The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-08-02

their extraordinary number. They meet him
at every turn, of all sizes, shapes, characters,
prices, and appelations. On board the steamer
and on the rail, in the contingencies and the
hotel, in the street and in the private dwelling,
in the crowded thoroughfare and in the reno
test rural district he is ever sure of finding the
newspaper. There are daily, tri-weekly biweek-
| ly, and weekly papers, as with US; papers pure
" political, others of literary cast, and others
again simply professional; while there are
many of no particular character, combining ev-
erything in their columns. The proportion OF
daily papers is enormous. Almost every town,
down to communities of two thousand in num-
Der, has not only one but several daily papers.
The city of Rochester, for instance, with popu-
lation q little exceeding 10000, has FIVE; to say
nothing of the bi-weekly and weekly papers,
which are issued in it. was at first, with moth
ing but my European experience to guide me,
at loss to understand how they were all sup
ported. But found that in addition to the ex-
tent of their advertising patronage, which is
very great, advertisements being free of duty in
America, the number Of their readers is almost
co-extensive with that of the population. There
are few in America who do not both take in
and read their newspapers. English newspa-
pers are, in the first place, read but by few !;
| and, in the next, the number of papers read is
them. The chief circulation of English papers
is in exchanges, news-rooms, reading rooms,
hotels, taverns, coffee-houses, and pot-houses,
but fraction of those who read them Ia
king them in for themselves. Their high price
may have much to do with this. In Amer
lea, the case is totally different. Not only are
places of public resort well supplied with the
journals of the day, but most families take in
their paper, or papers. With u.s. it is chiefly the
inhabitants of towns that read the journals; in
America, the vast body of the rural population
peruse them with the same avidity and univer-
salty as do their brethren in the towns, Were
it otherwise, it would be impossible for the num-
Der which now appear to exist. But, as news
papers are multiplied, so are readers, every one
| reading and most subscribing to a newspaper.
Many families, even in the rural districts, are
not content with one, but must have two or more,
adding some metropolitan paper to the one or
two local papers to which they subscribe"
Such is the remarkable testimony Of this
eminent man and surely it is testimony
which is entitled to the attention of the whole
civilized world. There is no land where mind
is SO thoroughly cipated-where the peo-
pile are constituted so exclusively of thinking
beings; and the result is, such development
of mental and moral power, and such rapid
ty of social progress and national expansion, as
earth never before witnessed. Wherever you
find an American, be he Christian or In6del,
you find mind, foresight, adroitness, energy-in
a word, all the elements necessary to success.
England may well be proud of her glorious
child But while she admires, ought she not
to initiate? Can she be humbled by receiving
a lesson from nation which reflects her own
image, and adds to her own renown? Who
can doubt, that the Gripping and gagging sys-
tenn relative to the press, which is now about
to expire, has entailed upon England incalcu-
liable mischief? Who can doubt, that the re-
peal of the Stamp Act, now about to come into
full play, will, within the course of twenty-five
more years, put a completely new face on Brit
ish society, and raise our noble nation into the
most enlightened, moral, and religious people in
Chrstendom?