In this early phase, moreover, the Press was necessarily highly
diverse. One man could print and sell profitably a thousand copies of
his version of a piece of news, of his opinions, or those of his
clique. There were hundreds of other men who, if they took the pains,
had the means to set out a rival account and a rival opinion. We shall
see how, as Capitalism grew, these safeguards decayed and the bad
characters described were increased to their present enormity.




III


Side by side with the development of Capitalism went a change in the
Press from its primitive condition to a worse. The development of
Capitalism meant that a smaller and a yet smaller number of men
commanded the means of production and of distribution whereby could be
printed and set before a large circle a news-sheet fuller than the old
model. When distribution first changed with the advent of the railways
the difference from the old condition was accentuated, and there arose
perhaps one hundred, perhaps two hundred "organs," as they were
called, which, in this country and the Lowlands of Scotland, told men
what their proprietors chose to tell them, both as to news and as to
opinion. The population was still fairly well spread; there were a
number of local capitals; distribution was not yet so organized as to
permit a paper printed as near as Birmingham, even, to feel the
competition of a paper printed in London only 100 miles away. Papers
printed as far from London, as York, Liverpool or Exeter were the