in the United States in Fifty Years. 149 



Congress, is made as promptly, by the periodical press, to give 

 pleasure or distaste to one hundred thousand readers. 



Nor is its agency limited to our own concerns. It has eyes to 

 see and ears to hear all that is said and done in every part of the 

 globe ; and the most secluded hermit, if he only takes a newspaper, 

 sees, as in a telescope, and often as in a mirror, everything that is 

 transacted in the most distant regions ; nor can anything memora- 

 ble befall any considerable part of our species, that it is not forth- 

 with communicated with the speed of steam to the whole civilized 

 world. 



The newspaper press is thus a most potent engine, both for good 

 and evil. It too often ministers to some of our worst passions, and 

 lends new force to party intolerance and party injustice. 



" Incenditque animum dictis, atque aggerat iras." 



But its benefits are incalculably greater. By communicating all 

 that is passing in the bustling world around us, whether it be little 

 or great, useful or pernicious, pleasurable or painful, without those 

 exaggerations and forced congruities which we meet with in other 

 forms of literature, it imparts much of the same knowledge of men 

 and things as experience and observation. Its novelties gives zest 

 to life. It affords occupation to the idle, and recreation for the in- 

 dustrious. It saves one man from torpor, and relieves another from 

 care. Even in its errors, it unconsciously renders a homage to 

 virtue, by imputing guilt to those it attacks, and praising none to 

 whom it does not impute merit and moral excellence. Let us hope 

 that it will in time, without losing any of its usefulness, less often 

 offend against good taste and good breeding, and show more fair- 

 ness in political controversy. 



According to the census of 1840, there were then in the United 

 States 130 daily newspapers, 1,142 issued weekly, and 125 twice 

 or thrice a week, besides 237 other periodical publications. Such 

 a diffusion of intelligence and information has never existed in any 

 other country or age. 



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