212 



NEWSPAPERS. 



Ing paper, there are an editor, a sub-editor, from ten 

 to fourteen regular reporters, at salaries from four to 

 six guineas per week, each ; from thirty to thirty-five 

 compositors in die printing-office; one or two readers, 

 who correct the proofs as they come from the compo- 

 sitors ; a reading-boy, whose duty it is to read the 

 copy aloud, whilst the reader makes his corrections 

 upon the proof; a printer ; and a certain number of 

 men and boys to attend to the printing machine, and 

 to take oft" the papers as they fall from the cylinders ; 

 a publisher and sub-publisher; two or more clerks in 

 the office, to receive advertisements and keep the 

 accounts ; a porter, a number of errand boys, &c. 

 The salary of an editor, upon a respectable morning 

 paper, is from .600 to 1000 per annum; and a 

 sub-editor receives from JG400 to ,600 per annum. 

 Besides the regular reporters of a newspaper, there 

 are several occasional, or, as they are called, " penny 

 a line" reporters ; from the circumstance of their 

 furnishing articles of intelligence at a fixed price per 

 line, viz., ld. or Igd. They are not attached to any 

 particular newspaper. The aggregate charge for 

 copy furnished by these persons forms a considerable 

 item in the weekly expenditure of a newspaper. 

 The salaries paid by a first-rate morning paper 

 weekly, to its editors, reporters, and others on the 

 establishment, do not amount to less than .180 per 

 week ; and if to this be added the expenditure for 

 occasional reporting, for assistance to the composi- 

 tors, for foreign newspapers, and private correspon- 

 dence, and various items which it is unnecessary to 

 enumerate, we have a weekly expense of nearly 250. 

 The chief editor's duty begins, strictly speaking, with 

 the publication of the evening newspapers. He has 

 to read their leading articles, and to refute or support 

 their arguments. He remains at his post until a late 

 hour, prepared to write comments on the foreign pa- 

 pers as they arrive (a duty in which he is generally 

 assisted by his sub-editor), and to direct, in a leading 

 arti61e, attention to any topic of interest before the 

 public. During the sitting of parliament, he is com- 

 pelled frequently to remain at the office until two or 

 three o'clock in the morning ; and such is the energy 

 with which the public press in the metropolis is di- 

 rected, that it is not rare to see a leading article of 

 nearly a column, written at two o'clock in the morn- 

 ing, on some subject which had been discussed an 

 hour or two previously in the house of commons. 

 The most extraordinary part of a morning paper is 

 the reporting. It has been stated that the regular 

 reporting establishment varies in number from ten to 

 fourteen. Most of the persons so engaged are gen- 

 tlemen of education, and frequently law students. 

 During the parliament, the sittings of which com- 

 mence at four o'clock in the afternoon, the reporters 

 of the leading papers attend by turns, one succeeding 

 the other, according to previous arrangement, eacj 

 remaining in the house for half or three qtiarters o: 

 an hour ; and the reporters of the minor papers much 

 longer. If the debate is not heavy, the reporter in 

 the house of commons, when relieved, enters a smal" 

 room at the end of the lobby, which has been appro 

 priated exclusively to reporters, and there arrange; 

 his notes (which are seldom taken in short hand, as 

 except in particular cases, short-hand reporting, from 

 the impossibility of finding room in a newspaper fo 

 all that a member says, is rather injurious than use 

 ful) of the speeches delivered during his turn. H< 

 then proceeds at once to the office of the newspape 

 on which he is engaged, and the editor's attention i 

 directed by him to any thing of commanding interes 

 that has transpired. His slips, as they are written 

 are given by the printer to the compositors, whos 

 number, during the sitting of parliament, is generall 

 increased ; and as one reporter follows another, it i 



not unusual for a debate, which has terminated only 

 it twelve o'clock at night, to be set up in type, and 

 eady for printing by two o'clock in the morning. 

 }n the nights of prolonged debate, when the houses 

 it late, some of the reporters may be compelled to 

 go back and take what is called a double turn. So 

 ctive and able are some of the reporters, that it is 

 lot an unfrequent thing for one reporter to supply, 

 from the notes of three quarters of an hour, to the 

 paper upon which he is engaged, from two to three 

 columns of closely printed matter. In obtaining in- 

 elligence by express, some of the evening newspa- 

 >ers have, within the last two or three years, shown 

 ilmost incredible exertion. The Courier and Sun 

 lave sometimes contained the speech of the king of 

 7 rance, at the opening of the chamber, twenty-six 

 or twenty-seven hours after it had been obtained by 

 .heir agents in Paris. During the last invasion of 

 Spain by the French, the Globe regularly employed 

 couriers from Paris, many of which arrived within 

 ,he twenty-four hours ; and the same industry was 

 nanifested in getting up communications from Liver- 

 jool, at a time when the affairs of South America 

 jossessed interest for the English public. The " penny 

 a line" men are to the press what the Cossacks are to 

 a regular army. The peculiar mode in which these 

 persons, who are probably about twenty in number, 

 >btain the means of subsistence, is worthy of notice. 

 When the facts upon which an article is to be manu- 

 factured, have been collected, the reporter, by means 

 of a paper, something between silver and bank paper, 

 called flimsy, and prepared sheets of silk covered over 

 with a thick coating of printer's ink, and dried, makes 

 seven or eight copies for the several morning or even- 

 ing newspapers. This is attended with very little 

 trouble. The black and white sheets are placed al- 

 ternately ; the reporter writes on the upper paper 

 with a piece of steel or glass, not too finely pointed, 

 so that the paper may not be cut, and with a moder- 

 ate degree ot pressure the ink is transferred from the 

 black to the white sheets, and he obtains seven or 

 eight perfect copies. To each of these copies he 

 affixes his name, and then sends them round to the 

 newspaper offices to take the chance of their inser- 

 tion. If the subject of the report is thought interest- 

 ing, he is well paid ; for a report of half a column, in 

 each of the morning papers, will produce him, in the 

 whole, more than 3 3s. From the competition, 

 however, among these gentlemen, and the prudence 

 of some editors as to the use of reports so furnished, 

 it is seldom, indeed, that they are so fortunate. 



A comparison of the number of periodicals and 

 inhabitants of different countries gives the following 

 results : In 1827, there appeared, in Great Britain, 

 483 different newspapers and other periodicals to 

 23,400,000 inhabitants; in the United States, 802 news- 

 papers, &c. to 11,600,000 inhabitants ; in Sweden and 

 Norway, 82 journals to 3,866,000 inhabitants ; in the 

 States of the Church, 6 newspapers to 2,598,000 in- 

 habitants. (Stockholm, with 78,000 inhabitants, has 

 30 journals ; Rome, with 154,000, only 3.) Denmark, 

 to l,950,000,inhabitants, has 80 journals, of which 71 

 are in the Danish language ; 23 are devoted to poli- 

 tics, 25 to the sciences. Prussia has 12,416,000 in- 

 habitants, and 288 journals and periodicals. (Berlin 

 has 221,000 inhabitants, and 53 periodical works; 

 Copenhagen has 109,000 inhabitants, and 57 jour- 

 nals.) The Netherlands have 6, 1 43,000 inhabitants, 

 and 150 journals. In the German confederation (ex- 

 cluding Austria and Prussia), there are 13,300,000 

 inhabitants, and 305 journals ; in Saxony, to 1,400,000 

 inhabitants, 54 newspapers ; in Hanover, to 1,550,000 

 inhabitants, 16 newspapers ; in Bavaria, to 3,960,000 

 inhabitants, 48 newspapers. France, with a popula- 

 tion of 32,000,000, has 490 periodical works (660 



