copies--many of them repeating themselves each day, some
each alternate day, some each third day and the remainder each week,
month or quarter, and that in a single year they produce 3,481,610,000
copies, knowing, though dimly realizing, this tremendous output, we
have some faint impression of the numerical strength of this mighty
force which holds close relation to and bears strong influence upon
life, thought and work, and which, measured by its units, is as the
June leaves on the trees--in its vast aggregate almost inconceivable;
a force expansive, aggressive, pervasive; going everywhere; stopping
nowhere; ceasing never.

I am to speak to you of "The Business End" of the American newspaper;
that is of the work of the publisher's department--not the editor's.
At the outset I am confronted with divisions and subdivisions of the
subject so many and so far reaching that right regard for time compels
the merest generalization; but, as best I can, and as briefly as I
can, I shall speak upon the topic under three general divisions:

First.--The personal and material forces which make the newspaper.

Second.--The sources of revenue from the joint working of these
forces.

Third.--The direct office, bearing and influence of these forces.

It is but natural that the general public has limited idea of the
personality and mechanism of the publication business, for much of its
movement is at night, and there is separation and isolation of
departments, as well as complicated relation of the several parts to
the whole. Not many years ago a very few men and boys could edit,
print and distribute the most important of newspapers, where now
hundreds are necessary parts in a tremendous complexity. But even
to-day, of the nearly 18,000 publications in the United States, more
than 11,000 are of that class which, in all their departments, are
operated by from two to four or five persons, and which furnish scant
remuneration even for these. Among the thin populations and in the
remote regions are thousands of weekly papers--and you may spell the
weekly either with a double _e_ or an _ea_--where there are two men
and a boy, one of whom does a little writing and much scissoring,
loafing among the corner groceries and worse, begging for
subscribers, button-holing for advertisements, and occasionally and
indiscriminatingly thrashing or being thrashed by the "esteemed
contemporary" or the "outraged citizen;" the second of whom sets the
ty