Originally published in Saint Pauls (Virtue and Co.) vol.3 #13 (Oct 1868).
The Eatanswill Gazette probably realises the conception which suggests itself to most of our readers at the sight of the title with which this article is headed. It has been the fortune of the author of the Pickwick Papers to associate the names of many of his characters with certain trades and pursuits. You can hardly enter on a popular discussion on the merits or demerits of the law without encountering allusions to Serjeant Buzfuz and Mr. Justice Stareleigh, to Sampson Brass and Mr. Jaggers. The Brothers Cheeryble represent the common-place idea of high-minded commerce; and the names of Stiggins and Chadband have been a stumbling-block to many generations of Scripture readers. Just in the same way the feuds of Mr. Pott and his brother editor, the warfare between the Gazette and the Independent of Eatanswill, have contributed to form the views which ordinary people take of provincial journalism. The sketch of the animosity which reigned between the local newspapers of Eatanswill was undoubtedly a caricature; but still,—like all caricatures that live,—it preserved a certain resemblance to the object depicted. The misfortune is that the public has taken a lifelike caricature for an accurate photograph. What the character of provincial journalism is, what are its proper functions, and how far it fulfils them, are points on which I shall endeavour to express my own views, based as they are on considerable personal experience of, and practical acquaintance with, the subject of this inquiry.
In common parlance all journals not published in London are called provincial. It is a fact that of all countries in the world with which the writer is acquainted England is the one which possesses the nearest approach to an imperial press. It may be owing to the homogeneousness of our country; it may be due to the density of our population compared with the exiguousness of our territorial area; it may be from the extent with which the face of the land is covered over with railroads, but the fact remains that not only is the press of London the chief press of the country, but that there is no local press which succeeds in,—or even aims at,—representing the public opinion of its particular district. Every local newspaper does undoubtedly represent some party or interest in its locality. But if you wished to learn what are the sentiments of the average public, even in such remote districts as Cornwall or Northumberland, you would be more sure of finding them represented in the metropolitan journals than in Cornish or Northumbrian newspapers. We are speaking, let it be remembered, of the opinions entertained in these and similar districts on general, not on local, matters. Thus we come upon the odd anomaly that London, the greatest city in the world, has absolutely no local press of any weight or significance, and yet that its newspapers are virtually the newspapers of the whole of England, not to say of Great Britain and Ireland. Something of the same kind is to be found in France, but, as far as we are aware, in no other country of any size. In Germany the Kölnische Zeitung may possibly have a wider circulation and possess more influence than any other local journal, but it differs in no essential characteristic from the Vienna Presse or the Nord-Deutsche Zeitung of Berlin, or the Allgemeine Zeitung of Augsburg. In Italy, the Florentine Nazione has the weight due to considerable ability of management, but it has no more pretensions to represent the Italian nation than the Perseveranza of Milan or the Nazionale of Naples. So also in the United States. Foreigners are apt to ascribe to the New York papers something of an imperial character. The assumption is so far right, that if there was an imperial press in the New World it would be that of the Empire City. But, as a matter of fact, each State, or each group of States, has its own papers. The only difference is that whereas you occasionally meet with New York papers out of the New York district, you never meet with those of other districts beyond their respective areas. But within their areas, the Boston and Chicago and Richmond and Cincinnati papers are as sovereign and independent of each other as the journals of Liverpool and Manchester and Bristol.
