AN EVENING WITH NEWSPAPERS. 339 
the papers. A tax was imposed of a halfpenny on papers of half a 
sheet, and one penny on those of a sheet and upwards. This tax 
was by successive additions increased, until, in 1815, it had reached 
the oppressive sum of fourpence. 
The Georgian period was remarkable for the rigorous measures 
adopted towards the Press. Two famous trials occurred in the 
reign of George I].—that in which Wilkes was concerned, and 
which indirectly established the practice of reporting the proceed- 
ings and speeches of the Houses of Parliament; and the other, 
that in which Leigh Hunt and his brother were prosecuted for an 
alleged slandering of the Prince Regent. The Hunts were heavily 
fined and imprisoned, but they were given to understand that, 
upon their promising to hold their counsel about the Prince in the 
future, the fines would be remitted. These terms were distinctly 
declined, and it is generally considered that this trial and its results 
contributed much to the establishment of ,the right of free dis- 
cussion. The JZimes was founded, under the title of the Daily 
Universal Register, in 1785. The present title was assumed three 
years subsequently. Its career is the history of the Newspaper 
Press for nearly three-quarters of a century. The property mainly, 
for three generations, of one family—the Walters—it has weathered 
Government prosecutions, and persecutions, and mechanical diffi- 
culties ; and, by dint of immense energy and the expenditure of 
great resources, it has become a most potent organ of public 
opinion, and at the same time a most magnificent property. The 
Daily News has had much of journalistic romance in its history, 
Edited at one time by Charles Dickens, with very distinguished 
writers from time to time on its staff, it nevertheless at one period 
within two years caused its conductors a loss of, it is said, 
£200,000. It has now however, especially since the reduction of 
its price to one penny, and owing to the excellent foreign intelli- 
gence it supplied during the Franco-German war, taken a new lease 
of life, and its circulation is supposed to be upwards of 70,000. 
The Daily Telegraph has the largest circulation in the world, whilst 
the Standard has, perhaps, the next, and is certainly larger in size 
than any of its contemporaries ; it was started nearly fifty years 
ago to advocate the views of those who were opposed to Catholic 
Emancipation. . 
The interior establishment of a first-class London or provincial 
journal presents a wondrously-linked chain of brain, hands, and 
