Progressive Steps of Journalism.

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Second. When steam-boats and railways came into use, population increased so rapidly that printers could not sufficiently supply the demand, in consequence of the want of mechanical power in their press-rooms. Napier's double cylinders would print only three thousand sheets per hour.

Third. Hoe having invented the lightning press, the difficulty of supplying the demand was met for a time; but with the increase of railroads and steam-boats, and the spread of Adams's, Harnden's, Wells and Fargo's express lines, the demand for newspapers ran ahead of Hoe's eight-cylinder presses, printing from twelve to fifteen thousand copies per hour, and the ten-cylinder presses, printing eighteen to twenty thousand sheets an hour, were brought forward.

Fourth. Ocean steam-ships, the telegraph, the wars in Europe, and the rebellion again increased the circulation of the newspapers beyond their capacity to print. Then came the grand desideratum, the stereotyping process, by which pages of an entire newspaper are duplicated in thirty minutes, and the circulation increased ad libitum. Now, with half a dozen of Hoe's ten cylinders, or a dozen of Bullock's presses, one hundred thousand sheets can be printed every hour in any establishment possessing these facilities.

When the Cheap and Independent Press fairly commenced its career, the means of distribution, as we have stated, were limited. Only one paper circulated over 6000 daily in 1835. Only 95,000,000 copies were printed in the whole country in that year. Now the number of copies, in round numbers, is over 1,500,000,000. Our newspaper mails were carried by steam-boats and over railroads,

This is the ratio of increase of newspaper circulation and newspaper readers. Several years ago a system of "free delivery" of newspapers was introduced by the Post-office Department in fifty different cities. Look at the result:

Yet the Post-office Department performs but a small part of the service of newspaper carriers for the Press of the country.

These have been the progressive steps of journalism in the United States till the number of newspapers and periodicals is almost equal to those printed in all other parts of the universe, and the aggregate circulation is superior to that of Europe, Asia, and Africa! So in the future, with presses striking off twenty thousand impressions an hour, stereotyping apparatus duplicating, triplicating, quadruplica

ting forms, type-setting machines driven by steam, the automatic telegraph transmitting five hundred to one thousand words per minute, and the pneumatic dispatch lines, for parcels, to traverse the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the difference of time between the two oceans, the Sun, the Herald, the World, the Tribune, the Times, in existence to-day, and the Future, the Universe, the Cosmopolitan, the Pneumatic Dispatch, and the Omniscient, newspapers yet to be established, will have it in their power to lay the events that have occurred to-day on both hemispheres on every breakfast-table and in every counting-room on the continent early to-morrow morning. Where will the pulse of the world be felt then? London? Paris? Berlin? St. Petersburg? San Francisco? New York? Where?

Meanwhile population is increasing, newspaper readers are multiplying, mind is expanding, wealth is augmenting, and the physical forces of the world are developing. Will the newspapers of to-day, the wonderful Times', the marvelous Heralds, the brilliant Suns, the learned Tribunes, perfect wonders compared with the meagre NewsLetters and miserable Gazettes of a hundred and fifty years ago, become, in the progress of this globe, and in their turn, the miserable Times' and the meagre Heralds to the giant journals of the next century?

It is possible.

ADDEND A.

NEWSPAPERS have postscripts. Why should not books have addenda? Fresh news is constantly pouring into newspaper offices. Fresh facts are as continually pressing upon book publishers.

One of our leading journalists, Horace Greeley, was the candidate of one of the great political parties of the nation, in 1872, for the office of President of the United States. On the 15th of May he issued a card, stating this fact, and withdrawing from the editorial management of the New York Tribune. That card will be found on pages 569-70. Well, after a spirited contest, the election took place on the 5th of November. Over six millions of votes were polled. Horace Greeley received nearly one half of this immense number, but Ulysses S. Grant was elected President. This important national result was thus characteristically and semi-officially announced in the Tribune of the 7th of November:

A CARD.

The undersigned resumes the editorship of The Tribune, which he relinquished on embarking in another line of business six months ago. Henceforth it shall be his endeavor to make this a thoroughly independent journal, treating all parties and political movements with judicial fairness and candor, but courting the favor and deprecating the wrath of no one.

