The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1854-09-21
RELATIVE vALUEs-NEwspApERs, ETC.

worthy friend of the Anti Slavery cause in
Illinois, subscribing for the Era Says
would have subscribed several years ago, but
for its enormous price"
Let us sec. The Era is 81 year to a single
subscriber, or 81 so, when taken in club OF
ten. You pay $3.50, suppose, for bushel
Of potatoes in the West; here the price, is SO
bushel. Now, how long will the busheI last
you! With a family of reasonable size, you
will cat it up in two weeks. In other words
you eat up, in fourteen meals, in the form OF
potatoes, one dollar and fifty cents Ayera-
ging your meals out West" ct half an hour,
you have seven hours Of enjoyment of potato
mastieatiOn, for Sl.5O-purely animal enjoy
ment.
For the same price, $3.50, you secure fifty
two numbers Of the National Era, with its
news, its correspondence, It's poetry, its essays,
its tales, its political discussions The Same
amount Of money that gives you fourteen
meals on potatoes, brings you ffsy-twO meals on
the National Era ; and you take as much
time in masticating one number of the Era,
which costs you but three cents, as you do, in
operating on the whole bushel of potatoes,
which costs you fifty times more Query
which gives you the greater enjoyment
How many such speeches ss those Of Sumner
Chase, or Smith, would you weigh against
bushel of potatoes? You got the whole Of
Uncle TOMS Cabin in about thirty-six num-
beers of the Era, before it was published any
where else; those numbers cost only S1.OS
How many bushels of potatoes would you have
given, rather than have missed it
" But, potatoes are necessaries of life" you
say. Not SO much as good newspapers. In
telligence and sound principle are just as ne
cessary to spiritual life as food is to animal
and which is the greater, the body, which
goes down TO the grave and perisheth, or the
soul that ascends to God, and liveth forever
You grudgo nothing to your inferior and NOR
tai part, you grudge everything to the divinity
within you.
But to return to potatoes. You can do with
ont them better than you can without good
newspaper They are not at all necessary
Meat and bread, end butter and milk, and a
dozen different sorts of vegetables, will keep
you in health and flesh.
But you must be a remarkable man, and
your family a remarkable family if at this age
of the world you can be mentally and morally
active and efficient without good newspaper
And yet $3.50 for bushel of potatoes is res-
sOnable, while the Same for the National Era
is enormous!"
Again: All things 60 up in price, except
newspapers: rents wages of labor, cotton,
breadstufs, paper, all 20 up. The paper ma.
ker raises his price, and tho editor must pay
1t; the typosetter demands an increase, and
tho editor must yield the butcher tells him
beef has gone up, and the editor must pay the
difference, or 90 boehess. He must pay twelve
and @ half cents more for bis butter, double
for his vegetables, two, three, or four dollars
higher for his barrel of flour and while
everything is going up his family goes up too.
but should the poor devil undertake to follow
the fashion, and put up his paper fifty cents
year. or at tho rate of one cont week, whew
what thundergust of protests you would
hear from his subscribers Hard times sends
your potatoes up fifty cents bushel, but you
grin and bear it, potatoes you must and will
have. Look at it: perhaps you may reduce
the quantity, and restrict yourself to a bushel
IN three weeks, or about seventeen for the year
Recollect, they are not necessaries-you could
easily do without them-but rather than make
the sacrifice, you pay thirty four dollars for
the enjoyment, or thirty-two dollars and fifty
cents moro than you pay for your newspaper.
The increase in the price, 80 cents bushel,
or SO so year, does not weigh with you
potatoes you viii haye-but pay fifty cents
more year to your editor for the paper-no,
you'll 8 be hanged" if you do!
Do not be alarmed-we do not mean to raise
the price of the Era-we know too much of
human nature for shat; but we would have
you see the unreasonsbleness Of undertaking to
cheaper your newspapers. Beyond all doubt
they are the cheapest article you consume
probably nothing that costs You SO little, bene-
fits you so much. As general thing their
publishers work hard and risk much. You
cheaper your papers, and they must cheaper
their materials. When hard times come, and
prices rise, they cannot increase their subscrip-
ton price, or you would out them; 30 they must
print on cheaper paper, renew their type less
frequently, reduce the corps of their contribu-
tors. The very cheapness of your papers pre-
vents them from appearing in handsome dress
and with wellfurnished columns. Apparent
exceptions there are but they confirm the
rule. Take, for example, the New York
Tribune. Oh, you say, there Is large pa
per, well printed, well filed, and we get it at
81 copy, in clubs. Yes-bus did the editor
never tell you that the one dollar would not
pay the cost of white paper? You, who be-
heve that the laborcr is worthy of his hire, and
would shrink from being furnished with your
butter gratis, get the Tribune in part as q
grGtuify The money you send, does not pay
The cost. How, then, does the editor mako up
the loss Out of his advertisements The
advertising class of the Tribune pays for the
newspaper sent TO the subscribing class And
then, some people wonder we do not print our
paper at 81 year! But, even the Tribune
establishment has been obliged, in consequence
of the general increase in prices, to reduce the
size of its shoot The Tribune would have
been better of, its influence just as great
the press generally, especially in the country
would have been better OF, nobody would have
been the loser, and the miserable policy Of
cheapening papers below the point of respect
able support would have been checked, had
that paper never gone down to the dollar rate
We hope our friend In Illinois viii not think