Penny paper

“ And he handed the amazed publisher a check for five hundred dollars. "I sicken, sir," he continued, "of this qualmish air of half-truth that I have breathed so long. I am going to read these books, and say what I think of 'em, and five hundred dollars is dirt cheap for the privilege. I had sooner that every 'New Publications' ad. should die out of my newspaper than that my literary columns should be contaminated with a Lie! Never mind the change, sir. If anything is left over, send it to the proprietor of the new penny paper that is struggling to keep its head above water. ”

“ While Penny waited, she entertained herself by reading all the comic strips she could find in the out-of-town exchange papers. In the adjoining room she could hear the rhythmical thumping, clicking sound of the Star’s teletype machines. She wandered aimlessly into the room to read the copy just as the machines typed it out, a story from Washington, one from Chicago, another from Los Angeles. It was fascinating to watch the print appear like magic upon the long rolls of copy paper. ”

“ The absurd rule of charging by the number of enclosures, instead of by weight, often caused great irritation, especially when any one of the enclosures was very diminutive. Thus, in an instance reported to me at the time, a certain letter from London to Wolverhampton, which now would be conveyed for one penny, came charged with a postage of two shillings and sixpence, viz., tenpence for the letter, tenpence for a returned bill of exchange enclosed therein, and tenpence for a small scrap of paper attached to this latter at the notary’s office. ”

“ My first anxiety was as to the introduction of stamps; their use, as already shown, being indispensable to that rapidity and economy of postal operation, without which the mere adoption of the penny rate would be extremely imperfect as a matter of public convenience, and perhaps seriously detrimental to the direct revenue. I consequently prepared a paper, [259] which was printed and circulated by the Mercantile Committee, “On the Collection of Postage by means of Stamps.” ”

“ The plan by which Mr. Rowland Hill, in his pamphlet of 1837, proposed to carry out in practice his uniform penny postage scheme was, shortly stated, first, simply to pay the penny or money with the letters; but secondly, and more especially, by stamped sheets of letter paper, and stamped wrappers or covers. "Let stamped covers and sheets of paper be supplied to the public, from the Stamp Office or Post Office, or both, and at such a price as to include the postage." ... ”

“ The low price of the penny papers endows their publishers with a philanthropical spirit of disinterestedness, and a regard to the purity of public morals not dependent on pecuniary considerations. A cent is but a nom- inal price for a newspaper, and, therefore, the publishers and editor of a penny print are moved only by an earnest and
prayerful wish for the spiritual and temporal good of their read- ers. ”

“ The normal colour is evidently one which requires great nicety in manipulation, a slight difference in mixing forming the two shades, which are very distinct. Like the Penny and Six Pence already known these stamps are on thin woven paper, without watermark, and perforated. The Four Pence is perforated by a machine which removes a little circular piece of the paper, like that in use for the English stamps, but the holes very much wider apart. ”

“ The higher price necessarily induces a smaller sale. The dealers in cheap {278} periodicals say, "you have no chance for a sale unless you give as much paper as the others give for a penny!" In this respect, some of the more extensively circulated of these sheets would appear to defy all reasonable competition. They are sold for 50s. per thousand; their paper and machine-work cost, at the very least, 45s. Out of this 5s. per thousand they have to pay their publishing expenses, their writers, their woodcuts, their composition, their stereotype casts. ”

“ In these days of cheap halfpenny papers with immense circulations it is difficult to realize that at a date not very far distant from us, the poor scarcely, if ever, saw a newspaper at all. Friends used to club together to reduce the great expense of buying a single copy, and agents hired out copies for the sum of one penny per hour. ”

“ Goulbourn, who might be regarded as the Chancellor of the Exchequer expectant, moved resolutions of which the object was to have the measure of penny postage postponed, on the ground, mainly, of the present deficiency in the revenue, the extensive powers proposed to be given to the Treasury, and the opposition of the paper-makers. ”

“ Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs made a careful list of these numerous journals, selecting largely from among the newest penny papers, carefully jotting down all the dailies, and judiciously balancing the old weeklies, in the manufacturing districts, against those claiming to be more especially county papers.
A printer in Shoreditch struck off for him a number of copies of his advertisements, and when all was prepared he commenced to write his orders for their publication. With these orders he enclosed packets of postage stamps, varying in value from sixpence to five and six shillings. ”

“ The Art Mirror will contain the pictures; the News Bureau will contain the crispiest news; the Sword and Pen will contain the most pungent editorials; the World Joker or the New York Clown will contain the comical things. Then there should be a “stock paper,” a “sporting paper,” etc. Let it be known that when a man buys The Earth for three cents, or for a penny, as the case may be, he really gets seven papers.
Advertising Department. 809. Free Wants.—In establishing a paying paper{245} you lose nothing by what you give away. You can well afford to give away space that costs you nothing. ”

“ A silk handkerchief with a narrow hemstitched border is the most convenient to use, for the reason that the broken match is the more readily removed and a fresh one inserted for future occasion.
The Cent and the Hole. In a piece of stout paper, cut a circle three-sixteenths of an inch less in diameter than a penny. Ask any one to pass a penny through the hole without touching [81] the coin or tearing the paper. Fold the paper exactly across the centre of the hole, and then take it in both hands and ask some one to drop the penny into the fold. ”

“ The slips in the doors are to save the postmen’s time—the great point being how many letters may be delivered within a given time, the postage being paid in the price of the envelopes, or paper. So all who wish well to the plan are having slips in their doors. It is proved that poor people do write, or get letters written, wherever a franking privilege exists. ”

