Circulation of the New York Papers.

687

and then the age is an electric one. All are high-strung like the telegraphic wires. So long, therefore, as the Tribune, and Herald, and their class keep up their enterprise, they are safe from any inroads from their competitors.

In closing our sketch of the Sun the subjoined statement of one year's sale of newspapers in the metropolis comes in very appropriately. It is the return of the Assistant Assessor of the gross receipts from the sales of the various New York newspapers in 1869. Each return is in excess of $1250 per quarter allowed by law :

The New York Citizen and Round Table, consolidated during the last quarter, made a return of $8023.

Within the last six months the Clipper and the Franco-American removed from the district.

If we look back to 1833, when the Sun was started, we find that the total number of copies of all the papers printed in New York City was 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 in that year, valued then at $400,000 or $500,000. The total sales in 1869 reached the enormous sum of 7,000,000. It is probable that, against the 8,000,000 copies issued. in 1833, the number in 1869 came up to 150,000,000 to 200,000,000, almost twice as many copies as were issued in the whole country in the year that the first penny paper made its appearance.

It is to be considered, in analyzing this table, that the sums mentioned there do not include the receipts from advertisements except in the returns of the World, the proprietor of which, it is mentioned, made a mistake in one or two quarters, and returned his total receipts. But this inadvertence is not sufficient to change the wonderful aggregate result of the statement.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE COMIC PAPERS.

THEIR FAILURE IN THE UNITED STATES AND SUCCESS IN EUROPE. - THE CAUSE. WIT AND HUMOR HERE AND ELSEWHERE.-MARK TWAIN ON ARTEMUS WARD.-INTERVIEW WITH PETROLEUM V. NASBY.-WHAT ONE HUMORIST SAYS OF ANOTHER.-ABUNDANCE OF WIT IN AMERICA.

Quid rides?

While comic journalism, per se, does not thrive in the United States, we have plenty of comic writers and talkers, who have grown fat, made money, set the nation in a roar, and thrown Momus into ecstasies of delight over the fresh, free, funny, and broad humor of our numerous raconteurs, and wits, and punsters.

One of the earliest writers in this special department of our literature was the original Joe Strickland, whose productions were short and witty. They were written by George W. Arnold, who kept a lottery office in Broadway, New York, and graced the newspapers in 1826, '27, and '28. The Croaker papers of Drake and Halleck were also full of points. Seba Smith, of Portland, Maine, then wrote the queer and quaint letters of Major Jack Downing, of Downingsville. They had their sensation in their day. Andrew Jackson was in the height of his popularity at that time, and he was the subject of these epistles. Charles Augustus Davis, of New York, was Jack Downing the second. Then Judge Halliburton came out with Sam Slick of Slickville. He was a Nova Scotian, it is true, but his droll sketches and humor belong to the Western Hemisphere. Then Joseph C. Neale, an editor in Philadelphia-not John Neal, of Portland-"not this man, but that"-appeared with his curious "Charcoal Sketches," and created some pleasure and merriment. Then such wits as Prentice, Greene, Bennett, Lewis Gaylord Clarke, John Waters, Kendall, Felix Merry, Henry J. Finn, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lumsden, Cornelius Matthews, and Briggs came before the footlights of our continental theatre.

There was a lithographer, named Robinson, who lined the curbstones and covered the old fences of New York with his peculiarly characteristic caricatures during Jackson's and Van Buren's administrations, which frequently produced a broad grin on the face of the metropolis in those days. Since that period a number of humorists

and wits of purely native growth have become well known throughout the land. Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, John Phoenix, Doesticks, Josh Billings, Bret Harte, Petroleum V. Nasby, who seems to be a descendant of Jack Downing, Leland, Wilkins, Congdon, and Mrs. Partington, in their real names and in noms des plumes, have introduced a new order of comic literature, which, for quaintness, and richness, and freshness, is a feature of the times. Still later, Orpheus C. Kerr, Captain Watt A. Lyre, Yuba Dam, Eli Perkins, Oofty Koofty, Will M. Carleton, M. T. Jugg, and Si Slokum have turned up in the fertile soil of the East and West. Humor is a specialty with them; yet none of these writers, nor all of them combined, have been able to establish and keep in prosperous existence a publication like Punch for a single year. Our people don't want their wit on a separate dish. These wits and humorists write when the spirit moves them. No one can always be funny. Weekly drafts, like a run upon a bank, tend to exhaust them. Specie payments would cease at the treasury of wit. Nickel would take the place of silver and gold, and we should no longer hear the real ring of the true metal. There must be variety in wit; one style is not sufficient for Americans. Wit, and humor, and fun are spontaneous productions in the United States, and effervesce and bubble up like the oil-wells of Pennsylvania; they are as rich and golden as the mines in California-indeed, no crowd is without its wit, no riot without its jest ; there is a laugh in every street. America is filled with Tom Hoods to keep the Niagara in a roar. They find no vent in special publications; their safety-valves are in the regular weekly and daily papers. Each newspaper has one or more. Some of the leading editorial articles sparkle with wit as a duchess does with diamonds.

