From the British Quarterly Review.

THE BRITISH NEWSPAPER PRESS. *

Cassell, newspaper publisher and proprietor; Mr. Alexander Russell, editor of the Scotsman; Mr. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune; Mr. W. H. Smith, newspaper agent, London; Mr. Abel Hey-. wood, newspaper agent, Manchester; Mr. Whitty, editor and proprietor of the Liverpool Journal; Mr. C. D. Collett, secretary to the Newspaper Stamp Abolition Society; Mr. T. Hogg, secretary to the Lancashire and Cheshire Union of Mechanics' Institutions; the Reverend Thomas Spencer; and Mr. Henry Cole.. Most of these witnesses were examined at considerable length, and as the greater number of them were thoroughly conversant with the newspaper trade, their evidence contains a large mass of interesting information on the subject, from which many valuable deductions may be obtained.

AMIDST all that deluge of blue books which the Parliamentary press is continually pouring forth, to the great horror of Colonel Sibthorp and his friends, there has seldom appeared one possessing such claims to public notice as the Report from the Select Committee on Newspapers, with the accompanying evidence, small as the acceptance of these documents has been among the daily papers. The committee, as will be remembered, was appointed last April, on the motion of Mr. Milner Gibson, "to inquire into the present state and operation of the law relating to newspaper stamps, and also into the law and regulations relative to the transmission of newspaper and other publications by 'post." It consisted of the following members-Sir William Molesworth, Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis, Sir Joshua Walmsley, Colonel Mure, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Gibson, Mr. Ewart, Mr. Tuffnell, Mr. Ker Seymer, Mr. Rich, Mr. Stafford, Mr. G. A. Hamilton, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. Shalfto Adair, and Mr. Sotheron; but as neither Sir William Molesworth, Mr. Ker Seymer, nor Colonel Mure, appear to have attended any of the meetings of committee, their names may as well beOn this point Mr. Timm, solicitor to the struck off the list. Those who attended most punctually were-Mr. Milner Gibson, chairman of the committee, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Ewart, and Sir Joshua Walmsley. The principal witnesses examined were Mr. Joseph Timm, solicitor to the Board of Inland Revenue; Mr. T. Keogh, assistant secretary to the Board of Inland Revenue; Mr. Rowland Hill, secretary to the Post-master General; Mr. R. Parkhurst, senior clerk in the secretary's office of the Post Office; Mr. Bokenham, superintending president of the Inland Post Office; Mr. W. E. Hickson, late editor of the Westminster Review; Mr. Mowbray Morris, manager of the Times; Mr. F. K. Hunt, editor of the Daily News; Mr. John

*The interesting facts of the above article are from a long discussion on the repeal of the stamp duty, which is of too local a character for an entire insertion. The article is from the pen of Edward Barnes, Esq., editor of the Leeds Mercury.—ED.

The committee commenced its labors by subjecting the two official representatives of the Board of Inland Revenue to a rather severe examination, with a view to ascertain their opinion of what the law for regulating the publication of newspapers actually is.

Board, was quite as explicit as any lawyer could be upon so complicated a question. First of all, he stated that any person who prints a paper liable to stamp duty as a newspaper, on unstamped paper, incurs a penalty of 201. for every copy thus published. This seems very plain at first sight, but then comes the puzzling question as to what constitutes liability to pay the penny stamp duty. Mr. Timm is utterly unable to see any difficulty in the case. The practice of the Board has always been to consider "any paper containing public news, intelligence, or other occurrences, printed in any part of the United Kingdom, to be dispersed and made public, as liable to stamp duty." Now, although we must admit that this is a very comprehensive definition of what is to be considered a newspaper, it is very far from being precise. It turns out also that the Board has not had quite so much confidence in the clause as to

daily or weekly papers, it has not been rendered liable to the stamp duty. An interval of more than twenty-six days is what I think the legislature has fixed as the criterion. If the interval be twenty-six days or less, it is a newspaper, if it is more it is a chronicle or history: and the whole question turns on the distinction between news and history."

