The New York herald., 1876-01-13
social science and JournaIism.

That 'bachelors' wives make good
mothers" is the principle, we suppose, on
which Mr.. G. G.. Hubbard undertook to state
the facts and elucidate the philosophy of
''The Daily Newspaper Press" to the Ameri-
can Social Science Association, at Boston,
yesterday. 1t is a fine principle, and allows
the shoemaker not only to go ultra crepiddp,
but permits every tailor and blacksmith to
say wise things about shoemaking. From
such essays journalists learn things they
never suspected before, and in publishing
them proclaim theories about their own busi-
ness which they never dreamed OF. 1t is too
bad that real journalists have not time to
spare to tell the world the facts about jour
nalism but as they would have to begin by
relegating the Hubbards to their little cup
boards and contesting their odd remarks and
queer facts, perhaps it is just as well that
journalists have work enough of the
proper kind to do. That interesting
creature, the 'New York correspondent
of the country papers, furnishes fund
of startling information on this subject when
real news is dull, but we are saddened to
think of the joke which has been palmed off
on the -rim-spectacled Social Science
sages of Boston by presenting these familiar
old myths to them as history of journalism.
1t would have been very easy for Mr.. Hub
bard to have gained little trustworthy in
formation by applying at few newspaper
offices; but Boston is all soul, and few lofty
fbnYubfc ba mo in Of va
wreathings of the country papers go down
like baked beans on a Sunday morning. We
are sorry we have not room for more than
synopsis of Mr.. Hubbards little novel. The
HERALD has published sixty columns of ad-
vertisements in day, he says. This is true,
because it has published nearly ninety col
umns, and the greater contains the less.
The Tribune, he says, began stereotyping on
this side of the Atlantic in 1861. The
HERALD used the stereotype process in 1860,
the same that Dalgani introduced into the
London Times, the American invention Mr..
Hubbard speaks of being a modification
for the worse of that process, and soon aban
doned. The Hoe rotary ten cylinder press,
he says, printed twenty thousand copies, and
the Hoe perfecting press thirty-two thousand
copies an hour We like large figures, but
twelve thousand is the extreme limit of the
one and eight thousand the other. The
double Bullock presses used by the HERALD
print from sixteen thousand to eighteen
thousand each per hour, and we are content !;
but then we are not furnishing wonder
stories for Boston. Then, as to circulation,
profit and influence, he says- But why
should we outrage our own modesty or that of
our neighbors by proving that newspapers
are published outside of Boston and Peoria
It is not often we can extract hearty laugh
from the details of our profession, and if the
Social Science people can only see the fun
of Mr.. Hubbard's paper as we do they will
not have altogether lost their time in listen
ing to it. We hope that the paper on
Homes for the People in Cities is not also
compiled from the country papers, for if it
is only as pastoral as Mr.. Hubbard's they
will find themselves discussing the comforts
of cowsheds instead of tenement house
horrors.