Thus in England the provincial press has to work and exist subject to the condition of taking no important share in, and exercising no considerable influence on, questions of imperial importance. On the eve of a ministerial crisis, or on the morrow of a decisive division, it is the custom of the London papers to publish extracts from some of the leading provincial journals as indications of the feeling which the question at issue has excited throughout the country. But this custom is due rather to traditional usage than to the absolute importance of the organs whose opinions are thus brought before public notice. Every statesman or politician with whom public life is a profession, is compelled to keep himself "posted up" in the views expressed by the leading metropolitan journals. But not even the most zealous of officials deems it necessary to study the views of the ablest provincial journals, unless he happen to be personally connected with the particular district in which some one of these periodicals is published. This dictum of ours, with reference to the essentially local character appertaining to our provincial press, applies with more or less force to the whole of the United Kingdom. The chief Edinburgh and Dublin and Manchester newspapers would doubtless resent our assertion; and it would be absurd and unjust to represent papers like the Scotsman, Saunders's Newsletter, and the Manchester Examiner, as standing in the same category with the Stoke Pogis Mercury and the Chatteris Courier. Yet the difference between them, if we may venture to speak the truth, is one of degree, not of character. The local affairs of Manchester are infinitely more important to the community at large than those of Little Peddlington; the weight of public opinion in the Modern Athens is far more potential than that of Aylesbury or Henley-upon-Thames: and therefore papers, discussing the politics of Cottonopolis, or the opinions of "Auld Reekie," possess an importance not given to journals, the subject matter of whose discussions are the squabbles and news of Ashby Parva and Willoughby-the-Less. But yet we may venture to say that upon imperial questions the direct influence of provincial journals is nil. Indirectly, of course, they may do good and valuable work, by stimulating within their own district the growth of the convictions or beliefs, the aggregate mass of which constitutes public opinion. But when that opinion is formed, it does not fall to them to express it. They are no longer,—they are never likely to be again,—the mouth-pieces of public opinion; and this truth holds good from the Land's End to John-o'-Groats.
The importance of Provincial Journals, from the organ of public opinion point of view, varies inversely with the distance of their publishing places from the metropolis. The most perfect specimens of the Eatanswill Gazette genus are probably to be found amidst the parochial papers of the Pimlico Patriot order, which profess to give the local news of some London district. The highest specimens of provincial journalism are to be found in cities which even in these days of express-train travelling can only be reached from London after a journey of many hours. Any person who has been in the habit of travelling much about England, and who is at all of an observant turn of mind, must have noticed that at a certain distance from London, especially on the northern lines, you get out of the region of London newspapers, and find that the papers chiefly sold at the stations, or read in the trains, are those of the district through which you are passing. The truth is, that with the help of a Bradshaw, you may determine with almost absolute certainty, the area within which London newspapers have a large chance sale, to adopt a stock term of the newspaper trade. Owing to the real or supposed requirements of modern civilisation, it has become an absolute necessity for every man who takes an active part in life, to see a daily newspaper at breakfast time. Now all the London dailies are printed at some hour between midnight and daybreak, and are forwarded into the country by the first trains which leave the metropolitan termini. At all points which are reached by these early trains by breakfast-time, or thereabouts, the local newspapers are driven out of the political field. Birmingham to the north, Southampton to the south, Bristol to the west, and Norwich to the east, are to the best of my knowledge the nearest places to London at which daily papers are published, and all these places can only be reached per train from the metropolis at an hour when business has already commenced. If by any improvement in the rate of travel, or by any alteration in the hour of departure of the morning trains, these places could be reached at an earlier hour, I cannot doubt,—judging from all past experience,—that the London dailies would supply the newspaper demands of the towns above-named, as fully as they supply those of towns nearer to the capital. And I cannot question the probability, that in the not remote future all the provincial journals of England, which aim at anything beyond being purveyors of local news, Will be supplanted by their metropolitan competitors.
My own belief is that this would have been already the case had it not been for the invention of the telegraph. By means of the magnetic wire the chief provincial daily papers are enabled to publish all the important events of the day, together with copious extracts from the original matter of the London press, at a much earlier hour than that at which the London papers themselves can be received in their localities; and therefore they command a very large sale within their districts. Still I do not think their political influence, even in the most favoured instances, is at all commensurate with their circulation. Residents in Liverpool take in the Albion, or the Post, or the Courier, according to their taste, as a matter of course; they read these papers for the telegrams and local intelligence, but they take their political views,—in as far as they take them from newspapers at all,—from the London journals, which they see later in the day at the Exchange or clubs, or read after dinner in their own homes. I must not be misunderstood, as denying any political influence to provincial journals. To cite only a few examples out of many, the Leeds Mercury, under Mr. Baines, the Scotsman, under Mr. Russell, the Belfast Whig, under Mr. Finlay, have exercised a most valuable and important political influence even beyond the area within which they circulate; but yet the above-named gentlemen themselves would hardly dispute my statement that their influence has been insignificant compared with that of London journals, conducted, it may be, with far less honesty and ability. In journalism, as in other matters, it is useless to struggle against manifest destiny; and just as now-a-days you cannot practically bring out a book, or produce a play, or gain a reputation as sculptor or painter, out of London, so you cannot publish a political newspaper of the highest class out of the sound of Bow bells. London has absorbed the press, as it has absorbed so many other things; and the little area included within Holborn, Bow Street, St. Paul's, and the Thames, is to all intents and purposes the only spot where you can wield the sceptre of journalism.
