Middlemen in English Business ' 367 



and Oxford 1740.^ The a\-erage number of newspapers sold annually 

 in England 1751-1753 was 7,411,757, and in 1760 it was 9,464,790.- 

 This was surely a prodigious increase in the circulation of news over 

 what it was a century earlier. 



The commercial and business uses of newspapers consisted in 

 diffusing the political events of the day at home and abroad; in com- 

 municating consular letters and essays on trade, as well as reports of 

 the markets and the movement of ships; and, lastly, in advertising. 

 The newspapers grew in public influence and political power in this 

 century. They were subsidized by political parties and used as tools 

 of criticism and defense of the administration; while the stamp tax 

 had the effect of purging the newspaper press and confining it to men 

 of substantial character and respectability. Essays on trade are well 

 illustrated in Houghton's Collection, or the articles in the magazines.^ 

 They are a veritable, though diffuse, mine of economic literature. 

 Houghton's also contains weekly reports of the custom-house, of the 

 imports by the several merchants, of the prices of the stocks on the 

 Exchange, etc. Advertising in newspapers after its start in 1658 

 made rapid progress. In 1675 a mercury was devoted to "Adver- 

 tisements Concerning Trade," and was followed in 1679 by a gratuitous 

 sheet of advertisements for "promoting Trade," trusting for profit to 

 the payments for insertions only."' The increase in the number and 

 influence of the newspapers improved their value as means of adver- 

 tising. The ad\'ertisements lacked the attractive . qualities of the 

 modern type, but related to a wide range of subjects and interests.'' 

 The 1712 stamp tax also applied to advertisements and checked the 

 number appearing.*' By the middle of the century advertising in 

 newspapers had become quite the universal practice of the merchant, 

 trading and moneyed classes.^ In 1745 the General Advertiser 

 proved to be "the first successful attempt to depend for support upon 

 the advertisements it contained, thereby creating a new era in the 

 newspaper press. From the very outset its columns were filled with 

 them, between fifty and sixty, regularly classified and separated Ijv 



^ Sampson, 6. 



2 Ibid., 4. 



^ This was the period of the Review, Tatlei, Spectator, Freeholder, Gentleman's 

 ^Magazine, etc. 



^ Sampson, 78-9 puts the dates several years earUer. 



'" The range of advertising is well stated in the various categories named in an 

 advertisement by a publisher in 167,S, quoted in Sampson, 79-80. 



^ Sampson, 8, 180. 



" See Postlethwavt, Diet., s. v. Advertise, .\ffiche. 



