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the strongest terms, entirely losing sight of that meekness of spirit and Christian love which their simple and single-minded readers expect to find inculcated in their columns. It is true that the Observer has an advantage over its more liberal contemporary in the dual form of its paper, one half belonging to the "Religious Department," and the other to the "Secular Department ;" and if the pious press will abuse each other, it would not be a bad plan for the Evangelist and all other religious papers, wishing to indulge in this sort of luxury, to have a "Secular Department" also. Those of the subscribers of the Observer who keep the Sabbath retain one part of that paper for Sunday reading, and the other part for the remainder of the week.

There is another class of religious papers, of which the first was the Youth's Companion, established in 1826 by Nathaniel Willis. They are devoted to the entertainment and religious instruction of children. They also give items of interesting news. The Companion is now published by Perry Mason & Co., and is an eight page paper, handsomely printed and well filled. There is another, called the Well Spring. Another, the Child's Paper, of beautiful typography, and with a circulation of 100,000 copies. The Methodists print a Sunday-school paper named the Advocate, which had a circulation of 105,000 in 1858, and of 370,000 in 1871. These are religious newspapers for the young. They are cheap, and are within the reach of every child. But in some instances the subscription price is very unfairly arranged in consequence of the premium mania among newspaper proprietors. One paper is $1 50 per annum to a single subscriber. If two names are sent, forty cents are deducted. If three subscribers are obtained, one dollar is taken off. Now if the publisher can afford three copies for three dollars and fifty cents, why don't he reduce his single subscription to one third of this amount? The reason is patent enough, but the single subscribers are the victims and sufferers. The premium system will, however, cure itself in time in the efforts of newspaper publishers to outbid each other in offering pianos, houses, horses, carriages, watches, farms, diamonds, steam-boats, and railroads to subscribers. There were two hundred and seventy-seven religious periodicals published in the United States in 1860. Three hundred and thirty or forty are issued now. There are probably 100,000,000 copies printed annually.

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CHAPTER XX.

SOME OF THE REPRESENTATIVE NEWSPAPERS.

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INKLING OF AN INDEPENDENT Press. — Judge BOUVIER AND THE AMERICAN TELEGRAPH.-NILES'S Register.—The HARTFORD TIMES.-JOHN M. NILES AND GIDEON Welles. CURIOUS FIGHT FOR A POST-OFFICE. THOMAS H. BENTON AND DUFF GREEN IN MISSOURI.-WILLIAM COBBETT. -THE PORCUPINE. — THE NEW YORK AMERICAN AND CHARLES KING.THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL-WONDERFUL CHANGE OF BASE ON THE TARIFF QUESTION.-THE NEW YORK ALBION.—Organs in other Countries. -THE POETS AS JOURNALISTS.—FASHIONABLE JOURNALISM.—THE LOUISVILLE JOURNAL.-GEORGE D. PRENTICE AND JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. -THE WITS OF NEWSPAPERS. -THE FIRST PAPER WEST OF ALBANY. — JOHN I. MUMFORD.-FANNY WRIGHT.-RICHARD COBDEN'S OPINION. AMONG the ornaments of the profession of journalism may be ranked Judge John Bouvier. He was born in the south of France, but became a citizen of the United States in 1812. On arriving at this distinction he opened a printing-office, and in 1814 began the publication of a weekly newspaper called the American Telegraph. The first number appeared in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, where Bouvier was town clerk and secretary of a fire-engine company, on the 9th of November of that year, with the motto "Justice, Laws, and Liberty." At that early period Judge Bouvier had an inkling of the Independent Press. He promised, in his prospectus, to "discountenance all factions and factious men, under what plausible name soever they may be shielded,” and would not "crouch to any man or set of men, and neglect the duty which every editor in the union owes to the public."

After publishing the Telegraph four years, Judge B. removed to Uniontown, where he united his paper with the Genius of Liberty, and continued the publication of both papers in one with the two names united, under the firm of Bouvier and Austin. It was too early for an Independent Press; the new paper was "conducted on the principles of pure democracy." Thus Judge B. continued till 1820, when, like Henry Wheaton, he abandoned journalism for the legal profession, and removed to Philadelphia, where, in 1836, he became Recorder, and in 1838 an Associate Judge of the Court of Criminal Sessions. While thus engaged, and finding, from early experience, the need of a well-" arranged digest of that legal information which every student," and, indeed, every lawyer should have, he

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undertook the great labor of preparing a Law Dictionary, which was published in two volumes, and afterwards the Institutes of American Law, which appeared in four volumes. These six volumes were indorsed by such jurists as Judge Story and Chancellor Kent. They were published by Childs and Peterson. Mr. Childs, of this firm, is now the proprietor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, and husband of a granddaughter of Judge Bouvier, the author of these valuable law-books and the early journalist.

The Judge was a man of great industry and activity of intellect. It is claimed that Nathan Hale introduced the regular editorial articles, the daily comments on public matters in 1814. Not to be far in the rear, we find that Judge Bouvier, early in 1815, began his comments on public affairs in the American Telegraph, especially on matters in Europe in connection with the return of Napoleon from Elba.

The independence of the Press was talked about in 1816. Judge Bouvier, in the Telegraph, on the 29th of May of that year, published the following article:

INDEPENDENCE OF THE PRESS.

It has been usual, of late, for a few disappointed men in this state, who are subject to, and under the protection of a certain great man in Philadelphia, to publish long essays under this head, in which the printers of the state generally are charged with corruption, and Mr. Duane, their patron, is lauded as the very pink of purity. They declare that they themselves are not only independent of the state government, which they charge with having corrupted the press, but also of Duane himself. Let us see how their declarations agree with facts.

