Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 | Page 2

over
the receipts and the use of the common resources. These syndics were
appointed for two years, and had to make annually, at least, four visits
to all the masters, in order to learn how the laborers were treated and
paid, and how loyally the regulations of the corporation were observed.
They rendered an account of this to the first assembly of the
community and cited all the masters in fault.
Evidently, the new Labor Exchange will not cause a revival of these old
ways of doing things (which perhaps may have had something of good
in them), but we may hope that laborers will find in it protection
against those who would require of them an excess of work, as well as
against those who would preach idleness and revolt to them.--_Le
Monde Illustré_.
[Illustration: NEW LABOR EXCHANGE--HALL FOR MEETINGS.]
* * * * *

THE BUSINESS END OF THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER.[1]
[Footnote 1: A recent address before the Outlook Club, of Montclair,
N.J.]
By A.H. SIEGFRIED.
The controlling motive and direct purpose of the average newspaper are
financial profit. One is now and then founded, and conducted even at a
loss, to serve party, social, religious or other ends, but where the
primary intent is unselfish there remains hope for monetary gain.
The first newspapers never dreamed of teaching or influencing men,
but were made to collect news and entertainment and deal in them as in
any other commodity. But because this was the work of intelligence

upon intelligence, and because of conditions inherent in this kind of
business, it soon took higher form and service, and came into
responsibilities of which, in its origin, it had taken no thought.
Wingate's "Views and Interviews on Journalism" gives the opinions of
the leading editors and publishers of fifteen years ago upon this point of
newspaper motive and work. The first notable utterance was by Mr.
Whitelaw Reid, who said the idea and object of the modern daily
newspaper are to collect and give news, with the promptest and best
elucidation and discussion thereof, that is, the selling of these in the
open market; primarily a "merchant of news." Substantially and
distinctly the same ideas were given by William Cullen Bryant, Henry
Watterson, Samuel Bowles, Charles A. Dana, Henry J. Raymond,
Horace White, David G. Croly, Murat Halstead, Frederick Hudson,
George William Curtis, E.L. Godkin, Manton Marble, Parke Godwin,
George W. Smalley, James Gordon Bennett and Horace Greeley. The
book is fat with discussion by these and other eminent newspaper men,
as to the motives, methods and ethics of their profession, disclosing
high ideals and genuine seeking of good for all the world, but the whole
of it at last rests upon primary motives and controlling principles in
nowise different or better or worse than those of the Produce Exchange
and the dry goods district, of Wall Street and Broadway, so that, taking
publications in the lump, it is neither untrue nor ungenerous, nor, when
fully considered, is it surprising, to say that the world's doing, fact and
fancy are collected, reported, discussed, scandalized, condemned,
commended, supported and turned back upon the world as the
publisher's merchandise.
The force and reach of this controlling motive elude the reckoning of
the closest observation and ripest experience, but as somewhat
measuring its strength and pervasiveness hear, and for a moment think,
of these facts and figures.
The American Newspaper Directory for 1890, accepted as the standard
compiler and analyst of newspaper statistics, gives as the number of
regularly issued publications in the United States and territories, 17,760.
Then when we know that these have an aggregate circulation for each
separate issue--not for each week, or month, or for a year, but for each
separate issue of each individual publication, a total of 41,524,000
copies--many of them repeating themselves each day, some each

alternate day, some each third day and the remainder each week, month
or quarter, and that in a single year they produce 3,481,610,000 copies,
knowing, though dimly realizing, this tremendous output, we have
some faint impression of the numerical strength of this mighty force
which holds close relation to and bears strong influence upon life,
thought and work, and which, measured by its units, is as the June
leaves on the trees--in its vast aggregate almost inconceivable; a force
expansive, aggressive, pervasive; going everywhere; stopping nowhere;
ceasing never.
I am to speak to you of "The Business End" of the American newspaper;
that is of the work of the publisher's department--not the editor's. At the
outset I am confronted with divisions and subdivisions of the subject so
many and so far reaching that right regard for time compels the merest
generalization; but, as best I can, and as briefly as I can, I shall speak
upon the topic under three general