No single publication, like Judy, Vanity Fair, Yankee Doodle, Lantern, Puck, or Fun, answer the needs of this country. Wit can not be measured off like tape, or kept on hand for a week; it would spoil in that time. Hence the failure of such papers in New York. Thus, while London generously sustains a publication like Punch, Paris laughs over the real hits of Charivari and nineteen or twenty other comic papers; while Germany enjoys her lager bier with the Kladderadatsch and more than thirty other humorous journals, with a circulation of three hundred thousand copies, Italy eats her maccaroni with her illustrated fun for seasoning, and Spain, with her cheap and slovenly journalism, has her bull-fights, with her comic publications printed in large type, with illustrations done in chalk. Australia, too, has not been able to make her rapid progress in gold and glory without a Punch, in imitation of the original in London, and full of smartness and wit. But the United States lives, and breathes, and prospers, builds the longest railroads, and suppresses

the biggest rebellions without a Punch, or a Charivari, or a Kladderadatsch.

We have tried all kinds of comic periodicals. Vanity Fair, which was started in New York in 1859, probably lived the longest. It was not stopped till 1863. George Arnold wrote over a hundred articles for it, including the M'Arone Letters. Mrs. Grundy was issued in July, 1865. Twelve numbers only were published. The Folly Foker, Momus, John Donkey, and, without much exaggeration, fifty others, were issued at different times and at different places with the same result. They came into existence with a laugh, but, poor fellows! how did they make their exit?

It was announced early in 1870 that fifty thousand dollars had been subscribed for the establishment of a new comic paper in New York. After so many failures, the mention of this sum was deemed necessary in order to assure the public that permanency was secured. Shortly after, advertisements appeared of the publication of Punchinello by the Punchinello Publishing Company. Its first number promised well. It contained this journalistic pun to start with, divided into four equal parts:

Let Stone, of the Journal of Commerce, Wood, of the News, Marble, of the World, and Brick, of the Democrat, put their heads together and make a new conglomerate pavement.

But neither this quadruple pun nor the fund of fifty thousand dollars was sufficient. The competition of the lay papers was too much for even genuine wit or greenbacks. No one can wait a week for a laugh; it must come in daily with our coffee. What has been the fate of the Punster, lately issued in Mobile, we have not ascertained. If alive, it has our best wishes. And Puck, in St. Louis, how is he?

It is probable that the original comic paper was the Merrie Mercurie, which was printed in London in 1700. The world has always been full of wit, but it never came from any other than the winepress till then. The Scourge, not a very funny name, was published in England. It appeared in 1811. George Cruikshanks made his débût, we believe, on this periodical. Since then, Figaro, Diogenes, Charivari, Puck, Punchinello, Puppet-show, Asmodeus, Squib, Lion, Town Talk, Fun, Porcupine, Mephistopheles, Chat, Odd Fellow, Bal loon, Judy, Banter, Zou-Zou, Punch, and, indeed, many others, have appeared. Punch, the real Comus of all, made its bow on the 17th of July, 1841, and has lived, and laughed, and become rotund on wit, and wisdom, and wine ever since. It is now a universally recognized character. It has developed more wit with pen and pencil, and has accomplished more good, socially and politically, in England than any politician or statesman is willing to accord to its influence.

Charles Philopon is the head of this description of art and literature in France. He established a comic paper in July, 1830, which he called La Caricature. This overwhelmed him with lawsuits, and his paper was suppressed. He then started the Charivari. What Mark Lemon, the manager of Punch, accomplished, after his fashion, in London, Charles Philopon achieved, after his style, in Paris. John Leech was developed and made famous in England, and Amedée de Noe, the celebrated Cham, and Gustave Doré, brought out to shine in France; but these wonderful artists were only a part of the result and use of these comic papers. La Lune, of Paris, obtained permission from great men to lampoon them. Victor Hugo seemed delighted with the pasquinades on him. In a note to the editor in regard to a caricature of him that was to appear, he said, "I applaud it in advance. You are a legion of charming writers and sparkling artists. I give myself up entire to Mr. Gill, who has so often enchanted me. There is a painter in this caricaturist; there is a thinker in this parodist."

Wit and humor, politics and religon, science and philosophy, are taken in separate doses in Europe. Each has its place. The Episcopal and Catholic churches, Oxford and the Sorbonne, the London Times and Le Journal Officiel of Paris, Punch and Charivari, beer and claret, meet the mental, physical, and psychological wants of the people, each in its own way, and in accordance with the recognized rules of society. No joke appears in the London Times except by accident. All is solemnly grand there. Is there any wit in the official journal of France? Only the grim humor of Napoleon or Thiers pointed with bayonets. Occasionally a smile creeps over the face of a hearer of Spurgeon in London when an outré illustration escapes from the preacher's lips. When an Englishman, or a Frenchman, or a German is in need of wit, he goes to Punch, or Charivari, or Kladderadatsch, or to the theatre, where there is a supply. They want it concentrated. Hence the pecuniary success of these publications on the other side of the Atlantic.

Very different is the love of wit in America. It is not a specialty here; it is every where; it is in the bright, clear atmosphere; we are crammed with wit from the attic down; it blooms in every thing; it is on the field of battle, in the newspaper, on the plantation, in the pulpit, in the court-room, at the polls, in Congress, at the fireside, in the state prison, in the railway car, on steam-boats, at fires, in theatres, on the gold exchange, where men are ruined by scores, in the gambling houses, at the dinner-table, in the kitchen, and even in the sick-room-indeed, the face of America seems always wreathed in smiles at the last bon mot.

Our wits lecture on each other. Artemus Ward is a subject for