418 NEWSPAPERS [ENGLAND. which print 22,000 sheets in the hour may now seem to thrust into insignificance a press of which it was at first announced as a notable triumph that the new machine per formed its task " with such a velocity and simultaneousness of movement that no less than 1100 sheets are impressed in one hour," yet Walter s assertion was none the less true, that The Times of 29th November 1814 "presented to the public the practical result of the greatest improvement con nected with printing since the discovery of the art itself." The effort to secure for The Times the best attainable literary talent in all departments kept at least an equal pace with those which were directed towards the improve ment of its mechanical resources. And thus it came to pass that a circulation which did not, even in 1815, exceed on the average 5000 copies became, in 1834, 10,000 : in 1844, 23,000; in 1851, 40,000; and in 1854, 51,648. In the year last named the average circulation of the other London dailies was Morning Advertiser, 7644 ; Daily News, 4160; Horning Herald, 3712; Morning Chronicle, 2800 ; Morning Post, 2667. Sir John Stoddart, afterwards governor of Malta, edited The Times for several years prior to 1816. He was suc ceeded by Thomas Barnes, under whose management the great journal became famous for munificent reward of every kind of efficient service. The energy shown of late in the use of the railway and the telegraphic cable is no more marvellous than was the bringing of important news to London in 1834, at the rate of 15 miles an hour, for 400 miles. Unlike his most distinguished successor in the editorship, Barnes for many years wrote largely in his paper. When his health began to fail the largest share of the editorial work came into the hands of Captain Edward Sterling, the contributor about a quarter of a century earlier of a noteworthy series of political letters signed "Vetus," the Paris correspondent of The Times in 1814 and subsequent eventful years, and afterwards for many years the most conspicuous among its leader-writers. 1 From 1841 to 1877 the chief editor was John Thaddeus Delane. It is known, on the best authority, that "he never was a writer ; he never even attempted to write anything, except what he wrote better than most writers could do reports and letters." 2 But without writing, in the literary sense, a wonderful life s work was crowded into those six and thirty years. The result of that labour, cembined with the labour of a most brilliant staff of contributors, was to make what already had grown to be the "favourite broadsheet" of the English public into that which is now wont to be described as the " leading- journal of the world." Everything that is used in the production of The Times, except the printing paper, is made in its offices. Not only its own " Walter machines " able to print and perfect from 22,000 to 24,000 sheets in the hour but those also which have been supplied to The Scotsman, The Daily Neivs, The Liverpool Post, and The New York Times have been manufactured there. The editor s office in Printing-House Square is now in direct communication by special wires with his branch offices both in Paris and in Berlin. The parliamentary reports are sent to the office from the Houses through the telephone. The shorthand writer extends his notes in the usual way, and reads off the manuscript through the instrument. The recipient dictates the reports to the type setters. The manuscript follows the telephonic report, and the proofs are read by it. These several mechanical triumphs, in 1 See Life of John Sterling, by Carlyle, who says of him at this time "The emphatic, big-voiced, always influential and often strongly unreasonable Times newspaper was the express emblem of Edward Sterling. He, more than any other man, . . . was The Times, and thundered through it, to the shaking of the spheres. " 2 The Times, 25th November 1879. their varied stages of development, must have occasioned a preliminary outlay of at least 100,000. And that such experiments, on any like scale, became possible is due to the growth of advertisements. Of these, the first number of The Times contained fifty-seven, all brief ones. In recent days a number of The Times has occasionally con tained sixty columns in one instance, at least, sixty- seven of advertisements. The rates of charge vary, but upon a rough average it seems probable that the annual revenue from this source alone may considerably exceed 400,000. With such a fund in reserve apart from the direct product by sale it becomes easy to understand the otherwise amazing items of outlay known to have been incurred for telegrams, as, for instance, of 800 for reports of the results of the congress of Berlin, when The Times achieved the publication of the treaty almost at the instant of its signature. What the sale of the paper was upon that occasion is not publicly recorded. But when, in December 1861, it published a memoir of the lamented Prince Consort, 91,000 copies were sold. On occasion of the marriage of the prince of Wales a sale of 110,000 copies (at 4|d.) was attained. Of the many curious episodical incidents which occur in the public history of The Times, one only can here be mentioned. In 1840 the Paris correspondent of the paper (Mr O Keilly) obtained information respecting a gigantic scheme of forgery which had been planned in France, together with particulars of the examination at Antwerp of a minor agent in the conspiracy, who had been there, almost by chance, arrested. All that he could collect on the subject, including the names of the chief conspirators, was published by The Times on the 26th of May in that year, under the heading "Extraordinary and Extensive Forgery and Swindling Conspiracy on the Continent (Private Correspondence)." The project contemplated the almost simultaneous presentation at the chief banking- houses throughout the Continent of forged letters of credit, purporting to be those of Glyn & Company, to a very large amount ; and its failure appears to have been in a great degree owing to the exertions made, and the responsibility assumed, by The Times. One of the persons implicated brought an action for libel against the printer, which was tried at Croydon in August 1841, with a verdict for the plaintiff, one farthing damages. A subscription towards defraying the heavy expenses (amounting to more than 5000) which The Times had incurred was speedily opened, but the proprietors declined to profit by it ; and the sum which had been raised was devoted to the founda tion of two " Times scholarships," in connexion with Christ s Hospital and the City of London School. Three years afterwards The Times rendered noble public service in a different direction. It used its vast power with vigour at the expense of materially checking the growth of its own advertisement fund by denouncing the fraudu lent schemes which underlay the "railway mania "of 1845. For a long period after the establishment of The Times, no effort to found a new daily London morning newspaper was ever conspicuously successful. As time went on, many endeavours were made, at an aggregate cost, as respects those only that entirely failed, of at least 80,000. 3 A measure of success followed the establishment 3 Conspicuous among these iinfruitful attempts were (1) The New Times, started by Dr (afterwards Sir John) Stoddart, upon his depar ture from Printing-House Square ; (2) The Representative, established by John Murray, under circumstances which seemed at the outset exceptionally promising; (3) The Constitutional, begun in 1836 and carried on for eight months by a joint-stock company, exception ally favoured in having for editor and sub-editor Laman Blanchard and Thornton Hunt, with a staff of contributors which included Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold, and Bulvrer ; (4) The Morning Star, founded in 1856, and kept afloat at a cost (it is credibly reported) of,
