Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1852-1852, 1852-12-24
From the London Sun.
Tax OH KnOWledge-American and
English NeWsDapers.

lHc LdACS Ou huOhiSOsoO H'uoI oO SPS"Se S'o
l,ng; no one doubts it. Argument has settled
the question il every mind acquainted with the
subect and it only remains for all adequate
number of minds to give their attention to it,
and the thing is done forever. The press in
En- gland once iberated-lberatel not by mob
revolution by full discussion, both within
and without the walls Of Parliament will never
be enslaved again. Enslaved! some reader may
exclaim-ycs enslared, we repeat. The news
paper press works in fetters. 1t is chained to
Downing strcet-chaincd to the Excise office
chained to the Stamp Office, it is trebly chained;
it works under the load Of paper duty, a stamp
duty and an advertisement duty. How it works
at all, is the wonder; and we doubt not that the
lions share of the fruits of its labor goes into
the pocket ofits oppressor Nothing can more
irrefutably demonstrate its bondage in England
than the contrast with America. There the
periodical press of every class is really free
No duty of any kind checks ,,'o.e'"e...s-
What is the consequence! Take New York and
Liverpool two great commercial neighbors, with
in ten days sail Of each other In New York,
at least 100000 copies Of daily newspapers are
circulated in the city alone. In Liverpool there
is not one daily paper. The contrast with London,
the fountain of English daily papers, is almost
as glarng. London, which numbers its popula-
ton by millions, has ten daily papers. New York,
which reckons its population Ly hundreds ofthou-
sands only, has fifteen. London ought, by thesame
proport IN, to have forty or fifty. Three-fourths
Of all tn, families in America take daily paper
every skilled operative takes one-nay, almost
every workman enjoys the privilege Of the sub
stantial London citizen, and has his own news
paper regularly with his breakfast.
Such unquestioned facts as these affirm, be-
yond the possibility of denial, the bondage Of
the English newspaper press. Our manufactu-
rers of the raw materials, our printers and pub
fishers, our editors, are no ways inferior to the
American in skill and enterprise. We could
beat them. We do beat them in every manu-
facture which is free at home.s We send them
our textile fabrics, and our hardwarcs, even in
spite of their high protective duties. In cheap
production of almost every kind. no country can
surpass US, and certainly not America. There
can be, then but one reason for the humiliating
disparity Of our newspaper circulation, and that
is, that our press is heavily fettered. 1t is to
little purpose to begin calculations attempting to
prove that the burdens oD the newspapers are
not very heavy after all. That the paper duty
is only an amount per sheet which no coin will
express; that the penny stamp is but twenty
per cent. on a five penny paper and the adver-
tisement duty but eighteen-pence for each inser
ton; the broad answer is, that the working Of
all three combined is such, that New York takes
100000 copies Of the daily papers, while Liver
pool has not single daily paper of her own, and,
at most, takes few scores, possibly a hundred
or two, of the London dailies. BY little con-
sideraton, indeed, it is easy to see the execrable
working of three duties. Every man of business
knows that the Excise regulations and interfer-
euce augment the cost of paper probably as much
as the duty does. Then the stamp and the ad
vertisement duties necessitate the expense Of in
creased capital, on the part especially of the ac
tual sellers of the paper, the newsmen. Again,
the limitation Of the sale, but the increased cost
of the paper reacts upon the cost itself, since
every newspaper is obliged to incur preliminary
expenses for each impression, which, if distribu-
ted over double or treble the number of copies,
would lower the proportion of those expenses
which belonged to each copy. tits obvious that
in these ways, and Others which might be men
toned, the three taxes enhance the cost OF the
newspaper considerably beyond their own abso-
lutte amount.
THE LAST ANEcDoTE.-"Who's that ero Mr..
Scattering, that always gets few votes at our
town meetings. % enquired an old lady, a few days
since, Of her spouse, as she was busily engaged in
nernsino q neWspaper