n years since the New York Sun was commenced by a couple of
journeymen printers, one of whom had just been in my employ. They were
intelligent and enterprising, and began by writing their editorials and
police reports, which they then set up in type, and worked from an old
Ramage press, with their own hands. They printed seven hundred papers, of
a very small size, which they sold to boys at 62-1/2 cents per hundred, and
the boys sold them in the streets at one cent each. Soon their editions
increased, and they enlarged their sheet, and hired it printed on a Napier
press which I owned. Again their business increased, so much that it
became necessary for them to have a press of their own, driven by steam
power. One of the partners then sold out his interest for $10,000, went to
the West, studied law, and has been twice a candidate for Congress, with
strong prospects of success. The concern has since passed into other
hands, and has continued to prosper. For many years it has been printed on
a sheet larger than could be bought for a cent, making a constant loss on
the paper alone; besides which, it has cost $25 a week to the editor for
the leading articles alone; and I know not how much for other editorial
labor, market and commercial reports, ship news, foreign news, lightning
expresses, correspondence, &c. And yet the amount received for advertising
has covered all these expenditures, and enabled the present proprietor to
realize, as is supposed, a splendid fortune.

A man in Boston buys 200 copies of the New York Tribune and other papers
daily, for which he pays 1-1/4 cents each. The Express brings him the parcel
for 50 cents, which is one quarter of a cent for each paper. The
post-office would charge $3.00 for postage alone. For the half cent
remaining to him after expenses paid, the carrier delivers his papers to
subscribers all over the city, collects his pay once a month, and runs all
the risk of loss of bundles and bad debts. Each paper weighs about an
ounce and a half--equal to three single letters of full weight, the postage
on which would be fifteen cents, making $30 in all. It is impossible to
doubt the practicability of cheap postage.

In Scotland, with but 2,628,957 inhabitants, and no great commercial
centre, no political metropolis, and but little foreign commerce, such is
the effect of cheap postage that 28,669,169 letters are sent in a year.
Even in _poor_ Ireland, where the people die of hunger by thousan