ly,
to the Government stamp, and the securities which are required; some, to
the machinery of Government of this country being necessarily so
complicated by ancient rights and privileges, and the difficulties of
raising a revenue, whereof the item of interest on the national debt
alone amounts to nearly 30,000,000l.; while others, again planting one
foot of the Press compass in London, show that a half circle with a
radius of five hundred miles brings nearly the whole community within
twenty-four hours' post of the metropolis, in which the best information
and the most able writers are to be found, thereby rendering it
questionable if local papers, in any numbers, would obtain sufficient
circulation to enable the editors to retain the services of men of
talent, or to procure valuable general information, without wholesale
plagiarism from their giant metropolitan rivals. Besides, it must he
remembered that in America, each State, being independent, requires a
separate press of its own, while the union of all the States renders it
necessary that the proceedings in each of the others should be known, in
order that the constitutional limits within which they are permitted to
exercise their independence, may be constantly and jealously watched;
from which cause it will be seen that there is a very simple reason for
the Republic requiring comparatively far more papers than this country,
though by no means accounting for the very great disproportion existing.

While, however, I readily admit that the newspapers of Great Britain
are greatly inferior in numbers, I am bound in justice to add, that they
are decidedly superior in tone and character. I am not defending the
wholesale manner in which, when it suits their purpose, they drag an
unfortunate individual before the public, and crucify him on the
anonymous editorial WE, which is at one and the same time their
deadliest weapon and their surest shield. Such acts all honest men must
alike deplore and condemn; but it must be admitted that the language
they employ is more in accordance with the courtesies of civilized life,
than that used by the Press of the Republic under similar circumstances;
and if, in a time of excitement and hope, they do sometimes cater for
the vanity of John Bull, they more generally employ their powers to
"take him down a peg;" and every newspaper which has sought for
popularity in the muddy waters of scurrility, has--to use an Oriental
proverb--"eaten i