The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-03
NEW NEWSPAPER

be beneficially laid to heart by the promoters
of new enterprises in journalism on this side
of the Atlantic.
Certainly the Pail MdH has not failed for
any lack of brains in its management. In
point of literary ability it has been at the
head of English journals. Its articles have
not only been well written but they have
been carefully read and sought for by men of
special information on their several topics.
No more luminous discussion has been had
in journalism than that of English political
and social subjects in its columns. Besides
the leaders, in which the Times alone rivalled
it and in which it usually outshone the
Times, it had the sense to see that man could
not live by heavy leaders alone. 1t was the
first daily paper in Great Britain to add to
itself, as a regular department, the edito-
rial paragraphs which have long been
Characteristic of American newspapers
These we're always timely and always we'll
done, and though not always up to the
mark of French brilliancy or American
''snap," they were ethereal lightness to the
previous daily literary food of the solid
Briton. The news was always fully summa-
rized in it, and in its mechanical features, as
well as in many of its literary features, it was
what the theatrical people call an attractive
novelty. n r
Notwithstanding all these attractions it
has failed, for no other apparent reason than
'laborers" indeed were plenteous, but the
harvest was 'few." 1t could only succeed by
wrestling from newspapers Of longer date the
vantage ground which that priority of estab-
lishment gave them. 1t attempted to supply
the place. in some measure, both of the Times
and the Telegraph. 1t had more than all the
scholarship of the one, and many of the popu-
lar features of the other. 1t was better got
up than either of them, and it sold at
price between them. It was an attempt to
publish a costly paper of limited interest at
price at which only a cheap paper of
general interest could be made successful
The IeIegrdph succeeds because it appeals to
the enormous half-educated class and its
publication costs comparatively little. The
Times succeeds because, although its publ
cation is costly and a great part of its
contents cdg5dTe to the general, it has an ad-
vertising business which has taken three
quarters of century to build up, and which
makes it q necessity to many to whom other
papers are luxury. The IGH Mall failed
because it took the tone of the Times with
out the chance of acquiring the chief support
of the Times, and sold at a price at which
only such circulation as that attained by
the Telegraph could be remunerative, without
chance of attaining the popularity of the
Telegraph. Between these two stools it has
fallen to the ground.
The year has made several important con-
tributions to British newspaper neurology.
The slow old Morning Herald has given up
it's feeble ghost, though its death presents no
| marked features of difference from its life.
| The ardent young Star, the bright but not
| particular Star" of Punch, merged its filter
| ing ray into the NeWs. And now the morn
| ing edition which was the forlorn hope of
the Pail Mall has failed, after brief career
of brilliant literary success and gloomy
economic disaster. ......
| The Gazette, which is the only one of these
failures over which there will be any regret
except in the bosoms and pockets of their
| projectors, aspired to be, according to the
prospectus of Thackeray, "a paper written by
| gentlemen for gentlemen. But the class Of
conventional gentlemen is limited, in Eng
land as elsewhere; and paper which appeals
| to them alone must be made successful either
by an increase of price or some extraneous
means of support, such as the e1InaeS possesses
| In its advertisements.
| The newspaper is rapidly developing by
differentiation. The journals of the future
1 will be of two sorts-a journal for the few,
| and a journal for the many. The former will
| be decorous and dear; there is reason to fear
that the latter will be cheap and nasty. The
one may be paper written by gentlemen
| for gentlemen" the other by blackguards for
blackguards. The impossibilities of journal
ism in the future will be high priced low
1
| paper, such as the Pail Mall Gazette tried to
be. Those who are projecting or prosecuting
| either will save their money and their peace
of mind by stopping where they are. Indeed,
| it is not probable that the future of journal.
ism will be in the way of multiplication at all,
but only of improvement.
| SUBTER RANEAN BROADWAY = WHO
OWNS IT?
From, the N. y. Herald
What an astonishing subterranean puzzle
Broadway will be one of these days if all the
'grand enterprises" that are promised OF
threatened shall be completed. There are
just three underground railway schemes.
With the Arcade Railway, the latest and
greatest monstrosity proposed, the public is
familiar. 1t proposes to plough up Broadway
and scoop it out to sufficient depth to run
a railway train just beneath the surface, and
then make new surface which will never be
in order, so that the public will be indef-
nitely deprived of the use of the street. There
is also what is called the Central Under.
ground Railway, the law authorizing which
was passed last year, and is not now repealed
or set aside, nor the rights accruing under il
in any way provided for by the new law fol
the Arcade Railway. Yet the bills are clearly
inconsistent, and there must inevitably be
collision of claims, for a great part of the
line of the Central Underground Railway
runs beneath Broadway. The contracts
for the construction of the Central Under
ground Railway are made, and the
Arcade Railway cannot, we suppose, very
easily oust its predecessor of the right given
by law. Can the State, under the Constitu-
ton of the United States, pass q law to i'm