success," or the appearance of success, the prestige of not a few
newspapers is ministered unto by rotund and deceptive representations
of circulation. Then, as few can live, much less profit, on their
circulations alone, it becomes greatly important to make the
advertiser see circulations through the large end of the telescope,
and so the fine art of telling truth without lying is a live and
perennial study in many counting rooms. Discussing the circulation
question not long ago with the head of a leading religious paper, he
told me that the number of copies he printed was a thing that he never
stated definitely, because the publishers of the other religious
newspapers lied so about their circulations that he would do himself
injustice if he were to tell the truth about his own. The secular
papers should set an example for their religious brethren, but they do
not, for from many of them there is lying--systematic, persistent, and
more or less colossal. Not long ago, within a few days of each other,
three men who were simultaneously employed on a certain paper told me
their _actual_ circulation, _confidentially_, too. One of them put it
at 85,000, the second at 110,000, and the third at 130,000, and each
of them lied, for their lying was so diversified and entertaining that
I felt a real interest in securing the truth, and so I took some
trouble to ask the pressman about it. He told me, _very_
confidentially, that it was 120,000--and he lied.

By this time my interest was so heightened that I told my personal
friend, the publisher, about the inartistic and incoherent mendacity
of his subordinates, whereupon he laughingly showed me his circulation
book, which clearly, and I have no doubt truthfully, exhibited an
average of 88,000. The wicked partner is nearly always ready to show
the actual record of the counting machines on the presses, and
"figures never lie" but the truth-telling machines which record actual