper press in America, the invectives against him were repeated with additions and variations. It was suddenly discovered that he had no genius, but only a certain ‘knack' in caricature, that he had exhausted his store of ideas, and had not a sufficiently comprehensive intellect to appreciate the grandeur of American institutions, especially as represented in certain newspapers. In the midst of all this dull malice, the editor of The Tribune |