TO OUR READERS.
It becomes our duty to acquaint our readers that the present Number of the Irish Penny Journal, which will complete a volume, will also be the last presented to them, at least by its original projectors and prevent proprietors. Our readers will hardly deem it necessary that we should trouble them with any detail of the circumstances which have led to this determination; it will be sufficient to state, that while the success of the work has in some respects even exceeded the anticipations of its proprietors, it has disappointed them in others. The sale of the Journal, although great and steadily progressing in those distant localities where any increase of sale was least to be expected, has been either stationary or diminishing in those portions of the kingdom for whose use and advantage it was especially intended, and to which, therefore, the proprietors naturally looked for the greatest degree of encouragement. However humbling it may be to the national feeling of most of our Irish readers, the fact must be acknowledged, that the sale of the Journal in London alone has exceeded that in the four provinces of Ireland, not including Dublin; and that in other cities at the other side of the Channel it has been nearly equal to half the Irish provincial sale. And it may be added that in London, as well as in most other cities in the sister island, the sale has to the present moment continued to increase, while in all parts of Ireland, with the exception of the metropolis, it has gradually declined. In short, nearly two-thirds of the amount of sales of the Irish Penny Journal have been effected out of Ireland. Whatever may be the cause of this result, it is sufficient for the proprietors to have ascertained, that the object which they had originally in view in starting this little publication, have not been attained to the extent which they had anticipated, and that, under such circumstances, it would be visionary in them further to indulge hopes which there is so little probability of ever being realised.
The proprietors have only therefore to take a respectful leave of their numerous readers and supporters, and return their grateful acknowledgments to all who have taken an interest in their publication. To the Press of the British Empire such an expression of gratitude is especially due, for from those influential organs of public opinion it has received during its progress the most cheering encouragement, and this, too, wholly unmingled with even a portion of censure or dispraise. That such commendations have not been altogether undeserved, and that the promises made in the original prospectus have not been left unfulfilled, the proprietors fondly anticipate will be the permanent opinion of the public; and they indulge, moreover, the pleasing conviction, that the volume now brought to a termination will live in the literature of Ireland as one almost exclusively Irish, and possessing what may be considered as no trifling distinction for such a work—a spirit throughout its pages wholly national, and untinctured by the slightest admixture of prejudices either political or sectarian.
Printed and published every Saturday by Gunn and Cameron, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.—Agents:—R. Groombridge, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London; Simms and Dinham, Exchange Street, Manchester; C. Davies, North John Street, Liverpool, John Menzies, Prince’s Street, Edinburgh; and David Robertson, Trongate, Glasgow.