ntelligence, in
London, besides many others in the provinces. Only two of these have
survived, for the other two railway newspapers which still exist were
established before that memorable madness fell upon the nation. Of
these, Herapath's _Journal_ is the oldest and best, and is the oracle of
the Stock Exchange on railway matters. There are some slight symptoms of
the madness returning in the present year, as far at least as the
metropolis is concerned, and one new railway journal has just been
started in consequence. There are many amusing anecdotes told of
newspapers at this epoch, of which we will quote one. One of these
railway organs had published and paid for, from time to time, lengthy
and elaborate reports of the meetings of a certain company, supplied by
one of the staff of reporters. At length the editor told the reporter
that he thought it was high time for the company to give the paper an
advertisement, after all the favorable notices that bad been given to
the undertaking in question. The reporter acquiesced, and promised to
get the order for an advertisement, but putting it off from time to
time, the editor was induced to make inquiries for himself; whereupon he
had the extreme satisfaction of learning that no such company had ever
existed, and that the elaborate reports of meetings, speeches, etc., had
been entirely fabricated by his ingenious employe! An endeavor was made
last year to resuscitate one of these defunct daily journals, _The Iron
Times_, and Tommy Holt was the editor. It lingered for some weeks, and
then smashed utterly. The editor called the contributors together, and
told them that there was nothing to pay them with--nothing in fact
remained but the office furniture. 'Take that, my boys,' said he, 'and
divide it among you.' This was accordingly done, and one man marched off
with a table, another with a chair, a third with a desk, a fourth with
an inkstand, and so on!

When the stamp duty was abolished as a tax, it remained optional with
the publishers to have any number of their issue stamped they pleased
for transmission through the poet. The number of stamps thus issued in
the first six months after the repeal was 21,646,688, whereas the number
in the corresponding period of 1854, when the tax still existed, was
55,732,499. The number of stamps issued in the year 1854 to the
principal newspapers was as follows: _Times_, 15,975,739; _Morning
Advertiser_, 2,392,780; _Daily News_, 1,485,09