tion had been called by telegrams. As fast as he cut them out he handed them to printers, who possibly had been standing around idle for more than an hour. In those days printers were paid for the amount of copy they set and not for the amount of time they put in at the plant. Competition, however, soon forced the publishers of newspapers to pay the telegraph charges for brief bulletins of important but late news.
TAX ON VIRGINIA NEWSPAPERS
In Virginia during most of the decade from 1840 to 1850 it was the practice of the General Assembly of that State to pass annu- ally an act " imposing taxes for the support of the Government." From 1843 to 1848, inclusive, this act contained the following provision: "Upon every printing press of newspapers taxed the amount charged per annum for a subscription to the highest priced paper that may issue from such press : Provided, however, That no press shall pay a higher tax than ten dollars." The revenue thus derived by the State from its tax on newspapers ranged from three hundred and eleven dollars for the year end- ing September 30, 1843, to three hundred and fifty-five dollars for the year ending September 30, 1848. The Act of 1849 did not impose any newspaper tax. So far as can be learned, Virginia was the only State to levy a tax on newspapers during the nineteenth century. In fact, the only other direct tax, either Federal or State, was that levied by the Government during the War of the States, and this exempted many newspapers and applied only to the gross receipts from advertising and was de- signed to provide internal revenue to "support the Government and pay interest on the public debt."
PRESS ASSOCIATIONS OF PERIOD
During the middle of the fourth decade of the eighteenth cen- tury, there were three cooperative associations to gather the marine news of New York. The first and most important of these was the one composed of the blanket sheets, The Courier and Enquirer and The Journal of Commerce; the second was com- posed of The Express, The Mercantile Advertiser, and The Ga- zette; the third, of The Commercial Advertiser, The Evening Star, and The American.
