CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A HISTORY OF NEWSPAPERS, AND OF THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. BY F. KNIGHT HUNT. IN TWO VOLS. VOL. II. "What is it that drops the same thought into ten thousand minds at the same moment? LONDON: DAVID BOGUE, 86, FLEET STREET. MDCCCL. CONTENTS.-VOL. II. Napoleon Bonaparte in Westminster Hall. The Libels of the French Emigrants. L'Ambigu. Mackintosh's Speech in defence of M. Peltier. Leigh Hunt, The Examiner, and the Prince Regent. Cobbett. Numerous Government Prosecutions. "The Battle of The Public Advertiser. Woodfall and Junius. The Public Ledger. The Morning Chronicle. Perry. John Black. The Morning Post. Mr. Tattersall. Rev. Bate Dudley. Dan Stuart's Descriptions. Coleridge. Charles Lamb. Bate Dudley starts The Morning Herald. Prospectus of the Paper. History of The Times. The Representa- The growth of Newspaper arrangements and expenses. The Accounts of The Public Advertiser and of The Morning Chronicle. Increased Expenses caused by growing Competition. Staff of a Daily Paper in 1850. Editors. Reporters. Foreign and Home Correspondents. Printers. Overland Mail. Waghorn. Arrival of a Mail. Twenty- Evening Paper in 1727. The Evening Posts. The Courier and Coleridge. Percival. Second Editions. James Stuart. Laman CHAPTER VII. THE PRESS OF THE PRESENT CENTURY. "Before this century shall have run out, Journalism will be the whole press -the whole human thought. Since that prodigious multiplication art has given to speech-to be multiplied a thousand-fold yet-mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page. Thought will spread abroad in the world with the rapidity of light; instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood, at the extremities of the earth, it will speed from pole to pole. Sudden, instant, burning with the fervour of soul which made it burst forth, it will be the reign of the human word in all its plentitude-it will not have time to ripen, to accumulate into the form of a book-the book will arrive too late. The only book possible from to-day is a Newspaper."-Lamartine. Napoleon Bonaparte in Westminster Hall.-The Libels of the French Emigrants.-L'Ambigu.-Macintosh's Speech in defence of M. Peltier.-Leigh Hunt, the Examiner, and the Prince Regent.Cobbett.-Numerous Government Prosecutions." The Battle of the Unstamped."-Bulwer, and the Taxes on Knowledge.-Reduction of the Stamp.-The Increase of Newspapers. HE present century found the press surrounded THE by difficulties, yet growing in power and usefulness, despite the constant suspicion of the ruling powers, the occasional attacks of the law-officers of the crown, and the weight of still increasing taxation. We have seen how its aid was invoked here by the opponents of the revolutionary party in France; how a Paper was set up in England to abuse the new rulers of the sister country, whilst, in return, a portion of the Parisian press replied to the verbal missiles thus hurled across the Channel, by abuse of England, and all things English. Soon the people of this country were surprised by the curious spectacle of VOL. II. B |