214 



DEKMAKK, THE PKESS OF. 



sold thirty thousand copies an event unpar- 

 alleled in the Danish newspaper market, where 

 no journal had ever before succeeded in reach- 

 ing a circulation of over twenty thousand cop- 

 ies on days of critical importance and extraor- 

 dinary excitement. 



In giving an account of the newspapers of 

 Denmark, we should divide them into two 

 classes : the Copenhagen press and the country 

 journals. There is a wide difference between 

 these two classes. The Copenhagen press, 

 as even its most implacable adversaries are 

 obliged to admit, is worthy of the great and 

 beautiful city, the Paris of the North, in which 

 it is published ; while the provincial press, es- 

 pecially that of Jutland, consists only of very 

 small papers of limited circulation, very little 

 reading-matter, mostly confined to extracts 

 from the Copenhagen papers, and an occasional 

 leader written with very little ability. But, 

 while the unusually large number of accom- 

 plished journalists and feuilletonists, who live 

 in Copenhagen, impart a remarkable degree 

 of editorial and literary excellence to the jour- 

 nals of that city, which in that respect are 

 certainly superior to most of their German 

 contemporaries, and while the managers of 

 these Copenhagen papers, with hardly an ex- 

 ception, display a marked spirit of enterprise, 

 the limited extent of the kingdom and the il- 

 literate character of the population of the ru- 

 ral districts set bounds to the success of the 

 metropolitan press. Their circulation is mostly 

 confined to Copenhagen and the island on 

 which the capital is situated ; and no Copen- 

 hagen daily sends more than three hundred 

 copies to the other islands and Jutland. At 

 the same time, the people of Copenhagen and 

 of Denmark generally advertise comparatively 

 but very little in their newspapers, and, inas- 

 much as the advertising rates, moreover, are 

 very moderate in Denmark, few of even the 

 most popular Copenhagen newspapers can 

 boast of brilliant financial successes. One of 

 the consequences of this peculiar state of af- 

 fairs is, that the compensation paid even to the 

 most eminent journalists of Copenhagen is con- 

 siderably smaller than that obtained by their 

 brethren in any of the adjoining states ; and it 

 is a noteworthy fact that some of the leading 

 Danish feuilletonists receive larger sums for 

 the copyrights of the German, English, and 

 French translations of their writings than they 

 obtain for the originals published in the liter- 

 ary columns of the Copenhagen newspapers. 



The aggregate circulation of the nine daily 

 papers published in Copenhagen was on the 

 Ist^ of August, 1868, 59,000 copies, a figure 

 which is frequently exceeded on days of con- 

 siderable excitement. Their total receipts for 

 advertisements during the year 1867 were 

 slightly above 250,000 rix-dollars. Of the 

 older dailies the Daglladet has the largest cir- 

 culation ; but some of the cheap dailies which 

 were started a few years ago, and are sold at 

 the low price of one rix-bank-shilling a copy, 



such as the Telegraph and the Railroad Ga- 

 zette, have occasionally sold more copies than 

 the Dagbladet. 



As regards the press laws, the Danish press 

 is almost as free as that of Great Britain. Pros- 

 ecutions of editors and publishers for offences 

 committed against the press laws are exceed- 

 ingly rare, and in 1868 nothing of the kind 

 took place, save the final disposal made of an 

 old prosecution against a contributor of the 

 Dagbladet) who had two years ago published 

 in that paper a number of letters, which, in 

 the opinion of the Government, preached trea- 

 sonable doctrines. The courts, however, did 

 not sustain the prosecution. The- tone of the 

 Danish press toward the royal Government is 

 one of marked independence and determina- 

 tion. A majority of the Copenhagen journals 

 are opposed to the domestic and foreign policy 

 of the present Government, and they attack 

 it nearly every day in articles the bold lan- 

 guage of which would in every other country 

 on the continent, except perhaps Belgium 

 and Italy, lead to the suppression of the paper. 

 Throughout the year 1868, the opposition 

 journals in Denmark accused the Government 

 of displaying a spirit of lukewarmness and 

 pusillanimity in its negotiations with Prussia 

 in regard to the retrocession of the Danish dis- 

 tricts of North-Schleswig. In the summer of 

 1868 another cause of discontent added to the 

 bitterness and indignation of the language used 

 by the opposition organs. For some time past, 

 it had been rumored that the royal Govern- 

 ment intended to apply to the Danish Cham- 

 bers for the adoption of a law subjecting the 

 Danish press to certain restrictions. These 

 rumors assumed a more definite character at 

 the above-mentioned time, it being reported 

 that the subject had been discussed at several 

 sittings of the royal cabinet. The emphatic 

 and defiant protests of a large majority of the 

 Danish papers, sustained as they evidently 

 were by public opinion, especially in the city 

 of Copenhagen, induced the Government to 

 abandon its purposes in this direction, its 

 special organs in the press claiming that the 

 proposed changes in the press laws had no 

 other object than the adoption of certain regu- 

 lations which would not have interfered at all 

 with the liberty of the press. 



The extension of the telegraph lines through- 

 out the kingdom in the early part of 1868, and 

 the reduction of the telegraph rates, and the 

 favorable arrangements made with the conti- 

 nental telegraph bureaux ; an unsuccessful at- 

 tempt to form a Scandinavian press associa- 

 tion, and a general strike on the part of the 

 compositors and pressmen of Copenhagen, 

 which fortunately terminated at an early day 

 in an arrangement satisfactory to both printers 

 and publishers, were the other noteworthy 

 events in the history of the political press of 

 Denmark during the year 1868. 



Of the literary and scientific journals, maga- 

 zines, and reviews of Denmark, it may be said 



