New-York tribune., 1884-01-17
Balm FOR 4 FOUNDED NEIGHBOR.

Our reduced contemporary, The NeW HOrk
Times, is in chronic state Of unhappiness about
TnE TRIBUNE. One day it snars because we
haven't exposed the Public Works Department
enough the next, because we have exposed it
too much. A story of its own invention, that
the politicians are scheming to give THE
| TRIBUNE Editor an ofce-in spite of his
prompt declination of Office whenever ten
dered-throws it into spasms; and his
annual trip to Albany to discharge
the duties of his unsalaried life position as
member of the Board of Regents always gives
it the Mysteries.
We are really unable to return this deep con-
cern AS our columns habitually show, we
don't care straw what The Ne,o- York Times
does or says, or thinks-if it is capable of the
latter process-and we don't crafty it by notice
once in a hundred times, even when it dcib
erately ISLANDERS us. We are busy, contented
and prosperous its state of mind, body and
estate can be easily inferred from its ill-tcm-
pered and unhappy columns Yesterday it broke
out on the old question of circulation which
has so often vexed its twO-cent soul, and ended
a prepOsterous calculation about this journal
by the foolish and slandorOus boast that it now
reaches four times many readers as THE
TRIBUNE. 1t does not reach four times as
many, or three times as many, or in spite of
its cutting its price in two, twice as many, and
nobody knows this fact better than the braggart
who puts forth the absurd claim
A short time after the reductions in price,
last fall, the Editor of THE TRIBUNE happened
to say to an interviewer that, instead of being
injured, THE TRIBUNE had already gained at
least six thousand Months later, some one
not the Editor-telegraphe that we had then
gained thirty per cent-which is, like the
former statement, under the truth. Thereupon
the sagaciOus twO-Cent person, reckoning mo
doubt from his own experienced that there
could be no possibility of gain after the first
two OF three weeks, assumes that the six thou
sand of October is the thirty per cent of Jan
uary. In point of fact there has not been,
on THE TRIBUNE, week since when
there was not steady and t0lerably uniform
gain. If then The Times is so eager for our fig
ures, let it take the above fact and calculate
again after its own fashion. One months gain
was six thousand; three months gain would be
eighteen thousand; eighteen thousand is thirty
per cent and this gives total of sixty thou
sandwich is goo al more than The Times
ever had The absurd figure The IimesS foolish
calculation assigns THE TRIBUNE represents, of
course, a lower circulation than THE TRIBUNE
has once touched or approached, even Oh the
very dulest day, for the last ten years at least,
and for how many more we cannot tell.
But is il an unnaturally low figure for The
Times to name or be thinking about ? Let as
calculate a little. The Times says that on the
morning of its reduction, without any notice to
the newsdealers or the public, 1t gained Il, 900
to every newsdealer that on that |
morning it simply, on its own responsible |
ity, doubled every order it received. The |
amount of every order it received then on that |
morning, outside its mail list, was according to |
its own best showing, precisely t,celre housandl |
This goes far to confirm the amazing statement
of some of the heaviest advertisers in New
York that The IimesS sensational and at lirst,
inexplicable reduction TO One-half its former
price was simply the desperate device of
a drowning man-that its total circula-
ton, including its mail list had at that
time sunk to barely nineteen thousand If
its orders were only twelve thousand, the total,
including mail list, may even have been less
than nineteen thousand If we may Judge by
the pitiful comparison its circulation through
the mails makes with THE TRTBUNEs. There is
not an edition on which we do not mail twice as
much there are some on which we mail three and
four times as much. Fortunately this is a matter
easily settled, for the Post Office Department
las an accurate record of all it sends We
hereby ION our part) authorize the Postmaster
General to furnish to The Ne,e- Ork Times an
,xact statement of the total payments on postage
by THE TRIBUNE and The lines respectively,