The End of the Charleston Mercury.

407

claim any purpose of wounding my feelings or injuring my character by the publication of the communications alluded to in my note. You desire me to state what atonement or disclaimer would be agreeable. I can but presume that your reflection has shown you that, in publishing the articles of Dr. Bellinger, in view of his declared non-amenability, and of my being a private citizen, and of the fact that I had not assailed him through your columns, you have inflicted, in fact, a wound upon my feelings and an injury upon my character, and that you have become unavoidably responsible for this wrong. Your candor will therefore, no doubt, induce you to perceive the wrong, and to express regret for the consequences which have ensued from your acts.

Respectfully yours,

To L.W. SPRATT, Esq.

THE AMENDE.

ALFRED RHETT.

CHARLESTON, Jan. 8, 1857.

SIR,-Your note of to-day has been received. In permitting the appearance, in the columns of the Standard, of the articles referred to, I certainly had no intention to injure or to offend any one; and I readily acknowledge my regret that any wound was thereby occasioned to your feelings, or any injury to your characRespectfully yours, L. W. SPRATT.

ter.

ALFRED RHETT, Esq.

SATISFACTORY.

CHARLESTON, Jan. 8, 1857.

L. W. SPRATT, ESQ.-SIR,-It gives me pleasure to state that your note of today has been received, and is satisfactory.

Very respectfully,

ALFRED RHETT.

But the days of duels are rapidly passing away, and the days of the Mercury have been numbered. Its career is at an end. It ceased to exist in November, 1868. Ninety-one volumes of the paper had been published, fuller of the brilliant sophistries of the South than can be found any where else. Messrs. R. B. Rhett, Jr., and Brother, with Roswell T. Logan for an assistant, were its last editors and conductors. Why its publication should have been suspended is a mystery, when we take into view the following announcements, which appeared in the Mercury in August, 1868, and which seemed to be standing notices in that remarkable paper:

THE CHARLESTON MERCURY HAS NOW A LARGER BONA FIDE COUNTRY CIRCULATION THAN ANY OTHER PAPER PUBLISHED IN CHARLESTON.

THE CHARLESTON MERCURY HAS THE LARGEST NUMBER OF PERMANENT ANNUAL AND SEMI-ANNUAL SUBScribers of any JOURNAL IN SOUTH CAROLINA. What are reminiscences? The records of the past. The Mercury of March 26, 1832, contained this notice:

MARK!

Monday, March 19, 1832. The Senate of the U. States, by a vote of 23 to 18, five majority, adopted Mr. Clay's proposition to remodel and aggravate the tariff.

ARE WE READY?

TOCSIN.

In his valedictory in 1868, Editor Rhett, in lamentations over the result of the fruitless efforts of the leaders of the South, declared his intention "to take his place among her ruined children-better so than to be the proudest and most honored of her successful enemies -and to wait, hoping, praying, expecting the bright coming of her final deliverance, the independence and prosperity of the South." Sic transit gloria mundi.

THE FIFTH EPOCH.

1832-1835.

JOURNALISM IN A TRANSITION STATE.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE BEGINNING OF THE NEWSPAPER REVOLUTION. SIZE OF NEWSPAPERS IN 1832.-WASTE OF SPACE.-SMALLER PAPERS.-THE NEW YORK GLOBE-JAMES GORDON BENNETT.-THE PENNSYLVANIAN.— THE HOYT, VAN BUREN, AND BENNETT CORRESPONDENCE.-BLAIR'S OPINION OF BENNETT.-OPPOSITION OF POLITICIANS. INCOMING OF THE INDEPENDENT PRESS.-SEWARD, WEED, AND GREELEY.

It was now necessary to have a revolution in the Press. Those in existence were too large, and too much under the influence and control of politics. Something new was needed. Something fresh and vigorous.

