The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-07-23
UNIQUE PARIS JOURNAL.
French Paper of Huge Circulation
Thrives on Crime and Fiction.
From, the Pail Mall Cave %

French Paper of Huge Circulation
Thrives on Crime and Fiction.
From the Pail Mall Gaze te.
The latest event in the history of
journalism is the enlargement of LIE
Petit Journal. One may pause to glance
at the history of this remarkable news
paper. il only because it has better
tide than any of its rivals to adver-
tise it's circulation as the largest in
the world
The paper dates from 1868, and its
founder was banker named Moses
Millaud. In those days of small circu-
lations it began with a sale of 10000
copies, sprang in Il year or two to $780,
600 copies, grew and grew until it turn
ed the million, was fioated as a conf
pany and paid prodigious dividends. In
the interest of those persons who
think of investing their hard-earned
savings in newspaper property it is
Worth while to enumerate the means
by which this great success has been
achieved.
In the first place, the paper catered
for new public. Previous daily papers
had only catered for politicians, the
noulevards and society. The directors
of LIE Petit Journal decided to aim
straight at the great heart of the peo-
ple-to satisfy the literary cravings of
the grisette, the dame DIES halles, the
concierge and the haIf-educated fire.
quenters of the village cafe. They faced
two problems the problem of getting
at these people and the problem of CIV
ing them exactly what they wanted.
The former problem was solved by
sending out commercial travellers. For
many years representatives of the pa
per drove all over the country. ne
| glecting no hamlet, however remote
from the railway, arranging that some
citizen should always have LIE Petit
/ Journal on sale wherever there was a
| cluster of houses. The resalt is that
to this day, when you f1atter yourself
| that you have driven or walked or
/ cycled far out of the reach of news
papers, you suddenly come upon a
notice board inviting you to buy this
| particular paper at a farmhouse or a
| smithy or a laborer's cottage.
! AS regards the contents of the paper,
| its directors either guessed or discov-
cred that what their new public wanted
was, in the first place, a complete
chronicle of contemporary crime, and a
| daily installment of a sensational SER
ial story The chronicle of crime, OF
course, was easy to supply without
suborning criminals, by giving careful
instructions to a great army of &C.
casional correspondents. Horrors were
raked in from every corner of the
land. One read how one man had set
fire to farmers haystack and another
had thrown his mother-in-l law out Of
window. and a third had pitched a
baby down a well. and so on through
several columns, and the public aimed
at was delighted.
An even more popular feature. how
ever. was the serial story. Moses
Millaud, who inaugurated the policy of
! publishing them, was given by popular
| reclamation the proud title of the
! father of the feulleton;" and the editor
| of the paper presently had the good
luck to discover Emile Riehebourg, the
| greatest writer of feuilletons that the
! world has ever seen.
| Ones heart goes out to Emile Richie
| bourg, because he knew what he wrote
was rubbish and never posed as a man
| of letters. 1t was no part of his task
| to penetrate the hidden places of the
| human heart. He wrote of missing
! wills and long-lost uncles and round
| lings who turned out to be the heirs
to great estates. He was generally
engaged upon several of these stories
at the same time and, in order that
| he might not confuse them or forget
| the color of his heroine's hair. he used
to have sets of dolls made and labeled
| to represent his personages, kept each
set of dolls in separate drawer and
always stood the proper puppets on
the desk IN front of him when he was
! writing. One does not readily picture
proud man of letters working in this
fashion, but Emile Richebourg found
that it served his purpose very we'll.
Not even the proudest of the men Of
letters earned such a large income
so steadily as he did. For he was the
| one Indispensable man.