There were sold of The Times of Tuesday, Feb. 10th, 1840, containing an account of the Royal nuptials, 30,000 copies, and the following curious calculations were afterwards made respecting this publication. The length of a column of The Times is twenty-two inches. If every copy of The Times then printed could be cut into forty-eight single columns, and if those forty-eight columns were tacked to each other, they would extend 494 miles and 1,593 yards. To give some idea of the extent of that distance, it may be sufficient to say that one of the wheels of the mail which runs from Falmouth to London, and again from London to Easingwold, a small town twelve miles beyond York, might run all the way on the letter-press so printed, except the last 167 yards. The same extent of letter-press would reach from London to Paris, and back again from Paris to Canterbury, and a little further. The 30,000 papers, if opened out and joined together, would cover a length of twenty-two miles and 1,280 yards; or, in other words, would reach from The Times office, in Printing-house Square, to the entrance hall in Windsor Castle, leaving a few yards for stair carpets. It is recorded that 20,000 copies were in the hands of the newsmen at eight o'clock in the morning. Since 1840, the circulation of The Times has greatly increased; and what was then deemed wonderful on an extraordinary occasion, is now exceeded daily by 8,000 copies—the present daily circulation being about 38,000 copies, which are worked by greatly improved machinery at the rate of between 8,000 to 10,000 per hour. On the 2nd of last May, The Times containing an account of the opening of the Great Exhibition by the Queen, circulated to the enormous number of 52,000 copies, the largest number ever known of one daily newspaper publication. Nothing can illustrate more forcibly than these statements the great utility of the machinery employed in multiplying with so miraculous a rapidity such an immense number of copies. When we look at the great talent—the extensive arrangement—the vast amount of information on a variety of topics—the immense circulation—the rapidity with which it is thrown off, and the correctness of the details of The Times paper—we are constrained to pronounce it the most marvellous political journal the world has ever seen. What would our forefathers have said to this wonderful broadsheet, which conveys information of the world's movements to the teeming population of the United Kingdom, and also to the people of other and distant climes.
H. M. BEALBY.
North Brixton.
FOLK LORE.
Devonshire Superstitions.
—Days of the week:
"Born on a Sunday, a gentleman;
Monday, fair in face;
Tuesday, full of grace;
Wednesday, sour and grum;