This decision settles the question as to the legality of publishing unstamped monthly papers, containing news and interesting events, and it may also be considered as involving a condemnation of the Board of Inland Revenue, for the arbitrary manner in which they have interpreted the law during the last two or three years. Mr. Cobden referred to several monthly papers which had been suppressed within that period by a threat of prosecution.

"I will mention the case of Mr. Bucknall, of

apply it without discrimination. Many publications containing a considerable quantity of news are not deemed liable to the duty, although published weekly; while humbler periodicals not containing news, and published only once a month, have been put down by the arbitrary mandate of the Board, which thus usurps the odious un-English character of a literary censorship. The Athenæum, the Builder, the Legal Observer, the Architect, and some forty or fifty other weekly papers of a mixed character, are all at liberty to publish without the stamp duty; while cheap periodicals, though only published once in four weeks, and with much less resemblance to newspapers, have been given up, in consequence of a threatened prosecution by the Stamp Office authorities. It is so far satisfactory, however, that, since the Committee terminated its labors, the highest legal authority has given its decision against that overstrained interpretation of the law by Stroud, who published the Stroud Free Press, of which the Board of Inland Revenue has which he sold 1700 copies monthly, and that paper, attempted to put down cheap monthly pub- was dropped. There was another paper, called lications. The case of "The Attorney Gen- the Norwich Reformer's Gazette, that was puberal v. Bradbury and Evans," for the publi-lished monthly, under the belief that as it was at so long an interval it was not a newspaper. You cation of the Household Narrative, in defiance threatened the publisher with a prosecution, and of the Board, was pending at the time of Mr. Timm's examination before the committee, ble circumstances, discontinued the paper immehe being in a small way of business and in hum and various questions were put to him regard-diately. There were one or two papers published ing the strange delay which had occurred in bringing it to a decision. It appears that the Board, although always exceedingly prompt to hang the terrors of the stamp laws over the head of any poor delinquent who is not likely to contest their usurped authority, was somewhat chary of meddling with a respectable firm. It is now nearly two years since Mr. Timm wrote his first letter to Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, warning them against the continuance of the Mr. Rich, who, as one of the two repreHousehold Narrative without a stamp; and sentatives of the insignificant town, or rather yet the case, which ultimately went before village, of Richmond, must naturally be in the Court of Exchequer, was allowed to favor of things as they are, expresses himself hang over, on one excuse after another, till strongly against any change in the law rethe beginning of last December. The impor-garding newspapers. In a draft report tant decision was given by Sir Frederick Pollock, who, in delivering judgment, admitted that the question was not free from doubt, but the benefit of the doubt was very properly given to the defendant. His opinion was summed up as follows

"Looking at the whole course of the statutes on this subject, I think it has been considered by the legislature that a certain infrequency of publication gives to a publication the character of a chronicle or history, and not that of a newspaper; and however it may afford useful information, as it is not likely to compete successfully with the

in Welsh which were discontinued in the same way. A mere letter from you frightened these poor people into submission, and they dropped belief that the newspaper was not a newspaper if their papers, saying that they had acted under the published monthly. They had purchased type, had made arrangements for reporting, and adver tised their newspaper, and it was stopped because it was still a newspaper by your interpreta tion of the law, although published monthly."

which he presented to the committee, he remarked that "generally the demand, unless strongly checked, governs the supply. It the present healthy state of the periodical press, and of public opinion in respect to it, there are no signs of an obstructed demand. The press seems fully to supply the demand which education creates; and there is much plain good sense in the observation of Mr. Greeley, the publisher of the New York Tribune, that the schools create a demand for newspapers, rather than that newspapers create a demand for reading." Now it hap

Mr.

66

papers.

the United States accounts for the greater num"The greater number of persons who read in ber of newspapers that are published, does it not? There is no class in the Free States who do not

"But in proportion to the number of persons who can read will be the number of papers supplied?—Yes.