I have dwelt upon the monopoly of imperial journalism which circumstances have conferred upon the metropolis, because the fact explains much of the intellectual torpor which pervades the provincial press. Looking on the subject abstractedly, one might say that the topics which engage a local journalist's attention involve questions and problems of the highest interest; and that the mere circumstance of of his being virtually debarred from influencing the course of imperial politics need not limit in any way the activity of his mind. It may be so in theory; it is not so in fact. Colonial statesmen possess a field of action freer and more susceptible of political tillage than can be found in the mother country, and yet their exclusion from the exercise of the highest imperial functions somehow dwarfs their minds to an extent which it is easier to perceive than to account for. And a provincial newspaper is, at the best, a colony of the parent press of London. Naturally enough, the talent and the energy of journalism are attracted to London. Every reporter of the smallest local paper looks forward more or less confidently to the hope of some day or other getting an engagement in the Gallery. Every lad who sees his paragraph in print for the first time cherishes an ambition of being a leader-writer on a London daily ; and every editor, however important his local position, entertains a conviction that his proper editorial sphere would have been the metropolis.
I think, as a rule, it will be found that the men who have made a mark on the provincial press, and, having made their mark, do not transfer their energies to London, are proprietors as well as editors of newspapers. From my own experience I should say the majority of provincial editors were men who had tried their literary wings in the atmosphere of the capital, and having found that they could not rise to any eminence there, had subsided into local employments. And it is amongst this class that the originals may be found of whom Pott of Eatanswill is the exaggerated caricature. With the exception of a very few of the leading newspapers in the commercial towns, no local print can afford to pay a high salary for editorial services. The editor of a country Chronic!e or Courier is either a local attorney who owns the paper in whole or in part, and works it with the view of pushing himself forward in his business, or else he is a man who has drifted into journalism or risen into it from the reporter class, and earns an income varying from two to four hundred a year. Now on such an income it is impossible for a man to associate with the landed gentry, or the commercial aristocracy, or even with the higher ranks of provincial professional men. I am afraid that education, pure and simple, is still not held in much esteem in English country towns; and it must be owned that a provincial editor, as such, has no especial status attaching to his post. If he is also a proprietor and a man of fortune, his education aids him in securing a good social position. But I am afraid it does little for him if taken by itself. I have known an instance in which a man of considerable culture was denied admission to the Book Club in a town where he resided as editor of a local paper, simply and solely on the ground that he was an editor; and I suspect the instance is by no means a solitary one. I have no doubt that most country dignitaries, if they have to write to the editor of their local paper, address him as Mr., not as Esquire. The superscription of a letter may seem a very trivial matter; but any one conversant with English country life knows how much is involved in the difference of designation. On the other hand, the editor is commonly superior in culture and refinement to the shop-keeping and farming class; and the very indefiniteness of his social standing tells unfavourably upon him. The uneasy vanity that is said to be characteristic of authors is I think to be witnessed in its highest development in provincial editors of a certain class. Being more or less hangers-on in the army of letters, they are constantly asserting their claim to be considered commissioned officers. In season and out of season they remind all who will listen to them that they belong to a profession which ought properly to rank higher than other pursuits; and for fear of being overlooked, they assume an importance which they themselves know to be unwarranted. In a continental sea-side watering-place there was, and may be still, a reading-room kept by an English lady, who, on the strength of her position, supposed herself to be connected with literature. It so happened that one of the great magnates of English letters—Lord Macaulay, I think,—passed through the town, went to the reading-room, and wrote down his name in the subscription-book. His money was forthwith returned to him by the proprietress with the remark, "No, my lord; we literary people must not take money from each other." The story may serve as an illustration of the mania which prompts the rank and file of literature to assert their fellow craftship with the celebrities of the order,—a mania which rages amongst the inferior order of provincial journalists with especial intensity.
