The editor
who expends fifty guineas a day in the purchase of three short essays
can have them written by the men who can do them best. What a power is
this, to say three things every morning to a whole nation,--to say
them with all the force which genius, knowledge, and practice united
can give,--and to say them without audible contradiction! Fortunate
for England is it that this power is no longer concentrated in a
single man, and that the mighty influence once wielded by an
individual will henceforth be exerted by a profession.
We in America have escaped all danger of ever falling under the
dominion of a paper despot. There will never be a Times in America.
Twenty years ago the New York news and the New York newspaper reached
distant cities at the same moment; but since the introduction of the
telegraph, the news outstrips the newspaper, and is given to the
public by the local press. It is this fact which forever limits the
circulation and national importance of the New York press. The New
York papers reach a village in Vermont late in the afternoon,--six,
eight, ten hours after a carrier has distributed the Springfield
Republican; and nine people in ten will be content with the brief
telegrams of the local centre.
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