=pens that the evidence of Mr. Horace Gree- of always seeing a newspaper, and hearing it ley, so far from bearing any such meaning as read. Supposing that you had your the one which Mr. Rich has given, told schools as now, strongly in favor of cheap newspapers as but that your newspaper press were reduced within the limits of the press in England, do not tending to promote popular education. you think that the habit of reading acquired at Greeley, who is editor and proprietor of one school would be frequently laid aside ?-I think of the most widely-circulated journals in that the habit would not be acquired, and that America, gave some interesting evidence re-reading would often fall into disuse. garding the newspaper press of the United "Mr. Rich. Does not the habit of reading States, from which we learn that, besides the create a demand for newspapers, rather than the Tribune, with an average circulation of supply of newspapers create a habit of reading? 19,000, there are 14 other daily papers pub-I should rather say that the capacity that is oblished in New York. He estimates the entire tained in the schools creates a demand for newsdaily aggregate issue of those 15 papers at 130,000, two-fifths of which are sent into the country, leaving 78,000 for the town circulation, or rather more than one copy to every. ten inhabitants in New York. What a differ-know how to read, except the immigrant class. ence from the state of things in this country! From the stamp returns given in the Appendix to the Report of the Select Committee, it appears that the aggregate issue of the ten daily newspapers published in London, for a population of more than three times that of New York, is only about 65,000, of which it is estimated that only one-third is retained for the town circulation, giving rather less than one copy to every hundred inhabitants. In America, where the working classes are all well educated, nearly every mechanic takes a daily paper. In England a large portion of the laboring classes cannot read; and of those who can, it is only a small number who can afford even a weekly newspaper. Mr. Rich wished the Committee to agree to his proposition, that the limited circulation of newspapers in England, compared with the United States, is owing to the want of education among the working classes in this country; but after hearing Mr. Greeley's

opinion on that subject, they could hardly be expected to stultify themselves so completely as to embody such an untruth in their report. The following evidence of Mr. Greeley regarding the influence which cheap newspapers have in promoting a taste for reading the foundation of a intellectual progress-will be read with much interest by

the friends of education :

"Chairman. Your extensive circulation of those cheap newspapers is based, to some extent, upon the fact that your whole population can read?Mr. Greeley. Yes.

"Do not you consider that newspaper reading is calculated to keep up a habit of reading?-I think it is worth all the schools in the country I think it creates a taste for reading in every child's mind, and it increases his interest in his lessons. He is attracted to study from the habit

"Chairman. But the means of obtaining cheap newspapers enables people to keep up their reading, does it not ?—Yes.

"Mr. Ewart. Must not the contents of a newspaper have a great effect upon the character of the population, and give a more practical turn to their minds ?-I should think the difference would be very great between a population, first educated in schools and then acquiring the habit of reading journals, and an uneducated non-reading population.

"If a man is taught to read first, and afterwards applies his mind to the reading of newspapers, would not his knowledge assume a much more practical form than if that man read anything else?

Every man must be practical. I think that the capacity to invent or improve a machine, for instance, is very greatly aided by newspaper reading, by the education afforded by newspapers."

The whole of this evidence is amply cor

Mr. Hickson,

robated by that of other witnesses, who, in
describing the condition of our rural popula-
lation, say they have always found that the
most effectual thing to awaken a desire to
learn to read, and keep up the habit of read-
ing, is a local newspaper.
late editor of the Westminster Review, who
has had excellent opportunities of studying
the condition of the working classes, and who
has paid much attention to the subject of
education, says he has been frequently struck
with the effect of newspapers in reference to
the mere elementary art of reading. Boys
who have attended the National and British
Schools, where they were taught apparently
to read, are often found afterwards to have
lost all the knowledge they had acquired at
school, so as not even to be able to read,

simply from having nothing within their reach
which could create a taste for reading:
"All the knowledge acquired at school was
just to spell painfully through a chapter of
the New Testament, and nothing had been
afterwards put into their hands that had
sufficient novelty to induce them to keep up
the habit of reading, till they had overcome
the mechanical difficulty, and found a plea-
sure in the art." How very different this
from the state of things in America, where,
as Mr. Greeley remarks, "the child is at-
tracted to study from the habit of always
seeing a newspaper, and hearing it read."

