account of the advertisements and subscriptions. Melancholy objects seem these caged birds; whose hands alone emerge at intervals through the pigeon-holes made for the purpose of taking in money and advertisements. The universal beard and moustachios that ornament their chins, look, however, more unbusiness-like than are the men really. They are shrewd and knowing birds that are enclosed in these wire cages.

At publishing time, boys rushing in for papers, as in London offices, are not here to be seen. The reason of this is simple: French newspaper proprietors prefer doing their work themselves, they will have no middlemen. They serve all their customers by quarterly, yearly, or halfyearly subscriptions. In every town in France there are subscription offices for this journal, as well, indeed, as for all great organs of the press generally. There are regular forms set up like registers at the Post-office, and all of these are gathered at the periodical renewal of subscriptions to the central office. The period of renewal is every fortnight.

a-year.

Passing still further up the narrow and dim passage, one sees a pigeon-hole, over which is written the word 'Advertisements.' This superscription is now supererogatory, for there no advertisements are received; that branch of the journal having been farmed out to a Company at 350,000 fr. This is a system which evidently saves a vast deal of trouble. The Advertising Company of Paris has secured almost a monopoly of announcements and puffs. It has bought up the last page of nearly every Paris journal which owns the patronage and confidence of the advertising public of the French Capital. At the end of the same dark passages, are the rooms specially used for the editors and writers. In France, journals are bought for their polemics,

and not for their news: many of them have fallen considerably, however, from the high estate which they held in public opinion previous to the last revolution. There are men who wrote in them to advocate and enforce principles; but in the chopping and changing times that France lives in, it is not unusual to find the same men with different principles, interest or gain being the object of each change. This result of revolution might have been expected; and though it would be unfair to involve the whole press in a sweeping accusation, cases in point have been sufficiently numerous to cause a want of confidence in many quarters against the entire press.

The doings of newspaper editors are not catalogued in print at Paris, as in America; but their influence being more. occult is not the less powerful, and it is this feeling that leads people to pay more attention to this or that leading article than to mere news. The announcement of a treaty having been concluded between certain powers of Europe, may not lower the funds; but if an influential journal expresses an opinion that certain dangers are to be apprehended from the treaty in question, the exchanges will be instantly affected. This is an instance amongst many that the French people are to be led in masses. Singly they have generally no ideas, either politically or commercially.

6

The importance of a journal being chiefly centered in that portion specially devoted to politics, the writers of which are supposed right or wrong to possess certain influences, it is not astonishing the editoral offices have few occupants. The editorial department of the Constitutionnel' wears a homely appearance, but borrows importance from the influence that is wielded in it-writers decorated with the red ribbon are not unfrequeutly seen at work in it. In others, and especially in the editorial offices of some jour

nals, may
be seen, besides the
such as swords and pistols.

pen, more offensive weapons,

This is another result of the

personal system of journalism. As in America, the editor may find himself in the necessity of defending his arguments by arms. He is too notorious to be able to resort to the stratagem of a well-known wit, who kept a noted boxer in his front office to represent the editor in hostile encounters. He goes out, therefore, to fight a duel, on which sometimes depends not only his own fate, but that of his journal.

With regard to the personal power of a newspaper name, it is only necessary in order to show how frequently it still exists, to state that the Provisional Government of February, 1848, was concocted in a newspaper office, and the revolution of 1830 was carried on by the editors of a popular journal-that amongst the lower orders in France, at the present time, the names that are looked up to as those of chiefs, belong to newspaper editors, whose leading articles are read and listened to in cheap newspaper clubs, and whose "orders" are followed as punctually and as certainly as those of a general by his troops. A certain class of French politicians may be likened to sheep:-they follow their "leaders."

The smallness of the number of officials in a French newspaper office is to be accounted for from the fact that Parlimentary Debates are transcribed on the spot where the speeches are made; and the reporting staff never stirs from the legislative assembly. The divers corps of reporters for Paris journals form a corporation, with its aldermen or syndici, and other minor officers. Each reporter is relieved every two minutes; and whilst his colleagues are succeeding each other with the same rapidity, he transcribes the notes taken during his two minutes' 'turn.' The result of this revolving system is collated and arranged by a gentleman

selected for the purpose. This mode of proceeding ensures, if necessary, the most verbatim transmission of an important speech, and more equably divides the work than does the English system, where each reporter takes notes for half or three-quarters of an hour, and spends two or three hours -and sometimes four or five-to transcribe his notes. The French Parliamentary reporter is not the dispassionate auditor, which the English one is. He applauds or condemns the orators, cheers or hoots with all the vehemence of an excited partizan.

'Penny-a-liners' are unknown in Paris; the foreign and home intelligence being elaborated in general news offices, independent of the newspapers. It is there that all the provincial journals are received, the news of the day gathered up, digested, and multiplied by means of lithography; which is found more efficacious than the stylet and oiled 'flimsy' paper of our Penny-a-liners. It is from these latter places, too, that the country journals, as well as many of the foreign press, the German, the Belgium, and the Spanish, are supplied with Paris news. England is a good market, as most of its newspapers are wealthy enough to have correspondents of their own.

6

My first visit to the Constitutionnel' was in the daytime, and I caught the editor as he was looking over some of his proofs. Their curious appearance led me to ask how they were struck off, and, in order to satisfy me, he led the way up a dark stair, from which we entered upon the composing-rooms of the premises. These, in appearance, were like all other composing-rooms that I had seen; the forms, and cases for the type, were similar to those in London; the men themselves had that worn and pale look which characterises the class to which they belong, and their pallor was not diminished by their wearing of the long beard

and moustache. the short clay pipe, reminded me of the heroes of the barricades; indeed, I have every reason to know that these very compositors are generally foremost in revolutions; and though they often print ministerial articles, they are not sharers in the opinions which they help to spread. The head printer contracts for the printing, and chooses his men where he can find them best. As a body, these men are provident, I was told, and all subscribed to a fund for their poor, their orphans and widows; they form a sort of trade union, and have very strict regulations.

Their unbuttoned shirts and bare breasts,

I found a most remarkable want of convenience in the working of the types. For instance, there were no galleys, or longitudinal trays, on which to place the type when set up; but when a small quantity had been put together in column on a broad copper table, a string was passed round it to keep it together. Nor was there any hand-press for taking proofs; and here I found the explanation of the extraordinary appearance of the proofs I had seen below. For when I asked to have one struck off, the head printer placed a sheet of paper over the type, and with a great brush beat it in, giving the proof a sunken and embossed appearance, which it seemed to me would render correction exceedingly difficult. The French, it seems, care not for improvement in this respect, any more than the Chinese, whom the brush has served in place of a printing-press for some three thousand years.

This journal has, as I have said, from 40,000 to 50,000 subscribers, in order to serve whom it was necessary that the presses should be at work as early as eleven o'clock at night. But there is no difficulty in doing this, where news not being the sine quâ non of journalism, provincial and foreign intelligence is given as fresh, which in England