In these remarks I have no desire to wound the feelings of a very estimable body of men; I only wish to show how their position exposes them to certain failings, and how these failings, or rather foibles, are of a kind which afford easy scope for satire. The truth is, that quite apart from the social question, the position of a provincial editor is an exceptionally difficult one. There is nothing of the anonymous about provincial journalism. Articles, it is true, are not signed, but pretty nearly everybody who reads the paper knows that the editorial remarks are indited by Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones, as the case may he. In London very few people know, and still fewer care, who are the writers of the articles in any paper; and even if you are made the object of personal attack you hardly attach an individual character to the unknown entity by whom you are assailed. In the provinces it is necessarily different. If you as editor say that the Tory administration is corrupt you are not asked out to Blue houses; if you express a disbelief in the sincerity of the Opposition, your Yellow friends look coldly at you in the streets; and if your duty compels you to make any unfavourable comment upon any local politician or dignitary, he regards the comment not as a public criticism, but as a personal offence. Moreover, it is a very different matter giving offence in town and in country. It must happen constantly to any London journalist to meet men in social intercourse, whose principles, or political conduct, he has condemned in print. Yet he has no feeling that they either know of his criticisms or would resent them if they did. In this great Babylon we give and take freely, and, whether we strike or are struck, we hardly know who has struck us, or whom we have struck in return. But in a provincial city, however large, the case is otherwise. The Gazette or the Chronicle is only a well-known alias for some individual with whom the readers of the newspaper are as intimately acquainted as they are with their own names.
Now it is not pleasant to attack any person with whom you are on terms of constant social intercourse; and, on the other hand, if you do so attack him, the controversy at once assumes an embittered tone. Then, too, it should fairly be added, that to give offence to any important personage is a very serious matter for a provincial journalist. If, in the Times, or the Telegraph, or Pall Mall Gazette, there appears a furious attack, whether deserved or not, upon any individual, his wrath or annoyance cannot possibly produce any perceptible effect on the circulation or prosperity of the paper. It may safely be said that no man, or set of men, can do much either to benefit or injure the prospects of any influential London journal. But in the provinces an offended magnate of the county or the borough can do a good deal to injure a local paper which has excited his displeasure by its comments, or, at any rate, to annoy the conductor of the journal. Thus, judging from my own experience, I should say that the sin of provincial journalism lay rather in reticence than in over-plain speaking, in undue subserviency to the rule which bids us not speak evil of dignitaries, than in lawless disregard of the decencies of political controversy. All readers of Pickwick must remember the sensation leader in which the Eatanswill Independent attacked the domestic privacy of Mr. Pott. To quote the words of the article:—'Our obscure and filthy contemporary in some disgusting observations on the recent election for this borough, has presumed to violate the hallowed sanctity of private life, and to refer in a manner not to be misunderstood to the personal affairs of the candidate,—ay, and notwithstanding his base defeat, we will add our future member Mr. Fizwiz: What does our dastardly contemporary mean? What would the ruffian say if we, setting at nought, like him, the decencies of social intercourse, were to raise the curtain which happily conceals his private life from general execration." And so on. Of course this is a caricature, and is meant to be understood as a caricature of provincial journalism. All I can say is that in a tolerably wide acquaintance with country newspapers, I have never met with a paragraph which could be cited as appertaining to the class from which this exaggerated portrait was chosen. I have no doubt but in times when partizan politics ran higher than they do now-a-days, the caricature was nearer to the original. But as things are now, license of speech, bitterness of invective, recklessness of insinuation, are far more characteristic of metropolitan than of provincial journalism.