“ The ailments of colorers of wall paper arise principally from the coloring matter, much of which is very poisonous. "By laboring upon arsenical paper in the finishing department, small tumors are produced, and some have to change their occupation in consequence." At H.'s store, Philadelphia, the young man told me they employ girls from twelve to sixteen years of age, for putting gilding on paper. They work ten hours, and earn from $3.50 to $4.50 a week. ”

“ We have now completed the single machine, and the night before last we gave it a trial. It worked better than I hoped even, and fully established, I think, the correctness of the views we have entertained. Miss D——, who left for Birmingham this morning, has taken with her the scroll of paper which was printed.... It will be forwarded to you. I need not ask you to take care of it, and to return it when you come back to me. Some day or other it may be a great curiosity.”
[231]
BOOK II.
HISTORY OF PENNY POSTAGE.
“There is good to a man’s self in doing good to others ”

“ Thus, for instance, though it was obviously desirable that the paper to be used as covers should, before issuing, be cut into the proper shape (machine-made envelopes were not yet thought of) , yet that preliminary was objected to, because of the additional trouble it would give, not only in cutting, but also in counting. It really cost me a considerable portion of three several days, to say nothing of some trial of temper, to carry the point. ”

“ It is dusty, disagreeable work, and we presume not particularly healthy, as much of the dust is no doubt inhaled. In some factories, women attend the picking and cutting machines and calenders. They are also employed for hanging, laying off, reeling, folding, assorting, counting, enveloping, and labelling the paper. The inability to meet fully the demand for rags in the manufacture of paper has led to experimenting with a variety of articles. One agent for the sale of paper made in New Jersey, and the foreman of the same establishment, told me their girls get from $2.50 to $3 a week. ”

“ At regular intervals along the green-baize tables were deposited small parcels of stationery, consisting of a large sheet of sanguinary blotting-paper, a quire or so of foolscap, a piece of indiarubber, an attenuated lead-pencil, a dozen of quill pens, with others of Gillott’s or Mitchell’s manufacture, and an ink bottle—the whole putting one in mind of those penny packets of writing requisites that itinerant pedlars, mostly seedy-looking individuals who “have seen better days,” pester one’s private house with in London ”

“ There are said to be many book and paper agents in New York city—both men and women—and they are paid the same percentage. The time of work is confined to daylight. If newspaper advertisements for book agents can be relied on, we suppose the business would pay well. We can scarcely glance over the columns of a newspaper without finding a call for agents to present the merits of some new work, with the promise that, if active and diligent, the individual will clear from $30 to $100 per month. It requires judgment, taste, and a knowledge of what is popular in the book market. ”

“ Before the introduction of Penny Postage, a newspaper transmitted by post between a post-town and, with few exceptions, any of the 10,000 places which have now sub-offices, was subjected to a charge of at least one penny; and when transmitted between any two of the above 10,000 places, with but few exceptions, to a charge of at least twopence.
At present a newspaper, even without the impressed stamp, if posted at any one of the 11,400 places at which head or sub-offices are now established, provided only that it does not exceed 4 ozs. in weight, is delivered at any other for a single penny. ”

“ It is true that some few newspapers exceed the limit of weight (4 ozs.) which is carried for one penny, and they are therefore charged higher rates; but, on the other hand, two or more of the lighter newspapers—the aggregate weight of which does not exceed the 4 ozs.—are frequently sent under the same cover, and only one penny is charged on the packet. The average postage of each newspaper, when prepaid with the postage stamp, will therefore, in all probability, not exceed one penny per transmission. ”

“ The steel pen, sold at the rate of a penny a dozen, is the creation, in a considerable degree, of the Penny Postage stamp; as the Penny Postage stamp was a representative, if not a creation, of the new educational power. Without the steel pen, it may reasonably be doubted whether there were mechanical means within the reach of the great bulk of the population for writing the three hundred and thirty-seven millions of letters that now annually pass through the Post Office. ”

“ In short, I am myself quite unacquainted with any logic by which it can be maintained that while a newspaper weighing six or eight ounces is conveyed for a halfpenny, a letter weighing but half an ounce should be chargeable with a penny, or, in other words, why the lightest letter should be charged twice as much as the heaviest newspaper. ”

“ I further remarked that, as the cost of conveyance for a given distance is, under ordinary circumstances, in tolerably direct proportion to the weight carried, and as a newspaper or franked letter (and franked letters were then very numerous) weighs generally as much as several ordinary letters, the average expense of conveying a letter chargeable with postage must be much lower yet; probably about one-third of the sum mentioned above, or, in other words, nine-hundredths of a penny ”

“ Books and paintings act upon us without any intermediate objects, while the piece of the composer, to be understood, needs the flow of harmony noted on the paper in hieroglyphic signs, and must escape under the fingers from the instrument. It is necessary to animate the inert matter—to make it yield to the wish of the performer and reproduce the inspirations of the composer. ”

“ The public, satisfied with having obtained the adoption of the penny rate, the reform in which it was most interested, bestirred itself little in advocacy of those further improvements in which its interest was less direct and far less obvious; many persons, indeed, regarding penny postage pure and simple as the be-all and [462] end-all of the matter. ”

“ There was no human editor at the other end, but a mere cunning arrangement of cogs that changed the manuscript from one envelope to another and stuck on the stamps. It was like the slot machines wherein one dropped pennies, and, with a metallic whirl of machinery had delivered to him a stick of chewing-gum or a tablet of chocolate. It depended upon which slot one dropped the penny in, whether he got chocolate or gum. And so with the editorial machine. One slot brought checks and the other brought rejection slips. ”