In 1837, The Economist was started by John Wilson, and attracted great attention by its statistical and politico-economical articles, Wilson afterward became secretary of the treasury, and, having been sent to India, died there, to add one more to the many illustrious victims that our Indian empire has exacted. In 1838 a most amusing hoax was perpetrated upon The Morning Post and Morning Chronicle, which announced the death of Lord Brougham, and published a most elaborate biography of him. But the next day there came a letter from Lord Brougham, declaring that he was still alive and hearty. The joke, however, did not end herefor people were ill natured enough to assert that he had been the author of the rumor himself, in order to learn what the world would say about him; and so widespread had this second rumor become, that Lord Brougham was compelled to write another letter contradicting it.
The next great event in the history of journalism is the commercial libel case, Boyle versus Lawson, the printer of The Times. Barnes had died, and had been succeeded by John T. Delane, a nephew of Mr. Walter, as editor, who still continues to occupy that responsible post. The matter originated thus: In May, 1841, The Times published a letter from the Paris correspondent, containing the particulars of an organized system of forgery on a gigantic scale, which had been agreed on by certain persons, whose names were published in full. The plan was to present simultaneously at the chief Continental cities letters of credit purporting to emanate from Glynn & Co., the London bankers. The confederates had fixed the sum they meant to realize at one million, and had actually secured more than £10,000 before the plot was discovered. One of them was Boyle, a banker, of good position, at Florence, and he brought an action for libel and defamation. He pressed on the trial, but The Times maintained its ground, and at an enormous expense despatched agents all over the Continent to collect evidence. The Times triumphantly succeeded in proving the truth of what itThe Times is always spoken and written of as an individualhad printed; but as the old lawthe greater the truth the greater the libelstill existed, the jury were compelled to find a verdict for the plaintiff, which they did, with one farthing damages, and the judge clinched the matter by refusing the plaintiff his costs. Universal joy was expressed at the result of the trial, and public meetings were called together in London and the chief Continental cities for the purpose of making a subscription to defray the expenses of The Times in defending the action. The proprietors, however, declined this, but said that, at the same time, they should feel much gratified if a sum of money were raised for some public object in commemoration of the event. Accordingly it was decided to found two scholarships in perpetuity for Christ's Hospital and the City of London School at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, to be called the Times' Scholarships, and the nomination to them to be placed in the hands of the proprietors of The Times in perpetuity. Two marble tablets were also voted, at the cost of a hundred and fifty guineas each, with commemorative inscriptions, one to be placed in The Times office and the other in the Royal Exchange. Two somewhat similar tablets were also placed in Christ's Hospital and the City of London School. For these purposes the sum of £2,700 was very quickly subscribed, the lord mayor leading off with ten guineas. If anything had been wanting to place The Times upon the pinnacle of preëminence among journals, this famous trial firmly established it there, and ever since it has been looked up to as an oracle of the commercial world. But The Times was not contented to rest quietly on its oars. It was ambitious, and looked farther afield. In 1845, its vigor, enterprise, and disregard of expense were exemplified in a remarkable manner. The Times had been in the habit of sending a special courier to Marseilles, to bring its Indian despatches, and thus anticipate the regular course of the mail. The French Government threw every possible obstacle in the courier's way, and The Times took Lieutenant Waghorn, the originator of the Overland Route, into its pay. In October, 1845, a special messenger met the mail on its arrival at Suez on the 19th. Mounted on a dromedary, he made his way, without stopping, to Alexandria, where Waghorn awaited him with a steamer. Waghorn came viâ Triestespecial post horses and steamers and trains being ready for him at the various points of the routeand he reached London on the morning of the 31st, in time for his despatches to appear in the morning's issue of the paper. The result of this was that The Times reached Paris with the Indian news from London before the regular mail had reached that city from Marseilles. The next noticeable enterprise of The Times was the sending out commissioners to investigate the condition of the poor and laboring population of London in 1847, an enterprise which was crowned with the moat satisfactory results. The Times has always been the firm friend of the poor, and its columns are always open to the tale of distress. No case is advocated until it has been thoroughly investigated; but when once it has been mentioned in The Times, subscriptions pour in on all sides. At the commencement of each year especially, The Times publishes gratuitously appeals from public charities, and during last January the sums received through those appeals reached the large amount of £12,000. The last great exploit of The Times was the sending forth a special correspondent with the English army to the Crimea, a precedent which it has followed up since in China, India, Italy, America, and Schleswig-Holstein. But this was not the first occasion that reporters had accompanied our armies, for Canning despatched reporters with the troops sent to Portugal in 1826. The tactics of The Times are very generally misunderstood and misrepresented. Whatever objections cavillers and opponents may urge, and with truth toofor the course taken by The Times is not to be praised on all occasionsit cannot be denied that The Times is the first journal in the world, a position which it has reached by its enterprise, vigor, and ability. It has frequently proved its disinterestedness, and during the great railway mania of 1845, while it was receiving no less a sum than £6,000 weekly for advertisements, constantly cautioned its readers against the prevailing madness, and persistently predicted the crash that was certain to follow. The Times, while it appears to lead, in reality waits upon public opinion, and hence the accusations of inconsistency and tergiversation so freely lavished upon it. The Times is the printed breath of public opinion. It throws out a feeler, perhaps, though not quite at first, accompanied by some decided expression of opinion, and carefully watches the effect upon the public mind. Should that effect be different to what was expected, The Times knows how to veer round with the popularis aura. This is not always, however, done so skilfully but that the act is apparent. It is not the most dignified course that a journal which aspires to beand which isthe leading journal of Europe ought to pursue; but The Times knows human nature, and knows, too, that were it to adopt any other course, it would fall from its high estate, and become a mere party organ. Moreover, The Times possesses an enormous prestigedeservedly won, as this article has endeavored to showand that, in a conservative country like England, is considerably more than half the battle.
