four
in New York State, two in Virginia, two in Carolina and nine in
Pennsylvania. The entire forty-three papers, however, held less printed
matter than any ten pages of our morning journals. The papers of that
time contained no editorials, and were strictly purveyors of the gossip
and news of the week, with rude advertisements--now a cut of a horse
that had strayed, an apprentice that had escaped, a slave that had run
away, enlivened, indeed, by frantic and pathetic appeals for the
subscribers to pay up their dues. There were no public libraries, no
reading rooms, no inns where men could go on winter evenings and read
the papers.

That which starved the newspaper was the lack of facilities for
distribution. It cost twenty-five cents to send a letter. Most of the
correspondents were widely separated lovers. Romeo, knowing that Juliet
would not be able to pay twenty-five cents for his weekly effusion,
learned the use of the cypher, and by means of a large circle on the
outside of the letter and a pink spot within it succeeded in conveying
certain mystic symbols of osculation, that told the story of undying
fidelity without paying the postman for the letter that was left in his
hands. The old postman who jogged along between Philadelphia and New
York spent three days on the trip, and put in his time knitting
stockings. John Adams tells us that it took him six days on the coach
from Boston to New York, and that he rose every morning long before day,
took his seat in the cold, dark coach, and listened to the creaking of
the wheels on the snow until two hours after dark until late Saturday
night, cold and exhausted, he entered the little inn near Castle Garden.
For these reasons no newspaper had any circulation beyond its own
county.

The first railroads that helped distribute the newspapers began to be
built about 1836, and the first ship to carry our newspapers to England
sailed in 1838. The first telegraphic message was sent from Washington
to Baltimore in 1844. The first cablegram in the interest of the press
was sent in 1858. Meanwhile the people were isolated, starved, being
fully conscious that they were like peasants shut in between mountain
walls, while they longed to be citizens of the universe. A single
illustration from history will explain the isolation of communities at
that time:--the news that Jackson had been elected President in early
November did not reach his own State of Tennessee until after New Year