No one who is asked to name the agencies that weave the great web of
intellectual and material influences and counter-influences by which
modern humanity is combined into the unity of society will need much
reflection to give first rank to the newspaper, along with the post,
railroad, and telegraph.

In fact, the newspaper forms a link in the chain of modern commercial
machinery; it is one of those contrivances by which in society the
exchange of intellectual and material goods is facilitated. Yet it is
not an instrument of commercial intercourse in the sense of the post or
the railway, both of which have to do with the transport of persons,
goods, and news, but rather in the sense of the letter and circular.
These make the news capable of transport only because they are enabled
by the help of writing and printing to cut it adrift, as it were, from
its originator and give it corporeal independence.

However great the difference between letter, circular, and newspaper may
appear today, a little reflection shows that all three are essentially
similar products, originating in the necessity of communicating news and
in the employment of writing in its satisfaction. The sole difference
consists in the letter being addressed to individuals, the circular to
several specified persons, the newspaper to many unspecified persons.
Or, in other words, while letter and circular are instruments for the
private communication of news, the newspaper is an instrument for its
publication.

Today we are, of course, accustomed to the regular printing of the
newspaper and its periodical appearance at brief intervals. But neither
of these is an essential characteristic of the newspaper as a means of
news publication. On the contrary, it will become apparent directly that
the primitive paper from which this mighty instrument of commercial
intercourse is sprung appeared neither in printed form nor periodically,
but that it closely resembled the letter from which, indeed, it can
scarcely be distinguished. To be sure, repeated appearance at brief
intervals is involved in the very nature of news publication. For news
has value only so long as it is fresh; and to preserve for it the charm
of novelty its publication must follow in the footsteps of the events.
We shall, however, soon see that the periodicity of these intervals, as
far as it can be noticed in the infancy of journalism, depended upon the
regular recurrence of opportunities to transpor