The press of the great nations -- organs of public debate, information, improvement, and advertisement. Some information about these interesting publications would seem to be in order.
In England, the oldest paper is the London Gazette, published twice weekly at the high price of 2 shillings. This is the official organ of HM Government; the first notices of laws, newly-created peers, military information, etc. often appear here.
London’s daily papers cost 1 to 3 pence each. Most of the daily papers featuring ‘general’ news have an acknowledged political stance, and can be quite savage to their opponents, whilst overlooking the grossest misdeeds of their own parties. Fleet Street is home to many of the London papers. The notable morning papers, with their coverage and biases, are:
The Standard (general, Conservative),
The Daily Chronicle (general, Radical),
The Daily News (general, Liberal),
The Daily Telegraph (general, Independent Liberal),
The Times (general, independent),
The Continental Times (foreign, independent),
The Financial News (finance),
The Financier (finance),
The Morning Post (fashion & foreign affairs, Conservative),
The Public Ledger (commercial),
The Sporting Life (sport),
The Sportsman (sport),
The Morning Shipping List (shipping)
Evening papers of note are:
The Evening News (general, Conservative),
The Evening Standard (general, Conservative),
The Globe (general, Conservative),
The St. James Gazette (high-class Liberal),
The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette (shipping, commercial),
The Pall Mall Gazette (Radical),
The Evening Post and Daily Recorder (finance),
The Evening Corn Trade List (commercial),
The Echo (general, Radical)
About 300 weekly and monthly publications are printed in London, at a price of about 1 to 6 pence. Many of these have of course quite narrow specializations: professions, religions, corners of the commercial world, sport, foreign languages, legal publications, etc. A few of these include:
The Army and Navy Gazette
the Athenaeum (critical, literary, and scientific)
the British Medical Journal
the Chemical News (scientific)
the Court Circular
the Economist
the European Mail (news from the Colonies)
the Freemason (Masonic matters)
the Graphic (mostly illustrations)
the Illustrated London News
the Illustrated Police News (sensation)
Invention
the Lancet (medical)
Nature (scientific)
the Police Gazette (a sort of most-wanted list)
Punch (humor)
the Spectator (literary and general review)
the United Service Gazette (naval and military)
Vanity Fair (society)
the Whitehall Review (society)
and the World (society)
European papers of note outside of London include
The Manchester Guardian
L’Aurore of Paris
the Berliner Frie Presse
the Munich Allgemeine Zietung
the Journal de St. Petersburg
the Deutsche Volksblatt of Vienna
the Dublin Nation
L’Illustration (weekly)
Le Monde Illustre (also weekly)
Following is information about the content and appearance of several typical mid-Victorian news organs -- British and American for now. The dimensions refer to the size of a numbered page, and the number of text columns on the page.
The Illustrated London News
London, Saturday, May 10, 1845
11” wide x 16”, 8 sheets (16 pages), 3 columns; weekly, price sixpence
This profusely illustrated periodical (pages 289 - 304) has a wide variety of long news articles -- commercial, sports, crime, accidents and politics. A page and a half, near the end, are devoted to advertisements.
The Times
London, Monday, July 6, 1868
18” wide x 24”, 8 sheets (16 pages), 6 columns; mornings, price 3d
Very dull appearance, with columns of advertisements scattered throughout the paper. Very small type. About half of the paper is dedicated to advertising -- the ads are also typeset by the Times, however, and share equally in the drabness of the other portions of the paper. Every possible kind of news is present, from reports on the recent Abyssinian Expedition, to crimes of the most minor and local kind.
The World
New York, Saturday, July 1, 1871
16” wide x 22.5”, two sheets (eight pages), 6 columns; daily, price four cents
This daily paper has relatively low-key headline, and no art. Political news, foreign news, local news, sporting news, and much business and financial news dominate. Many letters to the editors printed at length. One page of book reviews, two pages of ‘Notices’ (what would be called classified advertising in a modern newspaper). The paper seems to favor the Democratic party. Since 1868, the World has published a useful annual almanac.
Street and Smith’s New York Weekly
A Journal of Romance, Amusement & Useful Knowledge
New York, April 14, 1873
14.75” wide x 22.5”, two sheets (eight pages), 5 colums; weekly, price $3 per year
The ‘Weekly’ has a big three-column piece of artwork on the front page, illustrating a scene from their lead story; and 5 single-column cartoons on the back page. Poetry, short humor items, anecdotes and literary sketches, etiquette advice, household formulas, a few advertisements, etc. provide filler around the main items -- serial fiction. There are eight installments of ongoing stories, a half-page to a page each. The stories are: “Married in Mask”, “Florence Falkland, or The Shrouded Life”, “Texas Jack, The White King of the Pawnees” (by Ned Buntline), “The Banker’s Foe; or, Claude’s Inheritance”, “Charley Gale’s Pluck, or, Boys’ Battles”, “Wildcat Ned”, “Kate’s Engagement, or, The Fatal Choice”, and “The Rivals”.
The Evening Post
New York, Thursday, August 5, 1875
23.5” wide x 30”, one sheet (four pages), 9 columns; evenings, price three cents
Similarly to the ‘World’, this daily paper has essentially no artwork. Two and a half columns of the front page are taken up by advertisements (mostly ship sailings). On each of the remaining pages, three to five columns are devoted to advertisements. The remainder is news: international, national, local, business and financial.
New York Tribune
New York, Tuesday, April 11, 1876
18” wide x 23.5”, two sheets (eight pages), 6 columns; daily, price four cents
No artwork. This paper, “founded by Horace Greeley”, is heavy on the national and state news and information, and on commercial, business and financial news. Pages 3, 6 and 7 each have about half their space taken up with classified advertisments.
Scientific American
New York, January 26, 1878
11” wide x 16”, seven bound sheets (fourteen pages), 3 columns; weekly, price $3.20 per Annum
Nicely produced periodical (pages 47 - 62) on scientific inventions and discoveries; numerous illustrations. Articles include: “The Berryman Patent Feed Water Heater”, “Flooding the Desert of Sahara”, “Artificial Rubies”, “Government Tests of Magazine Guns”, “A Momentum Torpedo”, “Utilizations of the Goose Quill”, “A Radial Drilling Machine”, “Astronomical Notes”, “A Celebrated Short-Horned Cow, “The Reproduction of Musical Notes by Electromagnetism”, “Nitro-Glycerin Explosives -- Their Storage and Transportation”, “A New Lime Light”, a section titled “Communications” with a number of one-paragraph notes and letters; and various catch-alls such as “New Mechanical Inventions” and “New Inventions” for short items. A couple of pages of gaudy advertisements finish the paper.