340 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
machinery. First, the chief editor, controlling the general tone of 
the paper, perusing and adapting the original matter to be inserted, 
carrying on a large correspondence, and holding himself responsible 
for all errors occurring in the paper, whether of omission or com- 
mission. He does not, as a general rule, write the leading articles, 
except on important occasions. Then there is the sub-editor—one, 
two, or more, as the case may be—whose duty it is to select 
_ suitable extracts from other papers, and to prune into shape the 
communications of penny-a-liners with respect to accidents, fires, 
murders, and so forth. Then there are the foreign editor, the 
musical and theatrical editor, and the reader who corrects the 
proof. Lastly, the compositors and pressmen. Outside this estab- 
lishment are the reporters; that class of newspaper contributors 
called penny-a-liners; and the correspondents, whether “ our 
own” “special,” or otherwise. Telegraphy is a most important 
newspaper agency. MReuter’s telegrams are in very general use. 
The secret of his success lies in a thoroughly organised system of 
offices and staffs of clerks in all the leading cities of Europe. His 
agents gather the most recent intelligence from various sources, 
which is telegraphed to the leading papers at fixed rates. The 
tendency of the times is to make the Provincial Press more local ; 
at the same time, their telegraphic facilities enable them to supply 
their readers with general news as early as the London papers, and 
they have a real work to do in advocating and maintaining all that 
is good and worthy of preservation in our municipal and local 
institutions. The Press generally exercises a powerful influence 
for good. One could wish that there were sometimes less political 
and sectarian partisanship; and one would fain trust that the 
flippant style of editorial, which treats religious topics of the 
gravest importance as if it were dealing with a game of battledoor 
and shuttlecock, will in time give place to good taste and good 
feeling. Still, regarding the fourth estate in a broad light of view, 
there is no doubt that it has had a sustaining and cementing 
influence on the other estates of this realm, and that it has been 
one of the chief agents in forwarding the universal and sacred 
cause of human freedom. 