We received a letter a few weeks since from Mr. Duane, stating that, as we disagreed with him upon some particulars, he would no longer exchange papers with us; Mr. Duane having a right to dispose of his paper as he pleases, we should have said nothing on this subject had the matter ended here, but since that period several of his satellites have also discontinued to exchange papers with us, in consequence, no doubt, of orders received by them from head-quarters. This is the way these gentlemen show their independence.

Like most papers of that time, elaborate communications were the editorials of the day.

The most valuable newspaper in its day, as we all find it to be in our researches for historical facts, was Niles's Weekly Register. It was established in Baltimore on the 7th of September, 1811, by Hezekiah Niles, an editor of the Baltimore Evening Post. William Ogden Niles became associated with his father in 1827. The elder Niles retired in 1836. The Register was then conducted by the son till 1848, when its publication was stopped. It was a complete and accurate record of events from 1811 till 1848. Its motto was "The Past the Present-for the Future." No library is perfect without a set. Its size was convenient to handle for reference. Odd volumes can occasionally be picked up at old book-stores, but all the numbers complete would now be impossible to buy. We have known of a set selling as high as $300.

The Hartford Times, which has been a leading party paper in that state for years, and which is still considered an organ of the Democracy in New England, is a journal that deserves a niche. It was established as a weekly paper in 1817, and its first daily issue was in 1839. Its editorial corps has given to two administrations each a cabinet minister-John M. Niles and Gideon Welles. Its founder and principal proprietor was Alfred E. Burr.

Mr. Niles, who had been a printer in the office of the Courant, and a writer of books for boys, became editor and foreman of the Times in 1817. He continued in this capacity for three or four years. In 1820 he was made judge of the Hartford County Court. In 1826 he was sent to the Legislature. He was appointed postmaster of Hartford in 1829. The Times, during this period, had been in favor of the administration of James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson. In connection with the appointment of Niles as postmaster, there is an incident which is professional and interesting. In the excitement growing out of the political campaign ending in the election of Jackson in 1828, the Times was ostensibly edited by Major Benjamin Hammett Norton. Niles continued one of the publishers, and was probably the master spirit of the concern, but Norton bore the public honors. On the election of Jackson, Norton, who felt that he should have some of the loaves and fishes, immediately proceeded to Washington, and demanded the office of postmaster at Hartford for his services. It was given to him. On his return home with the commission in his hat, Niles was astonished. Office was his weak point. Norton had circumvented him. Thereupon he joined in the rush to Washington, and presented himself at the executive mansion as the real Simon Pure editor of the Times. He informed General Jackson that Norton was only an attaché of the office. He was, like Simon Pure, fortified with affidavits. The result was the announcement in the official gazette of the appointment of Niles, vice Norton removed. Poor Norton! What was to be done with him? It was arranged that he should go into the Boston Custom-house with the same pay that Niles would receive in Hartford. He was appeased. John Randolph, of Roanoke, gave him fame by applying the epithet "Jacksonia-Nortonizatia" in one of his famous speeches.

After this Norton got deeply interested in Texas, and in 1837 and '38 he was a banker in Wall Street, New York City, having an office in or near the Tontine Building. In 1847 and '48 he edited a paper in Boston called the Sentinel, in which he favored the election of Zachary Taylor for the presidency. In return he was appointed American consul at Picton, N. S., where he remained till his death in 1869. He was a fine-looking gentleman, and treated every body

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with kindness and consideration. He was much respected while consul in Nova Scotia.

The Times, on the appointment of Niles to the post-office, was the organ of the Democratic Party in Connecticut. It was now under the guidance of Gideon Welles, the author, it was alleged, of most of the articles which gave the Hartford Post-office first to Norton, and then to Niles. Welles was considered a vigorous writer for a party paper during the administration of Andrew Jackson, and during the fight with the Nullifiers in 1832. Martin Van Buren gave him some office when he was President. In 1861 he was called to the cabinet of Abraham Lincoln as Secretary of the Navy, where he remained during the more serious fight with the Rebellion. Since his retirement from office he has been engaged in reminiscences, adding his mite to the history of the world. His first contribution was in November or December, 1869, when he wrote a pretty severe letter to his successor in office, Mr. Robeson, refusing to surrender some papers which the latter said belonged to the archives of the Navy Department. Other papers on the relief of Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, and on the capture of New Orleans, have also been given by him, through the Galaxy, to the country.

In 1835 Niles was appointed United States senator from Connecticut, and in 1839 he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor of his native state. In May, 1840, and for the closing months of Van Buren's administration, he succeeded Amos Kendall as Postmaster General. In 1842 he was again sent to the United States Senate for a full term. It is fair to suppose that while in the cabinet and in the Senate he ceased to be editor of the Times.

There was one act on the part of the Times that gave it a good deal of character. It opposed, under the editorial guidance of Alfred E. Burr, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1853-4, while nearly all the other organs of the Democratic Party favored that unwise measure. Subsequent events showing the correctness of the judgment of the Times, the opinions of that paper have since been treated with more respect and consideration by its political oppo

nents.

The Times is now edited by W. O. Burr, a son of one of the original proprietors, and it occupies the same position, in a political and party point of view, in Connecticut that the Boston Post does in Massachusetts, and the Albany Argus and New York World in New York. It has always evinced talent in its leading articles, and is not deficient in enterprise for a provincial paper.

It was proposed by William Cobbett to issue his Weekly Political Register, to begin June 21, 1816, from No. 19 Wall Street, New York City. It was to consist "partly of Mr. Cobbett's essays which had