Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 | Page 8

devised form of appeal
to curiosity and cupidity--from then until now that combination has
been struggling to hold and has held an audience of the
undiscriminating and the unthinking. But, further, and worse, a
short-sighted instinct of self-preservation has led other papers to follow
somewhat at a distance in this demoralizing race. None of them has
gone to such lengths, but the tendency to literary, mental and moral
dissipation induced by a hitherto unknown form of competition has
swerved and largely recast the methods of every New York daily save
only the _Tribune_, _Times_, _Commercial Advertiser_, and _Evening
Post,_ while the converse side of securing business clientage is
illustrated in a way that would be amusing if it were not pathetic, by
that abnormal and fantastic cross between news and pietetics which
mails and expresses itself to the truly good. These are forms of
competition which the business end of legitimately conducted
newspapers is compelled to meet. In a certain way these methods do
succeed, but how, and how long and how much shall they succeed
except by unsettling the mental and moral poise of the people, and by
setting a new and false pace for publishers everywhere whose thoughts
take less account of means than of ends? Which shall we hold in higher
esteem and in our business patronage--Manton Marble and Hurlbut,
gentlemen, scholarly, wise leaders, conscientious teachers, with barely
living financial income; or their successors, parvenus, superficial,
meretricious, false guides, time-serving leaders, a thousand dollars a
day of clear profit, housed in the tower of Babel?
Considered in the large, the circulation side of the American newspaper
has many indefensible aspects. As "nothing succeeds like success," or
the appearance of success, the prestige of not a few newspapers is
ministered unto by rotund and deceptive representations of circulation.
Then, as few can live, much less profit, on their circulations alone, it

becomes greatly important to make the advertiser see circulations
through the large end of the telescope, and so the fine art of telling truth
without lying is a live and perennial study in many counting rooms.
Discussing the circulation question not long ago with the head of a
leading religious paper, he told me that the number of copies he printed
was a thing that he never stated definitely, because the publishers of the
other religious newspapers lied so about their circulations that he would
do himself injustice if he were to tell the truth about his own. The
secular papers should set an example for their religious brethren, but
they do not, for from many of them there is lying--systematic,
persistent, and more or less colossal. Not long ago, within a few days of
each other, three men who were simultaneously employed on a certain
paper told me their actual circulation, _confidentially_, too. One of
them put it at 85,000, the second at 110,000, and the third at 130,000,
and each of them lied, for their lying was so diversified and
entertaining that I felt a real interest in securing the truth, and so I took
some trouble to ask the pressman about it. He told me, very
confidentially, that it was 120,000--and he lied.
By this time my interest was so heightened that I told my personal
friend, the publisher, about the inartistic and incoherent mendacity of
his subordinates, whereupon he laughingly showed me his circulation
book, which clearly, and I have no doubt truthfully, exhibited an
average of 88,000. The wicked partner is nearly always ready to show
the actual record of the counting machines on the presses, and "figures
never lie" but the truth-telling machines which record actual work of
the impression cylinders make no mention of damaged copies thrown
aside, of sample copies, files, exchanges, copies kept against possible
future need, copies unsold, copies nominally sold but sooner or later
returned and finally sold to the junk shop, and all that sort of thing. One
prints a large extra issue on a certain day for some business corporation
which has its own purpose to serve by publication of an article in its
own interest, whereby many thousands of copies are added to that day's
normal output, and he makes the exceptional number for that day serve
as the exponent of his circulation until good fortune brings him a
similar and possibly larger order, and his circulation is reported as "still
increasing." Another struck a "high-water mark" of "190,500" the day
after Mr. Cleveland was elected, and that has been the implied measure

of circulation for the last six years. Another, during a heated political
campaign, or a great financial crisis, or some other dominant factor in
public interest, makes a large and genuine temporary increase, but the
highest mark gained does enforced duty in the eyes of the marines until
another flood tide sweeps