NEWSPAPERS. 



633 



the Union at the time. The type also would 

 have had to be set up two hundred times. 



Improvements in Journalism. It was not long 

 after the introduction of the power-press when 

 penny papers came into existence. Hitherto 

 the poorer people had never read daily papers, 

 as they were too expensive. The stranger who 

 wished to see one must go to a porter-house 

 of a coffee-house where it was kept on file. He 

 could not buy one in the streets and hardly at 

 the office. In 1832 it occurred to Horatio 

 David Shepard, a young man of enterprise, 

 that there would be a demand for a cheap pe- 

 riodical, and he accordingly launched one in 

 conjunction with Horace Greeley. It was un- 

 successful; but others had better luck. Soon 

 after this the Baltimore " Sun," New York 

 "Herald," Philadelphia "Ledger," New York 

 " Sun," and New York " Tribune," now among 

 the most successful, were founded. They ap- 

 pealed to the classes that had never before 

 read the news each day. Their predecessors 

 rarely printed more than 1,500 copies for each 

 issue, and many of them not half that. One 

 of the largest received during the whole of one 

 year, from advertising and subscriptions, no 

 more than $40,000. The cheap dailies soon at- 

 tained a circulation of 10,000 or 15,000 copies 

 a day, and in twenty years some of them reached 

 60,000. With increased prosperity came new 

 expenses. In 1830 the staff of a large daily 

 newspaper comprised two persons. The edi- 

 tor wrote the leaders and corrected the com- 

 munications; the assistant did all the rest. 

 But competition induced the journals, in 1837 

 or 1838, to add reporters, who were before 

 unknown. The number of these and of editors 

 gradually increased. In 1840 two reporters 

 and two editors wefe sufficient for any daily ; 

 in 1850, four editors and five reporters; in 

 1860, eight editors and ten reporters ; but now 

 twenty editors and forty reporters are re- 

 quired. In 1844 the electric telegraph went 

 into operation ; but it was not much used by 

 the press for several years. In 1847 a new 

 Hoe press, more rapid than anything previous- 

 ly known, came into use; and it came just in 

 time, for the previous style had in its turn be- 

 come inadequate. In 1849 the New York As- 

 sociated Press was begun for the collection of 

 ship-news; but it shortly afterward attempted 

 gathering news of all descriptions. Newspa- 

 pers in other sections imitated this combina- 

 tion, until now the whole of the United States 

 is covered with one or the other of these or- 

 ganizations. In 1859 newspapers were first 

 stereotyped by the paper process. The mold 

 being flexible, the plates could be cast in seg- 

 ments of a circle, and the efforts of an in- 

 genious inventor, Bullock, showed how much 

 smaller and more compact a press could be 

 made by their use. The war gave a prodigious 

 impetus to the newspapers. Every one felt the 

 deepest interest in what was going on, and cir- 

 culations doubled, while correspondents fol- 

 lowed the army in the field everywhere. Most 



of the advantages then gained were retained 

 after the conclusion of the struggle, and class 

 papers then began to appear in large numbers. 

 Religious newspapers date back to the first 

 quarter of the century, as do agricultural ones; 

 but the great variety now found in trade, com- 

 merce, mechanics, and art was unknown be- 

 fore 1860. In the time of the war, paper was 

 very dear, and inventors applied themselves 

 to find substitutes for cotton and linen rags. 

 Straw was manufactured in several ways for 

 this purpose, and since that period wood has 

 come, into general use. More than half the 

 paper used on journals is now made of wood- 

 pulp, the majority of what is left bc-ing of 

 straw. The last great improvement connected 

 with newspapers is the discovery of a way to 

 feed the press automatically. A gigantic roll 

 comes from the mill, is unwound and moist- 

 ened, then wound again and placed so as to 

 revolve, and the paper is drawn in as needed 

 by the machine. This saves the labor of eight 

 or ten men on each press, and is more to be 

 depended upon than hand-feeding. There are 

 a countless number of other improvements, 

 many very useful and valuable, but these are 

 the main ones. Type-setting by machinery 

 has often been attempted, but, although easy to 

 be done, has so far never proved a commercial 

 success. 



Places of Publication. A single newspaper is 

 nearly always found at each county-seat, and, 

 if the town is large or the county is populous, 

 there may be two or three. A place that is a 

 dozen miles from any other where a newspaper 

 is printed, and has 1,000 inhabitants, is also 

 likely to have a jourmil of its own. Towns of 

 3,000 population will have two, of 5,000 three, 

 and of 8,000 four. At 12,000 there is a daily 

 newspaper, at 20,000 two, at 50,000 four, and 

 at 100,000 five or six. Beyond this the num- 

 ber does not increase rapidly. New York has 

 twenty-nine dailies, Philadelphia twenty-four, 

 Chicago eighteen, Cincinnati twelve, and San 

 Francisco twenty-one. But the circulation of 

 the papers in the larger places is greater rela- 

 tively than in the smaller ones, more copies 

 being issued in a place of 500,000 inhabitants 

 than in five of 100,000. This is because the 

 journal from the large city, being a fuller com- 

 pendium of news, is received in them and read, 

 while the newspapers in the small towns only 

 circulate in their immediate neighborhoods. 

 In all, there were, in 1880, in the Union 4,398 

 places where newspapers are published, and an 

 average of two and a half newspapers to each 

 place. Their average distance from one an- 

 other was twenty-six miles ; but this is greatly 

 diminished in the more populous portions of 

 the country, and particularly in the East. In 

 Massachusetts there are 136 towns that issue 

 periodicals, and in New York 364 towns, be- 

 ing an average distance apart in the former of 

 sevea and three quarters and in the latter of 

 eleven and a half miles. The number of news- 

 papers in the United States increased from 39 



