The Times 15,975,739
The News of the World 5,673,525
Illustrated London News 5,627,866
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper 5,572,897
Weekly Times 3,902,169
Reynold's Weekly 2,496,256
Morning Advertiser 2,392,780
Weekly Dispatch 1,982,933
Daily News 1,485,099
Bell's Life in London 1,161,000
Morning Herald 1,159,000
Manchester Guardian 1,066,575
Liverpool Mercury 912,000
Morning Chronicle 873,500
The Globe 850,000
The Express 841,342
Morning Post 832,500
The Sun 825,000
Evening Mail 800,000
Leeds Mercury 735,500
Stamford Mercury 689,000
Birmingham Journal 650,750
Shipping Gazette 628,000
Weekly Messenger 625,500
In Scotland.
North British Advertiser 802,000
Glasgow Saturday Post 727,000
North British Mail 565,000
Glasgow Herald 541,000
In Ireland.
The Telegraph 959,000
Saunders's News Letter 756,000
Daily Express 748,000
General Advertiser 598,000
Various reasons may be given for this great difference between the Press of the two countries. Many are disposed to attribute it, very naturally, to the Government stamp, and the securities which are required; some, to the machinery of Government of this country being necessarily so complicated by ancient rights and privileges, and the difficulties of raising a revenue, whereof the item of interest on the national debt alone amounts to nearly 30,000,000l.; while others, again planting one foot of the Press compass in London, show that a half circle with a radius of five hundred miles brings nearly the whole community within twenty-four hours' post of the metropolis, in which the best information and the most able writers are to be found, thereby rendering it questionable if local papers, in any numbers, would obtain sufficient circulation to enable the editors to retain the services of men of talent, or to procure valuable general information, without wholesale plagiarism from their giant metropolitan rivals. Besides, it must he remembered that in America, each State, being independent, requires a separate press of its own, while the union of all the States renders it necessary that the proceedings in each of the others should be known, in order that the constitutional limits within which they are permitted to exercise their independence, may be constantly and jealously watched; from which cause it will be seen that there is a very simple reason for the Republic requiring comparatively far more papers than this country, though by no means accounting for the very great disproportion existing.
While, however, I readily admit that the newspapers of Great Britain are greatly inferior in numbers, I am bound in justice to add, that they are decidedly superior in tone and character. I am not defending the wholesale manner in which, when it suits their purpose, they drag an unfortunate individual before the public, and crucify him on the anonymous editorial WE, which is at one and the same time their deadliest weapon and their surest shield. Such acts all honest men must alike deplore and condemn; but it must be admitted that the language they employ is more in accordance with the courtesies of civilized life, than that used by the Press of the Republic under similar circumstances; and if, in a time of excitement and hope, they do sometimes cater for the vanity of John Bull, they more generally employ their powers to "take him down a peg;" and every newspaper which has sought for popularity in the muddy waters of scurrility, has—to use an Oriental proverb—"eaten its own dirt, and died a putrid death."
Let me now turn from the Press to the literature of the United States. Of the higher order of publications, it is needless to say anything in these pages. Irving, Prescott, Ticknor, Stephens, Longfellow, Hawthorne, and writers of that stamp, are an honour to any country, and are as well known in England as they are in America, consequently any encomium from my pen is as unnecessary as it would be presumptuous.
The literature on which I propose to comment, is that which I may reasonably presume to be the popular literature of the masses, because it is the staple commodity for sale on all railways and steamboats. I need not refer again to the most objectionable works, inasmuch as the very fact of their being sold by stealth proves that, however numerous their purchasers, they are at all events an outrage on public opinion. I made a point of always purchasing whatever books appeared to me to be selling most freely among my fellow-travellers, and I am sorry to say that the mass of trash I thus became possessed of was perfectly inconceivable, and the most vulgar abuse of this country was decidedly at a premium. But their language was of itself so penny-a-liny, that they might have lain for weeks on the book-shelf at an ordinary railway-station in England—price, gratis—and nobody but a trunkmaker or a grocer would have been at the trouble of removing them.
Not content, however, with writing trash, they do not scruple to deceive the public in the most barefaced way by deliberate falsehood. I have in my possession two of these specimens of honesty, purchased solely from seeing my brother's name as the author, which of course I knew perfectly well to be false, and which they doubtless put there because the American public had received favourably the volumes he really had written. Of the contents of these works attributed to him I will only say, the rubbish was worthy of the robber. I would not convey the idea that all the books offered for sale are of this calibre; there are also magazines and other works, some of which are both interesting and well-written. If I found no quick sale going on, I generally selected some work treating of either England or the English, so as to ascertain the popular shape in which my countrymen were represented.