strated
newspapers in the world. But our artistic skill has led us into
temptation, and by degrees engendered a habit of making pictures when
we ought to be recording facts. We have thus, through our cleverness,
created a fashion and a demand from the public for something which is
often elaborately untrue.

Would it, then, be too much to ask those who cater for (and really
create) the public taste, that they should give us one of two things,
or rather _two things_, in our illustrated papers, the real and the
ideal--

1st. Pictorial records of events in the simplest and truest manner
possible;

2nd. Pictures of the highest class that can be printed in a newspaper?

Here are two methods of illustration which only require to be kept
distinct, each in its proper place, and our interest in them would be
doubled. We ask first for a record of news and then for a picture
gallery; and to know, to use a common phrase, _which is which_."

At the time referred to, drawing on the wood-block and engraving were
almost universal--instantaneous photography was in its infancy, "process
blocks," that is to say, mechanical engraving, was very seldom employed,
and (for popular purposes) American engraving and printing was
considered the best.

The system of producing illustrations in direct fac-simile of an artist's
drawing, suitable for printing at a type press without the aid of the
wood engraver, is of such value for cheap and simple forms of
illustration, and is, moreover, in such constant use, that it seems
wonderful at first sight that it should not be better understood in
England. But the cause is not far to seek. We have not yet acquired the
art of pictorial expression in black and white, nor do many of our
artists excel in "illustration" in the true sense of the word.

It has often been pointed out that through the pictorial system the mind
receives impressions with the least effort and in the quickest way, and
that the graphic method is the true way of imparting knowledge. Are we
then, in the matter of giving information or in imparting knowledge
through the medium of illustrations, adopting the truest and simplest
methods? I venture to say that in the majority of cases we are doing
nothing of the kind. We have pictures in abundance which delight the
eye, which are artistically drawn and skilfully engraved, but in which,
in nine cases out of ten, there is more thought given to effect as a
p