The Press of Greater Britain, 97 sions equalled by English or American dailies. This size is partly accounted for by the great importance attached to local news and the extraordinary diligence shown in its collection ; while the support of the advertisers, as in this country, tends materially in the same direction. With their increasing wealth, and improved telegraphic means of communication, Australian newspapers are beginning to devote more attention to the news of the world. English journals published in India are concerned very largely, indeed almost entirely, with the affairs of the Indian Empire, and though their circulation in India is limited, they are very largely read at home. At the Cape, the daily Press reports public affairs very much in the fashion of English newspapers, and contains able and discrimi- nating articles on Imperial events, of which it is informed by cable messages from London. Scattered all over the world, wherever a handful of Englishmen is to be found, are local newspapers in the English language. They are small, but their influence is not to be underrated, and when they print English news or comments in parallel columns in two and sometimes three languages, who can estimate how great their influence on foreign opinion ? Of the American Press we hear so much from friendly or candid critics, that it is unnecessary to enter at large on this great topic. For the American newspapers un- doubtedly differ greatly from the journals of England and the Colonies, and indeed of the world. Nearly all that distinguishes the Press of the United States from that of other countries may be reasonably assigned to one cause, and that cause the perfect freedom from restraint which it has always enjoyed. The American Press has never had to struggle for freedom ; it was free-bom. Some of its excellencies, and certainly many of its defects, are traceable to this freedom from restraint or responsibility. Criticized in the light of English methods and English work, much
