rmer, a portion of the
strangers' gallery was set apart for the exclusive use of the reporters;
and in the latter, reporters were permitted to be present for the first
time. Previously to this, if any one had been rash enough to attempt to
take any notes, an official would pounce upon him, and, with an air of
offended dignity well befitting that august assembly, strike the
offending pencil from his grasp!

In 1825, Joseph Hume attempted to get the stamp duty reduced on
newspapers to twopence, and the advertisement duty to one shilling; and
in 1827 he tried to gain an exemption from the stamp act for political
pamphlets; but he was defeated on each occasion. In 1827, _The Standard_
was started as a Tory organ, under the auspices of a knot of able
writers, the chief of whom were Dr. Giffard, the editor, Alaric Attila
Watts, and Dr. Maginn. It has always possessed a good connection among
the Conservative party, but has never been a very profitable concern.
After the abolition of the stamp duty its price was reduced to twopence,
and in 1858 to one penny, and it was the first of the daily journals to
offer a double sheet at that price. In recent times the Letters of
'Manhattan' have given an impulse to its circulation, from their novelty
of style--an impulse which was probably further aided by the ridiculous
but widely believed assertion that those letters had never crossed the
Atlantic, but were penned beneath the shadow of St. Paul's.

The following statistics of newspapers in the chief countries of Europe
in 1827, will probably prove interesting: France, with a population
of--in round numbers--thirty-two millions, possessed 490 journals; the
Germanic Confederation, with a population of thirteen millions, 305;
Prussia, with a population of twelve millions, 288; Bavaria, with a
population of four millions, 48; the Netherlands, with a population of
six millions, 150; Sweden and Norway, with a population of four
millions, 82; and Denmark, with a population of two millions, 80. Great
Britain, with a population of twenty-three millions, far outstripped
them all, for she boasted 483 newspapers; but was yet compelled to yield
the palm to her Transatlantic kinsmen, for the United States, at the
same date, with a population of twelve millions, circulated the
unequalled number of 800. In looking at these figures, one cannot help
being struck with the enormous disproportion between the journals of
Roman Catholic and Protestant count