The morning call., 1894-08-27
ENGLISH JOURNALISM.

The announcement that the London
Saturday ReUieaD has been sold is a piece
of news which is not less interesting be-
cause it was expected. The Saturday Re
uie1C is one of the oldest of the London
weekies. 1t was a contemporary of the
Observer. the Spectator and the Examiner,
in their palmy days. 1t was started by
the most rabid of raoid Tories. BeresforG
Hope, as a paper written by gentlemen
for gentlemen" AS matter of fact it
aimed to be the mouthpiece of English
spite English prejudice, English venom.
1t not only saw nothing good in anything
that was foreign. but it saw little to admire
at home. 1t abused with considerable i'm
partiality English books, English pictures.
English plays and English men. Having
thus acquired the nickname of the Satur-
day Reviler, it labored faithfully to justify
il. Beresford Hope belonged to the Bent
inck-SibthOrp school, which has not been
largely represented of late years in Eng
lish society; the Saturday could WELD its
tomahawk without fearing to wound its
friends.
Withal. the Saturday manned its staff
with the ablest and most brilliant writer's
in England. Everybody spoke i'll of il,
but everybody read it. is trenchant eriti-
cisms were pleasant reading for every one
but the victim. John Bull enjoyed the ex-
coriation of every one he knew. There
are people outside of England who relish
abuse of those whose success in life has
made them shining marks. Still, every
thing pals in time. even scolding, and
when Truth and Vanity Far and the
World sprang up, the brightest writers,
with the exception of Andrew Lang, de-
serted the Saturday, and to its maliguity
it began to add dizziness. Then its subserip-
ton list fell off, and now a property which
was worth thousands of pounds has been
sold for as many hundreds.
The English periodicals contrast curl
ously with ours. In our cities about ten
times as many daily papers Fl urish as in
the cities of England, and the English
papers are not as rule as profitable as
ours. With the exec tion of the London
Times and Telegraph. the london dailies
are held at lower prices than our leading
dailies. But London supports a much
larger crop of weeklies of general circula-
ton than New York. There are O papers in
New York, which take the place of the
London Truth and the World. In fact,
with the exception of Harper'S Weekly,
which is becoming a sporting paper, there
is no first-class weekly in that city. There
are balf dozen sheets which come under
that designation In London, and besides
there are score of cheap weeklies which
have obtained a prodigious circulation.
Some years ago gentleman named
Newnes established a paper called lid
bits. and shortly afterward a magazine
entitled the Strand. He has made him.
self millionaire and is 10 Parliament.
The problem which William Waldorf
Astor is working out is puzzling the Eng.
lish public. He is giving them for a shil-
ling magazine which. according to their
reckoning, costs shilling and half to
make. They say that he is throwing away
his money in order to see his own matter
in print. But when a periodical attains a
vast circulation the profits of that circula-
tion are matter OF secondary Importance.
Advertisers supply the means TO carry on
the enterprise. If Astor presently gets rid
of his titled editors and replaces them with
journalists who know their business he
may command sale which will reward
him for his outlay. The sale need not be
confined to England. People in this coun-
try are getting tired of the monotonous
routine of our monthlies and are quite
ready for change wherever it comes
from.