In 1842 appeared the first pictorial newspaper, The Illustrated London News. It was started by Herbert Ingram, who began life as a provincial newsboy, and died, in the vigor of his age, member of Parliament for his native town. It was a success from the first, so great that numerous competitors sprang up and endeavored to undersell it. But these were all vastly inferior, and one by one withered away, the most persistent of them at last passing into the hands of The Illustrated London News, which now enjoys a larger circulation than any other weekly newspaper, amounting to about six millions a year!
There was a satirical paper at this time, called The Age, which, being of a strongly libellous character, was continually feeling the weight of the law. It did not improve in character as it grew older, and its editor, Tommy Holt, was proved upon a trial to have received bribes to suppress a slander that he had threatened should appear in his paper. This same Tommy Holt was very successful in inventing 'sensation' headings for his columns, and by no means either delicate or scrupulous in so doing. There was another rascally paper of the same description, called The Satirist, which was at last finally crushed by the Duke of Brunswick, the result of several actions for libel. Among other new literary oddities at this time may be mentioned The Fonetic Nūz, the organ of those enthusiastic reformers who were endeavoring to accomplish a revolution in our orthography. It lasted, however, but a very short time.
The year 1850 saw the initiation of the final campaign directed against the only remaining burdens of the press. Mr. Ewart and Mr. Milner Gibson brought forward a motion for the repeal of the advertisement duty, but were defeated by two hundred and eight votes to thirty-nine. But they were not cast down by their want of success, but manfully returned to the charge. In 1851, they procured the appointment of a committee to inquire into the question, and in 1852, gathering strength, like William of Orange, from each successive defeat, they brought forward a triple set of resolutions, one for the abolition of the advertisement duty, another levelled at the stamp, and the third for the repeal of the paper duties. They carried the first, but lost the others. In 1854, Mr. Gibson made a fresh motion concerning the laws affecting the press, and received a promise that the subject should receive the early attention of the House; and in 1855, Sir G.C. Lewis, then chancellor of the exchequer, who had hitherto opposed the repeal of the duty, brought in a bill for its abolition. After a struggle in both Houses the measure passed, and received the royal assent on the 15th of June.
In following up this final struggle, we have passed over one important period, the railway mania in 1845, which gave birth to no less than twenty-nine newspapers, entirely occupied with railway intelligence, in London, besides many others in the provinces. Only two of these have survived, for the other two railway newspapers which still exist were established before that memorable madness fell upon the nation. Of these, Herapath's Journal is the oldest and best, and is the oracle of the Stock Exchange on railway matters. There are some slight symptoms of the madness returning in the present year, as far at least as the metropolis is concerned, and one new railway journal has just been started in consequence. There are many amusing anecdotes told of newspapers at this epoch, of which we will quote one. One of these railway organs had published and paid for, from time to time, lengthy and elaborate reports of the meetings of a certain company, supplied by one of the staff of reporters. At length the editor told the reporter that he thought it was high time for the company to give the paper an advertisement, after all the favorable notices that bad been given to the undertaking in question. The reporter acquiesced, and promised to get the order for an advertisement, but putting it off from time to time, the editor was induced to make inquiries for himself; whereupon he had the extreme satisfaction of learning that no such company had ever existed, and that the elaborate reports of meetings, speeches, etc., had been entirely fabricated by his ingenious employé! An endeavor was made last year to resuscitate one of these defunct daily journals, The Iron Times, and Tommy Holt was the editor. It lingered for some weeks, and then smashed utterly. The editor called the contributors together, and told them that there was nothing to pay them withnothing in fact remained but the office furniture. 'Take that, my boys,' said he, 'and divide it among you.' This was accordingly done, and one man marched off with a table, another with a chair, a third with a desk, a fourth with an inkstand, and so on!
