Year: 1862

! The Utica Herald leads off in the change


which newspapers will be compelled to
make, if they would bring their expendi-
lures within their receipts. Several others
are preparing to follow, and it will not be
many weeks before newspapers, especially
dailies, must advance its price or use a
smaller sheet. The reasons for this are so
well stated by the Herald, that we copy
them;


All sorts Of crises have had their day.
A crisis for newspapers is now at hand
Their price has been a thing fixed. The
cost of all articles, which go to their pro-
duction, has increased manifold within
few months. The charge for telegraphic
news assessed by the agent Of the As
sociated Press of New York, has
been magnifed some fifty per cent
The cost Of white paper has ad-
vanced more than fifty per cent, and no
one can make contracts at present prices
for month in advance. The tax on ad-
vertisements, on job printing, and on all
articles used in g printing Office, foot up q
formidable aggregate. The cost of pro-
dueing this journal, of the same size as
heretofore, and of the edition we now print,
has been increased since July last in the
ratio of more than tsOsyVe thousand dollars
year.


"Only part of this increased cost can be
charged against advertising. The pub
Usher can be expected to stand only a
small share of it. 1t is not q transient
burden which q business man might en-
dure, out Of confidence in the future Pa
per must be scarce and high, until cotton
becomes plenty in market, or 3 substitute
is provided for it for the manufacture #
pulp. Rags cannot be imported in any
great quantity; for the same influences
are at work to produce scarcity throughout
the world. The fertility of invention has
suggested many substitutes; wood, straw,
shaYings, ibrous weeds, have all been used
to some extent but neither has yet sup
piled the place in favor and in use Of cot
ton rags. The most successful discovery
viii require some time to meet the demand
for paper, and while we may hope for we
cannot act upon any abundance of the old
material, or the production of any substi-
tute for it. Yet the cost for white paper
is, for On edition like ours, seventy per
cent. of the whole cost of production
While that stands at its present figures,
with prospect Of still further increase,
some relief must be afforded, for all news
papers have Of late been printed at loss,
and that state of things being long contin-
ued would not leave many Of them living.


Two modes Of relief are possible; first,
an increase of from 30 to so per cent. in the
price ofthe newspaper to subscribers and
agents. and second, a slight reduction in
size, which will hesitate an advance in
the rate Of advertising, but none in the
subscription price Of the paper. The New
York papers, we understand, propose to
adopt the former course, as have several
journals in the interior Of the State. We
prefer to act upon the other policy, and
while leaving the price of our paper un-
changed, to furnish the best newspaper
possible for the money"


The Herald has also the following timely
hint:


Wrapping and writing paper has been
cheap, and therefore it has been used pro
fusely and wsstefuIly. The time has come
to economize.-Let the half sheet be used
when it will answer the purpose intended.
Turn the envelopes and use them q second
time. Pick up the scraps and save them
to be made over. Paper has advanced so
per cent, chiefly because the material for
making it is scarce. Save all such mat
erial that you can. If this kind of eeono-
my should be generally practiced, it would
not fail to considerably modify prevailing
prices, and be Of immense advantage to the
reading and publishing community.