The plain fact is, that this decline in virulence of language is only one symptom out of the many which indicates the change passing over our provincial press. The tendency of the age is to make London more and more the metropolis of politics as well as of fashion and commerce. As a consequence of this tendency, local interests are becoming daily more important to our provincial papers, while imperial interests are daily diminishing in gravity. Within a circle whose centre is London, and whose radius is at least a hundred miles in length, you will not find a single country journal which bases its claim to literary existence on anything beyond its local intelligence; and every year the length of this radius is extended farther and farther. I do not mean to say that there is no provincial paper within the area I have described which has articles of general interest, and which treats of general politics with more or less ability. But I think the "general news" columns in local newspapers are rather accidents than essentials of existence. There are many country journals still in existence which not very many years ago supplied the public of their own districts with all the home or foreign political intelligence they cared to receive. Within the last half century London newspapers had but a small circulation out of the metropolitan district; and the quidnuncs of towns, which now lie almost in the postal districts of the capital, looked to the weekly news-letter to tell them how the outer world was faring. From the traditions of former days many old-established local newspapers have preserved the custom of devoting a portion of their space to original articles and reports on general political topics, and they would probably find any sudden abandonment of the custom would be unpopular with country readers,—a class which, whether Tory or Whig in politics, is eminently conservative in the sense of disliking any sudden disturbance of its habits. Besides this, the natural predilections of local editors dispose them to cling fondly to their right of expressing a judgment on political questions. But notwithstanding these retarding causes, the force which tends to make our provincial newspapers more and more local is too powerful to be withstood.
Every year the space that can be allotted to other than local matter becomes smaller and smaller; and several of the most successful provincial papers, like the Stamford Mercury, or the Midland Counties Herald, have no leading articles at all, and hardly profess to give any general intelligence. In fact, the principle of the division of labour has been applied to the press; and from what I may describe as the imperial department of journalism, the provincial press is now practically excluded. It may be urged in opposition to my view, that the vast majority of our provincial prints are identified with one or other of our great political parties. The objection, however, is rather plausible than sound. In the country politics themselves have a local aspect, hardly intelligible to the dwellers in great cities. Great and important principles undoubtedly lie underneath the contest between Buff and Blue; but the contest itself is, so to speak, personified in the issue whether the Earl of A or the Marquis of B shall return the member for the county, or whether Alderman Brown shall hold the mayoralty in lieu of Councillor Black. In every locality where there is room for a prosperous paper, there is always a more or less successful competitor; and, as a matter of course, each journal bids for the support of one of the rival factions in the district. On this account, local questions, such as county or borough elections, have to be discussed in provincial prints, and their discussion involves the introduction of general politics. But even in this respect local journalism is losing its importance. An article on a borough election in any influential London paper has, as a rule, more effect in the borough itself than any number of home-spun leaders. This may be due partly to the fact that the editors of newspapers, like other prophets, have not so much honour in their own country as they find abroad; but it is mainly owing to the simple truth that even in the country, newspaper readers look to London as the one market for the supply of political ideas.
It would, however, be a complete misapprehension to conclude from these observations that in my judgment local newspapers are being gradually superseded by their metropolitan contemporaries. The truth is, their local importance has increased in exact proportion to the decrease in their imperial influence. I suspect that most persons are unaware how completely the local newspaper is a product of modern times. It has been my fortune to have the run of the files of an old county newspaper extending far back into the last century. At its commencement it obviously circulated by means of pedlars and packmen through a very considerable portion of the kingdom; and the one reason why it seems to have been published at the town whence it still is issued, was that this place happened to be a central position for the delivery of the paper over a very large district. Now, up to the close of the century, the paper to which I allude contains comparatively little local matter of any kind. Its pages are filled with paragraphs of what we should now call general news. You will find therein much curious matter concerning the Continental wars of England, the Jacobite insurrections, the South Sea bubble, the movements of the Court, the proceedings of Parliament; but you will discover singularly little reference to the affairs of the county in which it appeared. In fact, making allowance for the comparatively undeveloped state of journalism, the news-letter of the last century was much more like the Times of to-day than the local journal into which it has gradually developed.
