great exposition of 1851 and the Crystal Palace at Sydenham , ragged schools, provident institutions for the trades and pro
fessions connected with journalism , and reforms necessary for Ireland .83
The success of the press in collecting funds in 1863 for the relief of the Lancashire sufferers was praised by contem poraries , especially since it was in striking contrast with the failure of the imperial government to relieve the distress caused by the French cotton famine.34 The American press plumed it
self, when the Livingston relief expedition was sent out by the New York Herald , in setting an example to the London press, since soon after this the Daily Telegraph sent out George Smith , the keeper of the British Museum , to search for Assyrian anti
quities to supplement and explain those already in the Museum . The Tribune rejoiced that newspapers were pioneers in learned exploration , that not satisfied with the dissemination of knowl
edge collected by learned men , they were themselves making their own investigations and explorations.35
It seems indeed a far cry from the early seventeenth century weekly with its meager intelligence to the powerful twentieth century daily , with its " unequalled ability for raising money ;" with its own offer of $ 200,000 in cash prizes for aviation ; $ 5,000 in prizes for the best sweet peas ,and $ 3,000 in prizes in egg-laying competitions ; its promotion of a standardized loaf of bread ; its
advocacy of patriotism through the collection of “ smoke funds” for troops; and a thousand other activities through which it enters
intimately into the domestic life of a nation while at the same time making and overturning great ministries. There is evident
truth in the significant comments that “ people are as a rule more interested in what the Daily Mail does than in what it thinks," and that in politics “ it affects elections rather than
political thought." 36 Imposing as is this array of bustling activities undertaken by 83 J. C. Francis, John Francis, I, xxvi-xxvii. 34 " The British Newspaper : the Penny Theory and its Solution ,” Dublin University Magazine, March , 1863, 61: 359 - 376. 36 New York Tribune, February 11, 1873.
36 Sydney Brooks, " Lord Northcliffe and the War," North American Review , August, 1915, 202: 185 - 196 .
