How much more important, in a town of 5000
inhabitants, that the principal mercer should have his fresh arrival
of goods advertised in a paper which circulates 500 copies in that
town, than in some county-town journal which sends to it only some
thirty or forty copies! A sale of growing crops must, in like manner,
be much more effectually advertised in a paper which circulates
largely in a small district, than in one which is diffused sparsely
over a large one. All this, indeed, is amply proved by the tendency
which has been shewn of late years, in Scotland at least, to set up
unstamped monthly local papers containing advertisements, and by the
comparative success which these journals have met with.
Among the arguments for such arrangements as would promote the sale of
newspapers, we see little or no stress laid upon the _educational_,
which to us appears as the very strongest of all. The interest felt in
the occurrences of the passing day is one of the most vigorous of all
intellectual appetences. Give a man ready access to a journal in which
this taste can be gratified, and his intellectual progress is certain.
The utterly uneducated, seeing the pleasure which his fellows derive
from the paper, will desire to learn to read, that he may enjoy the
like pleasure. The man just able to read will be drawn on to reflect
and judge, and in time he will desire intellectual food from books
also.
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