nd unlimited authority prevails?

The daily papers of New York, and of some other cities, contain, in each
sheet, an amount of printed matter equal to sixty-four pages of an
ordinary octavo volume. The scope and variety of the information
embodied in them, and the uniformity with which they are maintained from
year to year, give evidence of wonderful enterprise, mechanical skill,
and intellectual ability. Concentrating news from all parts of the
world, by means of a vast and expensive organization, and discussing,
with more or less profound learning and logic, all the important
questions of the day, they have established an immense spiritual power
in the bosom of modern society, such as was not known to the nations in
past ages.

It is true that much of the space in the great dailies, so voluminous as
has been stated, is occupied in mere business notices and individual
advertisements; and such is the case, generally, with the daily and
weekly papers throughout the country. But even this, the humblest
department of the newspaper, may justly be considered an invaluable
instrument of civilization. It multiplies to an unlimited extent the
means of communication among men, and is, therefore, a labor-saving
invention of precisely the same character as the railroad and the steam
engine. In a few brief phrases, made expressive by conventional
understanding, every man can converse with thousands of his neighbors,
and even of distant strangers. Without change of place, without labor of
limbs or of lungs, the man of business can, in a single day, and every
day, if he will, inform a whole community of his own wants, and of his
readiness to meet the wants of others. The newspaper performs the work
of thousands of messengers, and saves countless hours of labor to the
whole community in which it circulates. In some sense, every man is
brought nearer to every other. Each hears the innumerable voices which
address him, and is able to distinguish the individual message which
each one has sent.

It is difficult to estimate the value of this simple agency in its
social aspect. Its material saving is plain to the most cursory thought;
but its higher influence in binding society together and making it
homogeneous, if not equally apparent, is at least quite as indisputable.
Civilization is the direct result of bringing mankind into cooperation
and combined effort, so that the whole power of mind and body of whole
communities is brought to