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1042 THE LEAD EH/ [Saturday,
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THE NEWSPAPER STAMP KETUItNSWHAT THEY PK...
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THE WORKING MAN AND HIS TliACHliKS, Thkh...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Louis Napoleon" And The "United States. ...
was 9 challenge ; and it was accepted : but does the subsequent demeanour of the challenger suggest confidence in the issue ? Louis Napoleon is a man of genius ; with a great fleet ; with a grand notion of a servile war in the United States ; and doubtless , with Spain and Mrs . Stowe for his allies , might do a great deal . Yet , if England would not be his allyin the West , in return for his alliance with England in the East , then he knows , as well as most men , that the States could bring the Napoleonic system about his ears in less than , six months .
It would not answer his purpose to bring 1 the States into Europe ; so that , on the whole , it is not likely Mr . Mason will be driven from his pleasant hotel in Paris . Yet his Majesty , even if he now beg pardon , may only postpone what is inevitable . Of course he does not knownone but those who took part in the proceedings can know—" what was the issue of the conference at Osteod . But he guesses , like the res ' t . For our own part , we cannot believe that three American gentlemen would meet at Osterid to talk of mere States' domestic business .
They must have had in view European politics , and the relations of the United States to Europe in certain contingencies of the war ; and we infer , from all we see and . hear , that the United States Government ranks itself among the '" neutrals , " and is as prepared as Austria , or Prussia , or Denmark , or Sweden , to assume a positive attitude ^ - ^ when necessary . May the necessity , for the United States , soon arise !
1042 The Lead Eh/ [Saturday,
1042 THE LEAD EH / [ Saturday ,
The Newspaper Stamp Ketuitnswhat They Pk...
THE NEWSPAPER STAMP KETUItNSWHAT THEY PKOTE . Our interest in the last analytical return of the number of stamps issued to London newspapers is scarcely personal . These successive returns have , indeed , indicated our increasing commercial success—a success to be the better comprehended by reference to the circumstances that we are but four years old , and that we started with the deliberate intention to be
oil the unfashionable and the unconventional side . But the absolute and conspicuous success of the Leader is not to be tested by stamp returns . We have undergone the ordeal of all Reformers ; we are beginning 1 already to realise the Reform . In that ordeal misrepresentation was the severest trial . Exposed to the coarse criticism of the ignorant , and the venomous indignation of the interested , we
have had to submit to being caricatured in " Advertisers' Hand-books " as " Socialist , " and reprobated by contemporaries as " Anti-Christian " — being so libelled merely because , facing all the facts of our era , we steadily I'efused , as journalists , to ignore the existence of classes and persons who believe neither in Society nor in Religion , Our success is in having largely induced the legislature and Literature to face 8 u « h facts : —our
influence , we may say without vanity , -we trace wherever printing-presses are providing modern thought to the Anglo-Saxon race . The general indications of these stamp returns interest everybody . Two facts stand out prominently : among the daily papers , tliere is only one journal with a circulation boyond the clubs , news-rooms , and publichouses ; and among the weekly papers , the large circulations ( with one exception , that of an illustrated paper ) arc possessed by the journals selling at 3 d . per copy . What do tliese facts prove ?
As regards the daily morning press , there is proof that , as there is only oi \ a successful , there must bo an enormous amount of capital , enterprise , and time thrown-away on tlio other five . The other five attempt to explain awtiy the disparity by malignantly hinting that the
Times succeeds because it is so dishonest—that the Times is a quack , while the Morning Chronicle is the real , respectable thing—and that the public likes quackery . Now that is neither philosophic nor true . The public does not take to anything that is bad , where it can get a better , at the same price , as in this case ; and it is not true that the Times is more dishonest than the other morning papers , for though , the Times is absurdly inconsistent , and consequently is without vital influence , yet is
it not a fact that each of the other morning papers serves consistently shifting parties , Peelite , Whig , and Tory—literary service of a party being , notoriously , ver y dirty , as well as very dishonest , work ? Certainly it must be conceded to the five , that the sixth does not succeed , because it is the best . The Morning Chronicle has better news and is perhaps better written—as a matter of literature—than any other morning journal , yet it does not sell 1000 copies a day . The Daily
News has as good , and more varied , news than the Times , and is carefully . written , yet the Daily News is apparently not so successful as it should be . The competition between the Times and its contemporaries has been . going on since the reduction of the stamp from 4 d . to Id ., ' twenty years ago ; and quarterly theTimes has improved its position . What , then , is the cause ? It is very plain . When the stamp was 4 d . there were many morning papers ., and their sales were nearly equal ; their sales were to taverns ^ and
not to the nation . Since morning papers have become 5 d . in price they came within reach of a certain large class , merchants , and the trading community generally , to whom a morning paper became a necessity of business . But they were not numerous , and not rich enough to take more than the one ; and the CDimes having , by great enterprise , got the start , at the outset of the competition , and having maintained itself in a state of thorough efficiency , has kept the lead . The competition with it is now mere madness . We , therefore ,
suggest to the managers of the other daily papers that they should agitate for the removal of the stamp—a reform which , making- them all cheaper , if not cheap , would enlarge their market . The public will observe that even the Times , appealing to all Europe , and publishingin a capital of 2 , 500 , 000 , does not sell 60 , 000 copies daily : a clear indication that , nationally , the nation knows nothing of a daily press .