dustry, and political honesty as he himself possessed. When he died, the copyright of the Chronicle was sold for £30,000, but the purchaser was not one who knew how to make a newspaper successful. For several years it languished in circulation, having fallen at one time to little more than 2,000. Soon after the passing of the Reform Bill it was purchased by Mr. John Easthope, a stock-broker, for £17,000; and a large sum was expended for several years, with considerable success, in the attempt to raise it to its former position. But the old spirit had vanished from its columns. The Whigs were in office, and the Chronicle stuck to its old friends with much more fidelity than they deserved, or than its readers could tolerate. It is true that Mr. Black still continued editor, but of what avail was his political consistency so long as a power behind the editorial chair, greater than the editor himself, was able to give the tone to the general politics of the paper? Had it been at that time under the management of a wise and liberal proprietary, of men to whom the control of a great political organ would have seemed a much greater thing than a paltry baronetcy, or a third-rate gỗvernment appointment, the Morning Chronicle might now have been a much more influential newspaper than the Times, and little if at all inferior even in circulation. During the first two years after the reduction of the newspaper stamp duty, the Chronicle rapidly gained on its great rival, as will be seen at once by the following return of the number of stamps consumed by each :

It is more than thirty years since the Times first claimed for itself the ambitious title of the "leading journal of Europe," and, with the exception of a violent, shortlived protest, now and then, against its right to any such distinction, the public has long ago acquiesced in its ambitious claim. Of late years the overwhelming superiority it has gained in circulation over all the other daily papers, partly by its advertisements, and, not less probably, by its liberal expenditure on literary talent and news, has led to the belief that its high position among newspapers is a thing of much older date than it really is. As a first-class newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, under Mr. Perry, who held the office of editor for forty years of the most brilliant period of its history, and under Mr. John Black, who succeeded him, bore a far higher character for genius and talent than the Times has ever done. But Mr. Black, although his masterly articles on politics and social life have never been surpassed in newspaper literature, was unfortunately not the proprietor and manager of the paper, as his predecessor had been. Mr. Perry was a man whose sound political principles, not less than his tact and talents; combined to give the Morning Chronicle that high character, as the organ of the liberal-While the Times was standing still, in spite party, which it preserved for so many years, of the reduction in price, the Chronicle had even after his death. But the proprietors actually increased 810,000. Then was the who succeeded him cared for nothing but time to have adopted a bold and liberal their dividends, or the personal influence course in the politics and management of the which the command of so powerful an organ great Whig organ. But that would not of public opinion might give them with the have suited the personal views of Mr. (now ministry of the day. Hence the success of Sir John) Easthope. The golden opportu Mr. Walter, chief proprietor and manager of nity was lost, and the two following years the Times, the great object of whose long placed such a distance between the circulalife had been to place that journal at the tion of the two papers, as to leave all chance head of the metropolitan press, a task which of successful competition out of the question. he would never have accomplished had Mr. The agitation against the new poor-law, minPerry been succeeded in the proprietorship gled with chartism, rose to its full height in and management of the Chronicle by a man 1839, and bore along with it the great deof such rare editorial talent, unflagging in- nouncer of the "finality" Whig ministry

1837,
1838,

Times. 3,065,000 3,065,000

M'ning Chronicle. 1,940,000

2,750,000

Morning Morning Morning Times. Chronicle. Herald. Advertiser. 3,065,000 1,940,000 1,928,000 1,380,000 3,065,090 2,750,000 1,925,000 1,565,000 4,300,000 2,028,000 1,820,000 1,535,000 1,006,000 5,060,000 2,075,000 1,956,000 1,550,000 5,650,000 2,079,000 1,630.000 1,470,000 6,305,000 1,918,000 1,559,000 1,445,000 6,250,000 1,784,000 | 1,516,000 1,534,000 6,900,000 1,628,000 1,608,000 1,415,000 8,100,000 1,554,000 2,018,025 1,440,000 8,950,000 1,356,000 1,752,500 1,480,000 9,205,230 1,233,000 1,510,000 1,500,000 11,025,500 1,150,000 1,335,000 1,538,000 11,300,000 937,500 1,147,000 1,528,000 11,900,000 912,547 1,139,000 1,549,000