The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-01-28


tribution of the Press.
From the New York sun.
There are in the United states about
2110 daily newspapers-the Woru
about Is used in that connection IN
view of the fact that the able ana
persistent statisticians VINO collect
newspaper figures are not always TO pe
relied upon, at least. their figures are
not beyond the round-number unit
However, they are near enough lot
the purposes of this article.
1t might be naturally and pardonably
inferred that New York leads this iist'
but it does not. Pennsylvania having
1856 dailies to 1888 in New York. Illinois
comes next with 1863, Ohio fourth, with
100, Indiana fifth. with $50, and cali
fornia sixth, with 112, and no other
state has as high as 100. The last in
the string are the District of Columbia
and Wyoming, with each 1t may be
noted,as a sort of a sooth, that Mass
achusetts, the educational center OF
the universe, with 81, is first amcnS
those out of the hundred class.
PECULIARIrIES.
A study of the daily newspaper as
herein set forth may be of interest az
showing the character and enterprise
of the people of a country. 1t also
shows few peculiarites, and proves
that reasoning by analogy doesn't al
ways come out according to rule. For
instance. it might be supposed that If a
city of $4,000 people, as is Guthrie,
fyy4
e., city ten times that size ought to have
twenty morning papers, whereas, it not
only does not. but it must grow to be
larger than any city in the United
States except New York city, when.
with thirty morning papers, is eighteen
to the good of Chicago and Philadel-
phia. with a dozen each. 1t might also
be inferred that if city of 1900 people
had no evening paper as Guthrie has,
then towns of that size do not support
evening papers, whereas every town
of that size in the country, and mary
considerably less, have evening papers,
unless they are practically suburbs of
large cities. Therefore, the facts knock
the analogy rule galley-west, so to say.
And yet it would seem that as small
towns can and do support daily news
better showing in the same direc-
tion, though it may be allowed that
the extra cost Of the dailies in the
large cities enables them to make it
possible for the dailies to exist in the
smaller towns. the bulk of the news in
such papers being confined to the less
expensive local matter. There are
very few if any towns in this country
Of sufficient size to supper. Ii daily
paper which are not near enough to
large city to receive the dalies on
the day of issue, and all the small
towns subscribe literally to the city
dailies, thus enabling local editors to
save expensive telegraph tolls, and
make their papers interesting by pub
fishing such local news in detail as
the city papers do not have.
IN THE BIG CITIES.
OF the cities Of the United States,
New York city heads the lisC with 55
dailies, 81 morning and "a evening
which includes n number of stock, law
and other class papers which arc not
really newspapers. OF these all OF the
morning and 10 of the evening papers
are published in the borough of Man
haitian. This number for a population
of about 100000 is smaller in pro-
portion than that of other large cities.
for Chicago, with 100000 and Phila-
delphia with 100000, have q and 20
dailies each. And here appears an
other popularity, to Wit, the prevalence
OF the evening paper. New York has
more morning than evening papers,
and Philadelphia more, while Chi
cago has Z more evening than morn
ing papers In other words. Chicago
has less evening papers than New
YORK with its much larger population
and more than Philadelphia. Why
this should be so is not altogether
clear, for il is generally understood
that the Chicagoese are fond of amuse-
ments and gadding about, while the
Philadelphians are noted as home
bodies, and il Is known fact that
the people who stay home OF nights
like their evening papers. Among New
York dallies are Italian, l French, g
German, bohemian, / Arabic and 3
Hebrew or more dailies in foreign lam
guases than any other city in the
Union except Chicago ana Philadel-
phia, has of all kinds; and the same
number. Is, that San Francisco has.
by the way, Chicago, with ! German
papers, makes better ccmparative
showing than New York does. She has
IL dailies in foreign languages. Z Ger
man, Bohemian, Polish and Sean
dinaVian, which is more than any 9TH
er except San Francisco, which has &
ltalian' German and ! japanese,
having in this last regard scoop on
all other cities, even polyglot New
York not being up TO that Japanese
staNard.
ATIos TO POPULATION.
While no regular ratio Of papers tn
population exists in towns which have
hut one paper or even two evening
papers, 1t seems that a morning paper
and an evening paper do not estab-
lish themselves in a town until il has
at least $4,000 people But this does
not mean that city of $4,000 people
VIII have twice that many. for figures
show that it is hard shedding in most
cities of $4,000 TO carry two morning
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