It would be a curious study, if my space would allow it, to trace the alterations which succeeding years have made in the price, size, and circulation, area, and contents of a representative provincial journal like the one I have in view. For the present I can only say that, while the price has decreased and the area of circulation has slowly contracted, the size of the paper and the numerical circulation have increased with still greater rapidity. And as a corollary of these two simultaneous changes, the local matter has constantly invaded further and further the domain of the general matter.
It is the fashion of essayists on the subject of journalism to dilate upon the fact that England is the only country which has produced a Times newspaper. I do not dispute the justice of the boast. Quite apart from any question as to the political merits or demerits of that journal, the daily production of such a mass of letter-press, foreign correspondence, law reports, original matter, and advertisements, is an extraordinary achievement of intellectual and mechanical ingenuity; and I, like all persons connected with journalism, am, perhaps, in a better position than outsiders for appreciating the true magnitude of the undertaking. But yet I cannot conceal from myself that other countries besides our own have had great political newspapers in many respects the equal, in others possibly the superior, of the Times and its chief London contemporaries. But, as far as I know, there is no country in the world except England, which has a provincial press that can even be compared with our own. In Germany, Italy, France, and America there is scarcely a town without its local print; but these foreign provincial papers are almost invariably broad sheets, intended to supply the district with general political news; they are not in the proper sense of the word local papers.
It would be worth the while of anybody who has never had his attention directed to the subject before, to take up a successful English provincial journal and examine for himself its table of contents. Dull as a country life may seem to the dwellers in great capitals, it is yet in itself a very active and busy one. Besides the regular Assizes, there are the Quarter Sessions and Petty Sessions. Besides this, there are constant meetings of borough and local magistrates, County Court and Bankruptcy Court sittings, Corporation Councils, Highway Boards, Vestrics, and so on,—at one and all of which proceedings take place, and speeches are delivered, which require to be fully reported. Then, too, there is a never-failing recurrence of benefit club gatherings, school treats, commemoration services in church and chapel, the narrative of which is expected to appear in the local papers. Every day of the week is appropriated to one or more important markets, the quotation of whose prices is a matter of imperative importance. The proceedings of local grandees and county magnates cannot be passed over unnoticed; and last, though not least, every town and village has its weekly chapter of incidents, too grave to be omitted from a local record. To the outer world, to whom Little Pedlington is a name only, it may seem a matter of absolute indifference to learn that there has been a fire on Farmer Brown's premises; that the wife of John Snooks, labourer, has had twins three times in succession; that the locality has just been visited by those well-known purveyors of provincial recreation,—the Sisters Sophia and Anne; or that the Rev. Mr. Wordy delivered an impressive discourse in aid of the building fund of Bethel Chapel. But for people who live in Pedlington such things possess a real interest, and any paper which se¢ks to represent Pedlington must give them their due recital.
In thus furnishing a weekly or daily narrative of everything great or small which takes place within its own area, the provincial press discharges a most useful and important duty. It may be said,—and I think not without truth,—that the provincial life of England is somewhat narrow in spirit, and that it might be better if our average country folk thought more of general interests than of purely local ones. But the very selfishness,—to use the word in no offensive sense,—of ordinary English provincialism renders it doubly important that the agency of publicity should be brought to bear upon it. Every now and then, as in the case of the Farnham Workhouse, the attention of the metropolitan press is called to some gross local abuse; and a few sensation leaders are indicted against it, with more or less,—generally the latter.—of permanent result. But, practically, the administration of local justice, of poor-law relief, of parochial tuition; in fact, the exercise of all the manifold functions of local self-government, are necessarily left uncriticised by the imperial newspapers of England. Yet the action of county magistrates, of boards of guardians, of town councils, of parochial vestries, affects the well-being, health, and happiness of vast portions of our fellow-countrymen; and this action would be almost unfettered if it were not for the supervision exercised by journals exclusively devoted to local topics. On the whole, I believe honestly, that the men who conduct our local administration desire to act fairly by their neighbours; but, notwithstanding this, the amount of injustice, oppression, jobbery, and even cruelty practised by local authorities, is not pleasant to think of, and that amount would be a hundredfold greater if it were not for the knowledge that all their proceedings will be duly recorded and criticised in the local press.
