It is nearly four hundred years since the art of printing books was invented. Before that time all books were written by the hand. There were many persons employed to copy out books, but they were very dear, although the copiers had small wages. A Bible was sold for thirty pounds in the money of that day, which was equal to a great deal more of our money. Of course, very few people had Bibles or any other books. A mode was invented of imitating the written books by cutting the letters on wood, and taking off copies from the wooden blocks by rubbing the sheet on the back. Soon after, the idea was carried farther by casting metal types or letters, which could be arranged in words, and sentences, and pages, and volumes; and then a machine, called a printing-press, upon the principle of a screw, was made to stamp impressions of these types so arranged. There was an end, then, at once to the trade of the pen-and-ink copiers; because the copiers in types, who could press off several hundred books while the writers were producing one, drove them out of the market. A single printer could do the work of at least two hundred writers. At first sight this seems a hardship, for a hundred and ninety-nine people might have been, and probably were, thrown out of their accustomed employment. But what was the consequence in a year or two? Where one written book was sold, a thousand printed books were required. The old books were multiplied in all countries, and new books were composed by men of talent and learning, because they could then find numerous readers. The printing press did the work more neatly and more correctly than the writer, and it did it infinitely cheaper. What then? The writers of books had to turn their hands to some other trade, it is true; but type-founders, paper-makers, printers, and bookbinders, were set to work, by the new art or machine, to at least a hundred times greater number of persons than the old way of making books employed.
But there is a far more important mode of viewing this matter than any consideration resulting out of the increased employment that the art of printing unquestionably has created. If printing, which is a cheap and a rapid process, could by possibility be superseded by writing, which is an expensive and a slow operation, no book, no newspaper, could be produced for the use of the people. Knowledge, upon which every hope of bettering their condition must ultimately rest, would again become the property of a very few; and mankind would lose the greater part of that power which constitutes the essential difference between civilization and barbarism. The art of printing has gone on more and more adapting itself to the increase of our population, during the three centuries and a half in which it has been exercised in this country. Herein consists, perhaps, one of the mightiest differences between our condition and that of every generation which has preceded us. Through that art, no idea can now perish. Through that art, knowledge is fast becoming the common possession of all. Through that art, what the people have gained in the past is secured for the future. It has established the empire of public opinion.
There is possibly no more striking example of the manifold combinations of mental labour, of scientific power, of mechanical invention, and of the use of rapid means of communication, than the forces now called into action for the issue of a London daily newspaper. Nor is there any production of literary industry which more pointedly illustrates the distinctive qualities of printing as compared with writing—the rapidity, the cheapness, and the general diffusion. Let us endeavour to supply a rapid sketch of the wonderful organization that is required to produce this great necessary of modern society.
The essential characteristic of a newspaper is news. It may be philosophical, or critical, or imaginative—it may pour forth treasures of learning or eloquence, to live but a few hours and then be too readily forgotten—but no amount of ability will give it currency if it be deficient in news. It is the imperative demand for news, embracing every movement of human life in every class and every country, that sets in action the wondrous organization that produces a daily newspaper. Its ministers of communication are almost ubiquitous. They are in the Bow-street police-office, watching the effrontery of the detected felon;—they are on the heights of Inkermann, to stir our hearts "as with a trumpet," and fill our eyes with tears as they tell us
"How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest."
They are at the city feast, where all is blandishment and turtle;—they are at the coroner's inquest upon a street-starved pauper. They furnish news to all the world; and they receive news from all the world.
But there are similar organizations going forward through the country. The increase in number of the provincial papers, and their efforts to procure intelligence, are equally remarkable.
The London editors have the not very easy task of glancing over the five hundred local papers of the United Kingdom. These are, in ordinary cases, the vehicles from which they obtain their home intelligence. If any local matter of general interest is to be specially attended to, their own correspondent, or their own reporter, furnishes the details. Some unexpected event puts, occasionally, the electric telegraph in motion, to tell the world of London, on Saturday morning, what occurred at Liverpool on Friday night; and the Liverpool merchant reads on the Exchange at noon of that Saturday, in the newspaper printed at a distance of two hundred miles, some notice of an arrival in his own port during the hours when he was sleeping. Even the state of the weather at different parts of the kingdom is thus daily transmitted. But the London editors, and some of the provincial, have to look out for news at a greater distance than is comprised in our "nook-shotten isle of Albion." They have to search the papers of every land and every people—whether written in English, French, German, Italian, Greek, or Turkish. Of course translators are always at hand. For the London daily papers the electric telegraph is "throwing its shadows" before the authentic heralds of "coming events." For them is the steamer bringing the special correspondence from the gold-diggings in Australia, and from the camp in the Crimea. For them do the people's representatives make long speeches to empty benches, secure that there is a medium of communication for unnumbered eyes, although the ears be shut of those who listen not to the voice of the charmers. For them do great ministers go into obscure places, and, addressing an enthusiastic dinner-table, or a solemn corporation, speak to the world. For them does every discoverer of a private grievance claim public redress. For them is produced, in letters "to the editor," that great chaotic accumulation of fact and theory, of wisdom and folly, of calculation and impulse, whose atoms finally resolve themselves into a solid mass called public opinion.
The mental labours attendant upon the provincial newspapers are more narrowed. But they are nevertheless very important; and the extension of their functions by the enormous extension of the facilities for obtaining intelligence is equally striking. The old county papers, circulating steadily through the rural districts, and duly chronicling session and assize, markets and misdemeanours, have been stirred into activity by newspapers issuing from great commercial and manufacturing centres, which have arisen with the immense development of our industry. Liverpool had two papers in 1803,—it has now ten; Manchester, Birmingham, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, which had each one at that period, have now each four. Many towns that had one paper at the beginning of the century have now two. There are about eighty provincial English papers now published in towns which had no journal at that period. Some belong to manufacturing districts which then contained a small population; such as Bolton, Bradford, Hanley, Kidderminster, Macclesfield, Stockport, Sunderland, Wakefield, Wolverhampton. Others, to places of fashion and luxury which have grown up out of changes of society, such as Brighton and Cheltenham. Others, to new local centres, which, through the great modern facilities of communication, can circulate their weekly sheets at little expense, instead of sending their own messengers throughout the small towns and villages. The local changes in these vehicles of intelligence are strikingly connected with the other great social changes which have been noticed in this volume. It is satisfactory to know that the provincial press is no imperfect representative of an age of progress.
The history of news-writing and news-publishing is a mirror of many of the changes in social necessities and conveniences. In 1625, Ben Jonson's play of 'The Staple of News' exhibited a countrywoman going to an office of news, and saying to the manager, who sits in state with his registers and examiners,—