Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 | Page 6

second class in the large cities use treble or quadruple this press capacity, while the great papers, in the four or five leading cities, have machinery plants of from four to ten presses of greatest capacity, costing from $32,000 to $50,000 each, and able to produce papers of the different numbers of pages required, at a speed of from 24,000 to 90,000 four page sheets, or of from 24,000 to 48,000 eight, ten, or twelve page sheets per hour, each paper complete as you receive it at your breakfast table--printed, pasted, cut and folded, and the entire product for the day accurately counted in lots of tens, fifties, hundreds or thousands, as may be required for instantaneous delivery, while, as if to illustrate and emphasize the ever upward trend of public demand for the day's news, quick and inclusive, Hoe & Co. are now building machines capable of producing in all completeness 150,000 four page papers each hour.
All this tremendous combination of brain, nerve, muscle, material, machinery and capital depends for its movement and remuneration upon but two sources of income--circulation and advertisements--the unit measurements of which are infinitesimal--for the most part represented by wholesale prices; from one-half a cent to two cents per copy for the daily newspaper, and in like proportion for the weeklies and monthlies; and by from one-tenth of a cent to one cent per line per thousand of circulation for advertising space. Verily, in a certain and large sense, the vast publishing interests rest upon drops of water and grains of sand. Under right conditions no kind of business or property is more valuable, and yet no basis of values is more intangible. Nothing in all trade or commerce is so difficult to establish or more environed by competitions, and yet, once established, almost nothing save interior dry rot can pull it down. It depends upon the judgment and favor of the million, yet instances are few where any external force has seriously and permanently impaired it.
About two hundred years have gone since the publication of the first number of the first American newspaper. It was a monthly, called _Publick Occurrences, both Foreign and Domestic_, first printed September 25, 1690, by Richard Pierce, and founded by Benjamin Harris. At that time public favor did seem to control newspaper interests, for that first paper aroused antagonism, and it was almost immediately suppressed by the authorities. Only one copy of it is now in existence, and that is in London. The first newspaper to live, in this country, was the Boston _News Letter_, first issued in 1704 and continued until 1776. New York's first newspaper, the New York _Gazette_, appeared October 16, 1725. At the outbreak of the revolution there were 37 newspapers, and in 1800 there were 200, of which several were dailies. In 1890 there were 17,760, of which there were 13,164 weeklies, 2,191 monthlies, 1,626 dailies, 280 semi-monthlies, 217 semi-weeklies, 126 quarterlies, 82 bi-weeklies, 38 bi-monthlies, and 36 tri-weeklies.
The circulations belong largely to the weeklies, monthlies and dailies, the weeklies having 23,228,750, the monthlies 9,245,750, the dailies 6,653,250, leaving only 2,400,000 for all the others.
The largest definitely ascertainable daily average circulation for one year, in this country, has been 222,745. Only one other daily paper in the world has had more--_Le Petit Journal_, in Paris, which really, as we understand it, is not a newspaper, but which regularly prints and sells for one sou more than 750,000 copies. The largest American weekly is the _Youth's Companion,_ Boston, 461,470. The largest monthly is the _Ladies' Home Journal_, Philadelphia, 542,000. The largest among the better known magazines is the _Century_, 200,000. Of the daily papers which directly interest us--those of the city of New York--the actual or approximate daily averages of the morning papers are given by "Dauchy's Newspaper Catalogue" for 1891, as follows: _Tribune_, daily, 80,000; Sunday, 85,000. _Times_, daily, 40,000; Sunday, 55,000. _Herald_, daily, 100,000; Sunday, 120,000. _Morning Journal_, 200,000. _Press_, daily, 85,000; Sunday, 45,000. _Sun_, daily, 90,000; Sunday, 120,000. _World_, daily, 182,000; Sunday, 275,000. Of the afternoon papers, _Commercial Advertiser_, 15,000; _Evening Post_, 18,000; _Telegram_, 25,000; Graphic (not the old, but a new one), 10,000; _Mail and Express_, 40,000; _News_, 173,000; _Evening Sun_, 50,000; _Evening World_, 168,000. The entire circulation of New York dailies, including with those named others of minor importance, and the German, French, Italian, Bohemian, Hebrew and Spanish daily newspapers, is 1,540,200 copies.
Obviously, there is and must be ceaseless, incisive and merciless competition in securing and holding circulations, as well as in the outward statements made of individual circulations to those who purchase advertising space. In this, as in all other forms of enterprise, there are honest, clean-cut and business-like methods, and there are the methods of the time-server, the trickster and the liar.
The vastly greater number of publications secure