--The personal and material forces which make the newspaper.
Second.--The sources of revenue from the joint working of these
forces.
Third.--The direct office, bearing and influence of these forces.
It is but natural that the general public has limited idea of the
personality and mechanism of the publication business, for much of its
movement is at night, and there is separation and isolation of
departments, as well as complicated relation of the several parts to
the whole. Not many years ago a very few men and boys could edit,
print and distribute the most important of newspapers, where now
hundreds are necessary parts in a tremendous complexity. But even
to-day, of the nearly 18,000 publications in the United States, more
than 11,000 are of that class which, in all their departments, are
operated by from two to four or five persons, and which furnish scant
remuneration even for these. Among the thin populations and in the
remote regions are thousands of weekly papers--and you may spell the
weekly either with a double _e_ or an _ea_--where there are two men
and a boy, one of whom does a little writing and much scissoring,
loafing among the corner groceries and worse, begging for
subscribers, button-holing for advertisements, and occasionally and
indiscriminatingly thrashing or being thrashed by the "esteemed
contemporary" or the "outraged citizen;" the second of whom sets the
type, reads the proofs, corrects them more or less, makes the rollers,
works the old hand press, and curses the editor and the boy
impartially; and the third of whom sweeps the office weekly, bi-weekly
or monthly, inks the forms and sometimes pis them, carries the papers,
and does generally the humble and diversified works of the "printer's
devil," while between the three the whole thing periodically goes to
the ---- level pretty sure to be reached now and then by papers of
this class.
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