INTRODUCTION. 
31 
and sometimes other merchandise : Now, labor-saving machines, with mechanical 
and brute power, are substituted for the arm of the pressman; and with the aid of 
stereotype foundries, the press has departments distinctly separated, and as 
numerous as the divisions and subdivisions, classes, combinations, interests, occu¬ 
pations, studies and tastes of society. The book press seizes with avidity all new 
publications, whether designed to instruct or only to amuse, whether foreign or 
domestic, and prints and reprints and scatters them over the continent with in¬ 
conceivable rapidity. Works of fiction most adapted to the popular taste are 
now printed and sold at prices less than, fifty years ago, were charged to subscri¬ 
bers for the perusal of such volumes by circulating libraries. The commercial 
press, morning and evening, records with accuracy every occurrence and every 
indication which affects trade; and the advertising columns are indispensable 
auxiliaries in every operation of commerce or finance. The political press, 
divided between contending parties, and again subdivided with nice adaptation 
to the tempers and the tastes, the passions and the prejudices of the community, 
conducts party warfare with energy, zeal and unsparing severity; and the com¬ 
batants, faithful throughout all changes, abide the trials and share the fortunes of 
their respective parties. The religious press furnishes to Jew and Christian, 
Protestant and Catholic, and to each of the sects and denominations of those orand 
O 
divisions of the church, a devoted organ more effective than an army of mis¬ 
sionaries. The moral, the scientific, the literary, the legal, the medical, the agri¬ 
cultural, the military, the abolition, the temperance, the colonization and the 
association newspapers each represent a portion of society desirous to inculcate 
peculiar views of truth, and promote reforms which it deems essential to the 
general welfare. The emigrants from every foreign country communicate with 
each other through organs furnished by the press, and preserve mutual sympa¬ 
thies and endearing recollections of their father-lands. The press was dependent 
on European facts, sentiments, opinions, tastes and customs : now it is in all things 
independent, and purely American. It was metropolitan: note it is universal. 
The newspaper in each important town conveys intelligence of all interesting 