Newspapers, beginning with the News-Letter in 1704, on sheets 8 by 12 inches in size, run up, with the Journal of Commerce and Courier and Enquirer in 1827, to 24 by 35 inches; and these comparatively large papers, in their competition, as we have shown, increased their dimensions to 35 by 583 inches in 1853. Size seemed to have absorbed most of the other qualities that make up a first-class journal. Such large folio sheets, when we consider their form, circulation, and advertising patronage, were beyond the legitimate requirements of newspapers at that time. Space for advertisements in the "blanket sheets" was not only sold at very low rates, but was thrown away. Their publishers were compelled to allow as many lines as a grasping advertiser chose to take for $32 per year or $40, including the daily paper. Many advertisements would appear day after day till long after they had accomplished their object. One or more pages would thus frequently become old or stereotyped matter, continually staring the reader in the face, and appearing worse even than a thrice-told tale. It was admitted that these stale business notices seriously damaged the fresh advertisements, and the newspapers generally, as a matter of course, with nothing but politics besides, and without a new idea, became heavy and uninteresting when compared with the vigorous sheets of the present day.

James Gordon Bennett and the Globe. 409

It was necessary to change all this. But how? It required time, money, courage, tact, persistency, talent, industry, and enterprise to effect a revolution. Were they to be had? All these elements, barring the main one-money, began to develop themselves in 1832 or a little earlier. Smaller and cheaper, and more independent papers, with fresh matter, fresh arrangements, and fresh ideas, began to be thought of and projected. With what result?

On the 29th of October, 1832, about the time Emile de Girardin was making arrangements to start La Presse, at half price, in Paris, there was issued in New York City an evening paper called the New York Globe. Its size was 12 by 17-half that of the ten dollar papers, or "respectable sixpennies" then in existence. Its price was eight dollars, which was also a reduction in the right direction, but not sufficient. Its prospectus, as it appeared in the first number, intelligently tells its own story, and is a concise and curious history in itself:

TO THE PUBLIC.

I publish this evening, at No. 20 William Street, the first number of a new daily journal called the New York Globe, price eight dollars a year. Early arrangements will be made to issue a weekly and a semi-weekly paper from the same office.

Since my withdrawal in August last from the Courier and Enquirer, I have been taking measures for the establishment of a new paper, but unavoidable obstacles have hitherto prevented its appearance. I am now in the field, sword in hand, with unfurled banner, resolved to aid the great cause of Jackson and Democracy-the Union of the States, and the rights of the States. My politics are well known. I was one of the first in this state to put the names of Jackson and Van Buren before the people in 1827-I fought through the great conflict of 1828, and again in June, 1829, I was the first to bring the name of our venerable President up for a re-election. I have always supported the principles and nominations of the Democratic Party, and shall continue in that course. Opposed to nullification, I adhere to Jefferson's doctrines of State Rights-equal legislationeconomy in public expenditures-reduction of unnecessary taxes-and the advancement of human liberty and human happiness.

Up to the next election, politics will be the staple article of the Globe; but aft er that event I shall give it all the variety which makes a daily paper the welcome visiter of the tea-table or counting-room. And if industry, experience, and resolution are any warrant for success, I entertain no doubt that, in less than two years, I shall count, without affidavits, at least five thousand good subscribers to the New York Globe.

A word on the size of my paper. For years past the public has been cloyed with immense sheets-bunglingly made up-without concert of action or individuality of character-the reservoirs of crude thoughts from different persons who were continually knocking their heads against each other, without knocking any thing remarkably good out of them. I have avoided this inconvenience. I shall give my readers the cream of foreign and domestic events. My sheet is moderate in size, but neat and manageable, printed on fine paper and with beautiful type. When an overflow of patronage shall demand more room, as it soon will, I may enlarge a little, but I shall avoid, as I would a pestilence, those enormous sheets-the pine barrens of intelligence and taste, which have been undoubtedly sent into the world as a punishment for its growing wickedness.

In taking my position as the editor of a daily paper in this community, I am no new recruit-no undisciplined soldier. I have acted in this capacity for twelve years past, eight of which I have been associated with the National Advocate, the New York Enquirer, and latterly the Courier and Enquirer, all of this city. I

have hitherto labored for the reputation and profit of others; I am now embarked on my own account-on my own responsibility. In coming before this community I do not feel therefore as a stranger thrown among new faces. Though personally unknown to many newspaper readers, I stand before them as an acquaintance-a friend-an intimate. I feel myself connected with New York by that captivating species of relationship-that delightful community of thought and sentiment which exists between an industrious and moral editor, and a numerous and encouraging body of readers. With these remarks I commit my bark to the breeze. JAMES GORDON BENNETT. New York, October 29, 1832.

