otherwise according to the taste and eye of the spectator. Anyway, we
have in Birmingham a fine broad street which will, perhaps, compare
favourably with any thoroughfare in any other British city, with the
exception of Princes Street, Edinburgh. In the way of splendid streets
the Scotch capital must be allowed to take the plum.




XI.

THE FOURTH ESTATE.


I cannot say how it may have been in other large cities and towns, but
certainly the newspaper mortality in Birmingham during the past half
century has been quite distressing. I think that without difficulty I
could reckon up from twenty-five to thirty papers and journals that have
been first published and last published in the period named. I do not
propose to say much or to give a list of the dear departed. They were
born, they struggled for existence, and they died in the effort. That is
all that need be said of most of them.

There is, however, one defunct paper to which I must make a short
reference, partly because I remember something about its birth and
death. I refer to the _Birmingham Daily Press_, which first appeared in
May, 1855. If my memory serves me, the Act of Parliament repealing the
newspaper duty had not passed and become law when the _Birmingham Daily
Press_ appeared. Its first issues were, I believe, marked "specimen"
copies, which would seem to show that the new penny paper was really