Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/191

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The Later Days of the "Echo"

ority to those vulgar considerations which it has been falsely asserted were paramount in matters of this sort. We commenced our issue last year avowedly as an evening journal; we claim now the distinction of having changed the fashion of evening newspapers. When this journal appeared, the morning journals had, it may be said, the day to themselves. No evening paper had more than an insignificant circulation. In these days it has long been little less than absurd that the people of this great country should have no new medium of information as to the news of the world from the midnight hour when what are called morning papers are made up. We observed that England was singular in this respect; that her people alone had no chance of learning the doings of the current day; and that in every other European State the journals which have the largest circulation are unlike English morning papers—made up on the day of their publication; and we resolved, in our own case, to abandon the ground of an exclusively evening paper when we had gained a circulation infinitely the largest in the annals of the evening press. We decided to undertake the wider function of a journal commencing publication about mid-day, and reaching by regular and well-organized conveyance to all parts of the country by night-fall."


In 1875 the paper was sold to Mr. Albert Grant, commonly known as "Baron" Grant. It was said, of course, that the Echo was got rid of because it was not a financial success, but this was publicly denied by the firm. On the conclusion of the purchase Mr. Arnold resigned his editorship, and for about a year Mr. Horace Voules both edited and managed the paper. Presently Mr. Grant disposed of it to Mr. Passmore Edwards, who in turn sold a two-thirds share of the property to Mr. Andrew Carnegie and Mr. Samuel Storey, and soon afterwards bought it back. It was then disposed of to a syndicate, and finally, in 1901, the controlling interest was acquired by Mr. Pethick Lawrence, who edited it from 1902 until 1905, when it was discontinued.

The Echo was the earliest of a multitude of halfpenny dailies, morning as well as evening, and until the War came to bring about unthought-of changes, nothing

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