Thibodaux minerva. [volume] (Thibodaux, La.) 18??-1858, 1854-02-04
Newspapers.

Among the things that particularly surprised
.be facetious Bum, while in this country, was
the strong newspaper taste Of Brother Jonathan
"A newspaper in America" says the droll dog
blinded to, sis the most serious of all daily con-
alterations. A newspaper constitutes the very
breath of Jonathan's nostrils, it is the guide of
his opinion, the furtherance Of all his views
and its influence, therefore, over him is in
credible There are nearly three thousand
n.pers of one description or another in the
United States, which circulate according to au-
tboritative statistics upwards of four hundred
and twenty millions of copies per annum! Every
hotel and coffee house, down to the lowest cabaret
in town or country, takes in one or two. They
are sold at all corners of the streets, hawked
from door to door-displayed upon public stalls
-paraded through every railway station directly
the cars stop-cried about on the decks Of
every steamer, and trumpeted forth from pillar
to post Stroll through the streets and you will
see the urchin who sells them often detain his
CO stomer until he has finished his column. Go
itSo the markets; the butcher cuts open his
paper before he cuts up his pork; the ishmonger
digests the leading article before he troubles
himself about selling any other article; and the
green grocer looks through the market pages
before he thinks of regulating his own prices"
This, like most of Mr.. Alfred Bunn's pictures
of America, is somewhat highly cos9red, but in
its main features, it may be taken asa literally
correct portrait. Some intended caf;catures,
By the way, are the best portraits-the famous
one Of John Wilkes, with that awful squirt, for
example.
Bum, however, does not touch the philosophy
of what seems to him only an enigma. 1t is the
cheapness of newspapers that makes them so
popular, in comparison with those of the old
world. The same cause operates to the immense
diffusion of cheap editions of expensive English
works in this country. A late traveller in Eu-
rope adverts to the vast difference in the number
of readers of books in this country and in Britain
and attributes this to the high price and neces-
sarily limited editions in the latter. He says
truly, that the new works forwarded to the
nobility may be seen months after their publica-
ton, with uncut leaves on the library tables
Poetry is far less read; Tennyson and the Brown
sngs have hundred American to one English
admirer; and until Dickens established "House-
hold Words but few periodicals reached the
masses in which reliable information was diff
fused at price and with the graces Of style re-
quisite for its general usefulness. The essays
Of Carlyle, Macaulay, De Quincy, and other
valuable contributors to British periodical ltera
ture, were first collected on the American side
of the water.
No wonder that the popular and prolific au-
thors of the day look with longing eye upon
the immense profits which are yearly ACQUIRING
to American booksellers by the free and un-
restricted republication of British books in the
United States. Some of our publishers are
honest enough to pay something for the ad-
vance sheets of works in press in England, but
we fear it is only when they are apprehensive
that some of their brethren win get ahead Of
them in such generosity Memphis Express.