contributed his Snob Papers, and Hood The Song of the Shirt.

is

THE DAILIES. - But the great characteristic of the age the daily newspaper, so common a blessing that we cease to marvel at it, and yet marvellous as it is common. It is the product of quick intelligence, of great energy, of concurrent and systematized labor, and, in order to fulfil its mission, it seems to subsidize all arts and invade all subjects— steam, mechanics, photography, phonography, and electricity. The news which it prints and scatters comes to it on the telegraph; long orations are phonographically reported; the very latest mechanical skill is used in its printing; and the world is laid at our feet as we sit at the breakfast-table and read its columns.

I shall not go back to the origin of printing, to show the great progress that has been made in the art from that time to the present; nor shall I attempt to explain the present process, which one visit to a press-room would do far better than any description; but I simply refer to the fact that fifty years ago newspapers were still printed with the hand-press, giving 250 impressions per hour-no cylinder, no flying Hoe, (that was patented only in 1847.) Now, the ten-cylinder Hoe, steam driven, works off 20,000 sheets in an hour, and more, as the stereotyper may multiply the forms. What an emblem of art-progress is this! Fifty years ago mail-coaches carried them away. Now, steamers and locomotives fly with them all over the world, and only enlarge and expand the story, the great facts of which have been already sent in outline by telegraph.

Nor is it possible to overrate the value of a good daily paper: as the body is strengthened by daily food, so are we built up mentally and spiritually for the busy age in which we live by the world of intelligence contained in the daily journal. A great book and a good one is offered for the read

ing of many who have no time to read others, and a great culture in morals, religion, politics, is thus induced. Of course it would be impossible to mention all the English dailies. Among them The London Times is pre-eminent, and stands highest in the opinion of the ministerial party, which fears and uses it.

There was a time when the press was greatly trammelled in England, and license of expression was easily charged with constructive treason; but at present it is remarkably free, and the great, the government, and existing abuses, receive no soft treatment at its hands.

The London Times was started by John Walter, a printer, in 1788, there having been for three years before a paper called the London Daily Universal Register. In 1803 his son, John, went into partnership, when the circulation was but 1,000. Within ten years it was 5,000. In 1814, cleverly concealing the purpose from his workmen, he printed the first sheet. ever printed by steam, on Koenig's press. The paper passed, at his death, into the hands of his son, the third John, who is a scholar, educated at Eton and Oxford, like his father a member of Parliament, and who has lately been raised to the peerage. The Times is so influential that it may well be called a third estate in the realm: its writers are men of merit and distinction; its correspondence secures the best foreign intelligence; and its travelling agents, like Russell and others, are the true historians of a war. English journalism, it is manifest, is eminently historical. The files of English newspapers are the best history of the period, and will, by their facts and comments, hereafter confront specious and false historians. Another thing to be observed is the impersonality of the British press, not only in the fact that names are withheld, but that the articles betray no authorship; that, in short, the paper does not appear as the glorification of one man or set of men, but like an unprejudiced relator, censor, and judge.

Of the principal London papers, the Morning Post (Liberal, but not Radical,) was begun in 1772. The Globe (at first Liberal, but within a short time Tory), in 1802. The Standard (Conservative), in 1827. The Daily News (highclass Liberal), in 1846. The News announced itself as pledged to Principles of Progress and Improvement. The Daily Telegraph was started in 1855, and claims the largest circulation. It is also a Liberal paper.

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Bolingbroke, Viscount, (Henry St. Congreve, William, 236.