As respects the weekly press , the public wall not fail to see that the total figures represent only a sale of about a million copies every-Saturday to all Eng land ! Wo are far from overlooking the circumstance that these returns do not deal with the provincial press , which , as represented in the large towns , is here and there more intellectual arid more efficient than the mass of the weekly London press . But it remains a fact that the London weekly press does appeal to the whole country , that certainly one-half of its sale is in the country , and ,
whether wo look to the influence nationally or in the metropolis , can we contend that England is a nation of political readers ? The sole of the first-class papers is very small ; and for this sufficing reason , that so long ns they arc subjected to the penny stamp they must charge a high price in order to enable them to employ first-class contributors . How can we listen to " educational speeches " from our public men while a . stump is put upon the press , to restrain reading *—tho only real education—among tho people ?"
The Working Man And His Tliachliks, Thkh...
THE WORKING MAN AND HIS TliACHliKS , Thkhe- nro several competitors fox * tho office of teaching tho working cIubhob ; but -while
we cordially and emphatically admit that each one will do good within the reach of his own hands , we repeat our firm conviction that emigration , colonisation , and improvement in the commercial value of labour , will beat all the teachers . The question with these philanthropists , —and we say it in no
disparagement of them , —is one of taking down education , instruction , and knowledge to thelevel of the working classes ; but we believethat the light which can be carried to thebottom of a mine is not worth having . To enjoy the full sunlight of life the miner must come to the upper level of the earth , "witlx which , he is endowed as his "birthright .
The specific plans for improving education , are many . We have a Working Men ' s College , established by the Christian Socialists in Red Lion-square , imitating in name , and to a certain extent in purpose and plan , the People ' s College at Sheffield j we have the President of the Council , as Minister of Education , opening the Athenaeum for the working classes at Bristol ; we have Cardinal Wiseman diffusing the lectures , which he delivered at . St . Martin ' s Hall in
August last ; we have the unions of mechanics' institutions , clubs amongst the working classes under various names for the samepurpose , and lecturers innumerable , from lords to those members of the working class who have themselves become the teachers of their fellows . All who frame these plans endeavour to overcome certain difficultieswhich meet them at the very threshold of their undertaking . Mechanics' institutions , are established ; but unless they be kept up by extraneous contributions from patrons , or become subscription-rooms of the middle
classes , they often fail , because the working , man cannot find the time to attend , or the money , in sufficient numbers , for a sound and firm self-support . Projects have been thrown out for permitting the working classes to study at the ancient universities ; . but , as Mr . Maurice asked on Monday night , what effect can such plans have , except to take some very few -working men from their own class , and transfer them to the professional class ? In lieu , he proposes the newcollege , specially constructed to adapt itself to working men .
Its classes will be held in the evening , its professors will lecture in , such manner as to guide the studies in classes , and to mingle exposition with conversational explanations .. In other words , Mr . Maurice anticipates that the working class will have very little time , indeed , for collegiate studies ; but trusting greatly to the mere spirit of study at times not devoted to such pursuits , anxious to gh o a new bent for working men while
engaged at their labour , he endeavours tomult © the moat of that rag of time at the end of day , and to make a few hours a week do the work of real studentship . "With what effect ? Bo tho professors the best in the world , knowledge , we affirm , of arithmetic , algebra , geometry , drawing , music , geography ,, history , constitutional law , and theology , cannot bo conveyed in passing hours at tho fag end of day wheu half the time is given to questions and answers between tlio professor / and student .
Lord John Russell Avould set no official bounds upon tho studies of working-men ; would not tell them thai ; auch studies uro " above them , " but ho trusts to a perfect exchange of" opinion for tho correction of wrong opinions by better . But how win tho working classes have opinions without kuowlodgo , and they might- na well endeavour fo > acquire a Itnowledgo of aiaturo through tho window of tho workshop , aa through tho fragmentary hours which the Working Men ' s College will give No ; such institutions tire
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 4, 1854, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04111854/page/10/
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