This duty of acting as a local chronicle is, I conceive, the chief function of provincial journalism. A paper like the Scotsman, which has a wire of its own, connecting its office with the metropolis, and which receives independent telegrams from abroad, would doubtless object strongly to such a definition of its functions as the one I have just laid down. My answer is, that the Scotsman, and other papers of the same class, are hardly as yet to be described as provincial journals. Gradually, unless I am mistaken, they are becoming more provincial, and are therefore conforming more closely to the category of duties which I have assigned to the local press. It will be found, on examination, that the amount of space and attention these journals devote to the affairs of their own locality is already out of all proportion to that which London newspapers devote to the affairs of the metropolis. In so far they are provincial; but yet I should hardly describe them as provincial journals. Now it seems to me that, with very rare exceptions, the true local press of the United Kingdom does discharge the special function I have assigned to it honestly and well. To "chronicle small beer" is by no means an easy duty. The beer is often very small; and the temptation to make gallons out of gills is very great indeed. In justice to provincial journalists, it should be remembered that the chronique locale, as the French would say, is not conducted by the editor or even by the regular reporters of the journal. Every provincial paper has a staff of correspondents resident in the towns and villages through which the paper circulates. These contributors are naturally not persons of much education; their salary is extremely small, and, as a rule, their chief remuneration consists in the importance attaching to being the reporter of the local Thunderer. The correspondence which these contributors furnish is often very trying to editorial patience. The art of telling a fact simply is one which seems unknown amidst half-educated writers; and any event, however trivial, is described by them with all the glories of hyperbolical periphrasis. A statement that the school-children of a village had been entertained to tea at the Vicarage is always ushered in by an allusion to Sol having shone beneficently on the gay and festive scene, and finishes with a statement that the juveniles, having been regaled with a profusion of edibles and potables, displayed their gratitude towards their bounteous benefactors by singing the Hundredth Psalm with a fervour which spoke volumes for their lungs, as well as their religious training. So it is with almost all local correspondence. The adjectives outnumber the substantives in a terrible proportion; the sentences are long, and the sense contained in them inversely short.
The great advantage, in fact, possessed by metropolitan over provincial papers is in the sub-editing. Everybody connected with a London paper knows how to write a paragraph. But with the exception of the editor and the reporters there is generally nobody attached to a provincial paper who can write grammatically; and in many cases the reporters themselves require constant correction at the hands of the editor. It is not perhaps unjust that the newspaper should bear the responsibility of the blunders or bad taste of its subordinate employés. But yet any one acquainted with the practical working of a provincial journal will make great allowance for occasional lapses into the pseudo-Johnsonian style in which Pott of the Eatanswill Gazette described the festivities at Mrs. Leo Hunter's. Unless you know what a team a provincial editor has to drive you can hardly appreciate his skill in not running off the road frequently, or not getting often bespattered with mud. For obvious reasons very few persons read more than one provincial newspaper, and therefore the number of persons who are able to form any judgment of the general character of the country press is extremely limited. Judging from what I know of it, I should say it is singularly honest, very free from gross personalities, and conducted with considerable ability. This is the more remarkable because the editors are very much exposed to corrupt influences, and occupy positions which hold out little prospect of future advancement. I can only attribute this circumstance to the fact that the provincial editorial body is recruited from the lower classes of metropolitan journalism; and experience has convinced me, that in spite of certain obvious failings, the sub-editorial class in London includes amongst its numbers an unusually large proportion of high-minded and honest men. If the Eatanswill Gazette and Independent had been in any way true representatives of local newspapers, the provincial press would ere this have become an intolerable nuisance to the community. Hitherto, on the contrary, the institution of local journalism has been so uniform a benefit to the public that the magnitude of the benefit has hardly been appreciated at its full weight and value.