of a free press; and assuredly in one sense the freedom is almost
unlimited: for I saw placards with the printer's name stating that Queen
Victoria is no lawful queen, and all those who rule ought to be hanged;
but men only laughed at the foolish extravagance. Nevertheless, I hope
the generous people of Great Britain will not be offended when I say
that their press is not practically free. Its freedom is not real, for
it is not a _common benefit_ to all: it is but a particular
benefit, that is, a _privilege_. Taxation there forbids the use of
newspapers to the poor. Absence of taxation enables your journals to be
published at one tenth, or even one twentieth, of the English price:
hence several of your daily papers reach from thirty to sixty thousand
readers, while in England one paper alone is on this scale,--the London
'Times,' which circulates thirty thousand, perhaps. Such being the
condition of your press, in addressing you I address a whole people; nor
only so, but a whole intelligent people.

The wide diffusion of intelligence among you is in fact proved by the
immense circulation of your journals. It is not solely the cheap price
which renders your press a common benefit, and not a mere privilege to
the richer; but it is the universality of public instruction. It is
glorious to know that in this flourishing young city alone nearly a
hundred thousand children receive public education annually. Do you
know, gentlemen, what I consider to be your most glorious monument? if
it be, as I have read, that, when your engineers draw geometrical lines
to guide your wandering squatters in the solitudes where virgin Nature
adores her Lord, they place on every thirty-sixth square of the district
marked out to be a township, a modest wooden pole with the glorious
mark, POPULAR EDUCATION. This is your proudest monument. In my opinion,
not your geographical situation, not your material power, not the bold
enterprizing spirit of your people, is the chief guarantee of their