This paper failed. More correctly speaking, it was suspended. The idea, not the name, remained. It was the beginning of the "small papers," the pioneer of the "Penny Press," the precursor of the "Independent Press," but it did not then succeed. Why? In its general scope it was a political journal, yet its contents indicated a more comprehensive purpose, and exhibited touches of that peculiarity and originality which afterwards so fully characterized the leading journal of the Independent Press of the country. It was, indeed, the prospectus of this new class of journalism. But why did it fail? Simply because, locally and politically, it was started one year too early. It was, however, the intellectual entering wedge. When the New York Hotel, in Broadway, near Eighth Street, was finished, it was leased to Captain Jo. Comstock. He was known to fame, liked by every one, and knew how to keep a first-class hotel, but he succumbed after losing largely in the enterprise. Within six months his chef de cuisine was placed in charge, and he made a fortune in a few years, retiring with a stable full of race-horses. Hiram Cranston, of Rockaway, succeeded him, made another fortune, and drove four-in-hand through Central Park. "Will you tell me, captain," inquired a sanguine friend of Comstock one day, "why you gave up the New York Hotel?" "Certainly," replied the portly and pleasant captain; "I opened the house just one year too early." Such was the case. It was opened too soon. If he had delayed that event twelve short months he would have been in full possession when the tide of the metropolis, which had just set up Broadway, was "at its flood," and he would have been led "on to fortune." So it was with the Globe. It was started too soon: as in all revolutions and change, however, there had to be a beginning. It was what the public wanted, but it was hampered with party politics, and its proprietor, although he knew how to edit and manage a newspaper, was unable, without capital, to perfect his plans and bide his time. With the Globe as with the New York Hotel, the "up town movement" in journalism had not commenced, but it was close upon the heels of that interesting event.

Apart from all other causes and considerations, the political element was vehemently opposed to new papers, and especially to new papers with ideas and opinions of their own. Every newspaper writer

The Albany Regency on Newspapers.

4II

and every printer in the United States had been educated for half a century in the belief that no journal of any respectability could be established without the consent of politicians and the pecuniary aid of party. It was particularly so during Jackson's second term and Van Buren's administration. It was so, indeed, with both parties. "To the victor belongs the spoils" was the motto of the Albany Regency, and it had been fully adopted in Washington. "Under which king, Benzonian? Speak or die!" Thus with the Globe. When it showed any symptoms of independence it was deemed necessary to stop its supplies and crush it out. When its editor afterwards took charge of the Pennsylvanian, another political paper, in Philadelphia, fortunately for improved and enterprising journalism, the same occurred there. All the correspondence of Martin Van Buren, James Gordon Bennett, Jesse Hoyt, Abijah Mann, Jr., and others, show this feeling in the strongest light. In one of his notes to Jesse Hoyt, written in 1829, Mr. Bennett makes the following curious disclosures on this point:

ALBANY, 20th July, 1829.

DEAR SIR,-Since I arrived here I have seen our friends in the Argus office and State department—I mean Major Flagg, Mr. Wright, and Mr. Croswell. They are very friendly, but they say they have heard little of our local matters in New York consequent on the sale of the Enquirer, with the exception of a passing remark from Mr. Cambreleng as he passed through here a few weeks ago. They told me to-day that if the party had the control of the political course of the Courier and Enquirer, it would be more eligible than a new paper. This they think could be done by placing an editor there under the auspices of the General Committee-an editor who would take care of the interests of the party and its friends. They are afraid that the political patronage is not sufficient for the support of a new paper, and they are of opinion that a journal which now enjoys all such patronage as the Courier and Enquirer ought to give up its columns to a political editor appointed by the General Committee.

How would such a plan work now with such journals as the Times, Tribune, Herald, or with the Evening Post, each with an editor selected by a political clique in Albany or Washington, or a General Committee?

Again, writing from Philadelphia on the 13th of June, 1833, he said:

John Mumford has been aided to the extent of $40,000. With a fourth of that sum I would have done twice as much-soberly and with some decency too. I should be sorry to be compelled to believe that my friends in New York should bestow their friendship more effectually upon a fellow than me,

who certainly has some pretensions to decency.

I am sorry to speak harshly of any body, but really I think there is something like ingratitude in the way I have been treated.

I want no favor that I can not repay.

I want no aid that is not perfectly safe.

Yours, etc.,

J. GORDON BENNETT.

The John Mumford mentioned in this letter was editor of the New York Standard, which was, at that time, supported almost en