He at once produced an eminently salable article. If just such a paper
were to appear to-day, or any day, in any large city of the world, it
would instantly find a multitude of readers. It was a very small
sheet,--four little pages of four columns each,--much better printed
than the Herald now is, and not a waste line in it. Everything _drew_,
as the sailors say. There was not much scissoring in it,--the scissors
have never been much esteemed in the Herald office,--but the little
that there was all told upon the general effect of the sheet. There is
a story current in newspaper offices that the first few numbers of the
Herald were strictly decorous and "respectable," but that the editor,
finding the public indifferent and his money running low, changed his
tactics, and filled his paper with scurrility and indecency, which
immediately made it a paying enterprise. No such thing. The first
numbers were essentially of the same character as the number published
this morning. They had the same excellences and the same defects: in
the news department, immense industry, vigilance, and tact; in the
editorial columns, the vein of Mephistophelean mockery which has
puzzled and shocked so many good people at home and abroad.
Pages:
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523