When the stamp duty was abolished as a tax, it remained optional with the publishers to have any number of their issue stamped they pleased for transmission through the poet. The number of stamps thus issued in the first six months after the repeal was 21,646,688, whereas the number in the corresponding period of 1854, when the tax still existed, was 55,732,499. The number of stamps issued in the year 1854 to the principal newspapers was as follows: Times, 15,975,739; Morning Advertiser, 2,392,780; Daily News, 1,485,099; Morning Herald, 1,158,000; Morning Chronicle, 873,500; The Globe, 850,000; and The Morning Post, 832,500. Of the weeklies, The Illustrated London News was then the second, 5,627,866; The News of the World, a Liberal, unillustrated journal, started in 1843, standing first, with 5,673,525 (the price of this paper is now reduced to twopence, and it is an admirably conducted journal); Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 5,572,897; The Weekly Times, price one penny, 3,902,169; Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper, also a penny journal, which is best described by the epithet 'rabid,' 2,496,256; The Weekly Dispatch, price fivepence, an advanced Liberal journal, which is emphatically the workingman's newspaper, and originally started in 1801, 1,982,933; Bell's Life in London, 1,161,000. Of the provincial newspapers, The Manchester Guardian heads the list with 1,066,575, followed by The Liverpool Mercury, with 912,000, and The Leeds Mercury, with 735,000. Foremost among the Scotch newspapers stands The North British Advertiser, with 808,002; and the Irish paper with the largest circulation was The Telegraph, with 959,000. Of the London literary papers the chief was The Examiner, with 248,560. With one or two exceptions, the circulation of these journals may be considered to have increased enormously. There are now published in Great Britain 1,350 different newspapers, of which 240 are London papers, 20 being dailies, 776 English provincial papers, 143 Irish, 140 Scotch, 37 Welsh, and 14 are published in the British Isles. Many of these enjoy but a limited circulation, as naturally follows from the narrow limit they assign to themselves. Thus several trades have their special organs, as for instance, the grocers, the bakers, and even the hairdressers among others.
Before concluding this article it will be well to notice a few of the leading journals which have not been mentioned. The Daily Telegraph was originally started at twopence, in 1855, by Colonel Sleigh, but he, getting behindhand with his printers to the amount of £1,000, sold them the paper for another £1,000, and in their hands it has since remained. The price was reduced to a penny, and, under the new management, its circulation rapidly increased. The Standard dealt a heavy blow at it in 1858, by coming out suddenly one morning, without any previous warning, as a double sheet. This first number was given away in the streets, in vast quantities, thrown into omnibuses and cabs, pitched into shops and public houses, and so on. The sale of The Telegraph so decreased that it was found necessary to enlarge it to the same size as The Standard, when its circulation rose again immediately. It has now the largest circulation in the world, more than 100,000 daily, a much larger London circulation than The Times, though a smaller provincial and foreign sale; and its clear profits are variously stated by persons who profess to be well informed, at different sums, the least of which is £20,000 a year. The chief causes of its success are its independent and uncompromising tone, the great pains it takes to gain early intelligenceit has frequently anticipated The Times itself in foreign newsand the vigorous and able social articles of Mr. George Augustus Sala. The Daily News was started as a Liberal and Reform journal in 1846. An enormous sum of money was sunk in establishing it, for it was not at first successful. Charles Dickens was the first editor, but politics were not much in the line of the genial and unrivalled novelist, and he was soon succeeded by John Forster and Charles Wentworth Dilke, whose connection with the South Kensington Museum and the great Exhibition has made him a knight, a C. B., and a very important personage. The Daily News is now one of the ablest and most successful of London journals, and has had and still enjoys the assistance of the best writers of the day in every department. The line which this journal has always maintained toward America will forever earn it the admiration and gratitude of the United States. Another firm friend of the great republic is The Morning Star, the organ of Mr. Bright and the Manchester school, started in 1856. In addition to its political claims, it has a great hold upon the public as a family newspaper, by the careful manner in which everything objectionable is excluded from its columns. Its twin sister, born at the same time, is called The Evening Star. Bell's Life in London, a weekly journal, was originally brought out in 1820, and, although it has more than one successful rival to contend against, it still maintains its preëminence as the first English sporting paper. It is very carefully edited, each department being placed under a separate editor, and is the great oracle in all matters relating to sports and games. The history of one of the ablest contributors to this journal, who wrote some most charming articles on fly-fishing and other kindred topics, under the signature of 'Ephemera'though he was said never to have thrown a fly in his lifeis a very sad one. His name was Fitzgerald, a man of good family and connections, married to a lady with £1,200 a year, and living in a good house at the West End. But the alcoholic demon had got hold of him. He would disappear for days together, and then suddenly present himself at the office of the paper with nothing on but a shirt and trousers. He would then sit down and write an article, receive his pay, go away and purchase decent clothes, return home, and live quietly perhaps for a month, when he wouldto use a prison phrasebreak out again as before. He was last seen, in the streets of London, in a state of complete intoxication, being carried upon a stretcher by two policemen to the police cell, where he died the same night.