e caught by other boys and women in waiting.
Carriers are flitting in every direction, and the town is alive with
the great business of getting two hundred thousand papers distributed
before breakfast.

All this is new, but it is also permanent. Having once had daily
papers, we can never again do without them; so perfectly does this
great invention accord with the genius of modern life. The art of
journalism is doubtless destined to continuous improvement for a long
time to come; the newspapers of the future will be more convenient,
and better in every way, than those of the present day; but the art
remains forever an indispensable auxiliary to civilization. And this
is so, not by virtue of editorial essays, but because journalism
brings the events of the time to bear upon the instruction of the
time. An editorial essayist is a man addressing men; but the skilled
and faithful journalist, recording with exactness and power the thing
that has come to pass, is Providence addressing men. The thing that
has actually happened,--to know that is the beginning of wisdom. All
else is theory and conjecture, which may be right and may be wrong.

While it is true that the daily press of the city of New York is
limited by the telegraph, it has nevertheless a very great, an
unapproached, national importance. We do not consider it certain that
New York is always to remain the chief city of the United States; but
it holds that rank now, and must for many years. Besides being the
source of a great part of our news, it was the first city that
afforded scope for papers conducted at the incredible expense which
modern appliances necessitate. Consequently its daily papers reach the
controlling minds of the country. They are found in all reading-rooms,
exchanges, bank parlors, insurance-offices, counting-rooms, hotels,
and wherever else the ruling men of the country congregate. But, above
all, they are, and must be, in all newspaper offices, subject to the
scissors. This is the chief source of their importance. Not merely
that in this way their contents are communicated to the whole people.
The grand reason why the New York papers have national importance is,
that it is chiefly through them that the art of journalism in the
United States is to be perfected. They set daily copies for all
editors to follow. The expenditure necessary for the carrying on of a
complete daily newspaper is so immense, that the art can only be
improved in the large