an insight into the subject, and to warn
him against the wiles of the sharpers which assail him even in his own
home.

LXX. ROBERT BONNER.

The circulation of the _New York Ledger_ is over 300,000 copies, and its
readers cannot be far short of one million of people. To all these the
name of ROBERT BONNER is as familiar as that of his paper.

He was born in the north of Ireland, near Londonderry, in 1824. He came
to this country when a mere child, and was brought up in the State of
Connecticut, where he received a good common school education. He was
apprenticed to the printer's trade at an early age, and began his
apprenticeship in the office of the Hartford _Courant_. He came to New
York at the age of twenty, and obtained employment in the office of a
political journal, which soon suspended publication. He then secured a
position in the office of the _Evening Mirror_, from which he passed to
the post of foreman in the office of a small, struggling, commercial
paper, called the _Merchants' Ledger_. In a year or two after forming
this connection, he purchased the _Ledger_, and determined to change both
its character and form, and convert it into a literary journal. He had
the good sense to perceive that there was a great need of a cheap
literary journal, suited to the comprehension and tastes of the masses,
who cared nothing for the higher class periodicals. He proceeded very
cautiously, however, and it was not until some time after that he made
the _Ledger_ entirely a literary paper, and issued it in its present
form. He induced Fanny Fern, who was then in the flush of the reputation
gained for her by her "Ruth Hall," to write him a story, ten columns
long, and paid her one thousand dollars in cash for it. He double-leaded
the story, and made it twenty columns in length, and advertised in nearly
every newspaper of prominence in the country that he was publishing a
story for which he had paid one hundred dollars per column. His mode of
advertising was entirely new, and was sneered at at the time as a
"sensational." It accomplished its object, however. It attracted the
attention of the readers of the papers, and they bought the _Ledger_ "to
see what it was." They liked the paper, and since then there has been no
abatement in the demand for it. The venture was entirely successful.
Mr. Bonner's energy and genius, and Fanny Fern's popularity, placed the
_Ledger_ on a substantial footing from the sta