probably not one single individual in this great company has failed
to-day to see a newspaper, or has failed to-day to hear something
derived from a newspaper which was quite unknown to him or to her
yesterday. Of all those restless crowds that have this day
thronged the streets of this enormous city, the same may be said as
the general gigantic rule. It may be said almost equally, of the
brightest and the dullest, the largest and the least provincial
town in the empire; and this, observe, not only as to the active,
the industrious, and the healthy among the population, but also to
the bedridden, the idle, the blind, and the deaf and dumb. Now, if
the men who provide this all-pervading presence, this wonderful,
ubiquitous newspaper, with every description of intelligence on
every subject of human interest, collected with immense pains and
immense patience, often by the exercise of a laboriously-acquired
faculty united to a natural aptitude, much of the work done in the
night, at the sacrifice of rest and sleep, and (quite apart from
the mental strain) by the constant overtasking of the two most
delicate of the senses, sight and hearing--I say, if the men who,
through the newspapers, from day to day, or from night to night, or
from week to week, furnish the public with so much to remember,
have not a righteous claim to be remembered by the public in
return, then I declare before God I know no working class of the
community who have.

It would be absurd, it would be impertinent, in such an assembly as
this, if I were to attempt to expatiate upon the extraordinary
combination of remarkable qualities involved in the production of
any newspaper. But assuming the majority of this associated body
to be composed of reporters, because reporters, of one kind or
other, compose the majority of the literary staff of almost every