If he can hereafter say any thing that will tend to heartily unite the whole American People on the broad platform of Universal Amnesty and Impartial Suffrage, he will gladly do so. For the present, however, he can best commend that consummation by silence and forbearance. The victors in our late struggle can hardly fail to take the whole subject of Southern rights and wrongs into early and earnest consideration, and to them, for the present, he remits it.

Since he will never again be a candidate for any office, and is not in full accord with either of the great parties which have hitherto divided the country, he will be able and will endeavor to give wider and steadier regard to the progress of Science, Industry, and the Useful Arts than a partisan journal can do; and he will not be provoked to indulgence in those bitter personalities which are the recognized bane of journalism. Sustained by a generous public, he will do his best to make The Tribune a power in the broader field it now contemplates, as, when Human Freedom was imperiled, it was in the arena of political partisanship. Respectfully, HORACE GREELEY.

NEW YORK, November 6, 1872.

These intentions, now so painfully recorded—this new departure in political journalism-we all regret to say, were not destined to be carried out by the respected writer of this card. With the saddest of all domestic afflictions added to the most impressively terrible political excitement of our era, the depressed and perturbed brain, overtasked and strained by forty years of constant labor and

friction, submitted to Providence, and on Friday evening, the 29th. of November, 1872, Horace Greeley ceased to be of this world, and with his death a great journalist passed away.

Since the 18th of June, 1869, three of our leading editors have died: Henry J. Raymond, James Gordon Bennett, and Horace Greeley. They made their mark on this epoch. They made journalism in this country a profession, each in his own way, and after his own style. They established three great newspapers. One founded the Independent Press; the other two were among the last of the active, influential party editors that have flourished in the United States since September 17, 1789. With the death of the founder of the Tribune, party journalism pure and simple, managed by accomplished and experienced editors, inaugurated by Jefferson and Hamilton, aided by such writers as Fenno, Bache, Duane, Freneau, Coleman, Cheetham, Ritchie, and Croswell, has ceased to exist, and Independent Journalism becomes a fact impressed on the minds of the people; and it is not likely that any other class can hereafter prosper in this country, and be a power in the United States.

Horace Greeley was an editor clearly of the political school. He was educated in the Log Cabin, his primary school, to the Tribunehis Harvard College of journalism. His fixed views on public matters made him a leading party editor. It would have been difficult for him, had he lived, to keep pace with the new class of papers without the infusion of fresher, younger, more unbiased intellects. Henry J. Raymond was a pupil of the Tribune school, and, with all his efforts to the contrary, he found it impossible to remain out of the political field. Still, these two journalists were more or less independent, even as party organs, because they soared above the mere politicians that controlled the primary elections and nominating conventions of the land. James Gordon Bennett, although a partisan editor for twelve or fifteen years, was never a politician. He never wanted political office, and would never accept of any nomination. He always looked upon the Press as superior to Party. Hence the success of the Herald as an independent journal. This success, together with the shabby treatment that Horace Greeley always received from the politicians, as shown so clearly and plaintively in his public card dissolving the partnership of Seward, Weed & Co., would have made the Tribune a more independent paper in spite of the life-long tastes of its founder.

But all this now belongs to the past. Only two or three of the old party editors remain in active life. James Watson Webb, Francis P. Blair, and Thurlow Weed have retired from the ranks of journalism. Charles Gordon Greene, of the Boston Post, James Brooks, of the New York Express, and William Cullen Bryant, of the New

York Evening Post, are still at work. All the others known to fame have passed from this world; and we have endeavored, in our poor way, to enroll their names on the pages of history.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

There have been changes in the offices of two other newspapers, sketches of which are given in the preceding pages.

Ist. It is announced that R. Barnwell Rhett, Jr., formerly of the Charleston (S. C.) Mercury, has become chief editor of the New Orleans Picayune, which paper, it appears, is no longer owned by one man, but by an association of shareholders.

2d. The St. Louis Republican, for a long time a blanket sheet in size and folio in form, has been changed to the quarto form, after the style of the leading journals of New York City. Also, that the Republican is to be located in a splendid new building erected especially for its use, and will be printed on three kinds of pressesHoe's, Bullock's, and Walter's—the latter the invention of the principal proprietor of the London Times.

That we may keep pace with the subjects of our sketches, it may be fair to state that any further additions to our facts will be given in second and third editions.