CHAPTER XX. THE PRESS OF GREATER BRITAIN. Here shall the Press the people's right maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain. — Joseph Story. ENTION was made in our opening chapter of the first newspaper regularly printed in England, namely, the Certaine News of the Present Weeky established by Nathaniel Butter, in 1622. We have seen how remarkable has been the growth and development of the Press in the British Isles in the succeeding two centuries and a half, and we may now very fitly, by way of conclusion, observe how enor- mous has been the growth and spread of the Press among the English-speaking races all over the world. Such sta-- tistics as we have to offer concerning the Press of Greater Britain appear well-nigh incredible, and when we reflect what a dfiily and weekly circulation of printed matter in the English language they indicate, we obtain an over- whelming idea of the power of the Press. Some day possibly our statisticians will take a trustworthy census of the Press of the globe, but till then we must rely on data which can only be regarded as approximately correct From various sources, then, we gather that the newspapers and periodicals printed in English outside our own country number between fifteen and sixteen thousand. The United States, of course, leads the way, its total number of news- papers, etc., being about 14,000. Canadian journals number 700 ; Australasian newspapers another 700 ; the English Press of India, 140 ; and the South African jour- nals considerably over 50. If any are sceptical of the power of the Press, let them ponder well these figures.
