Leipsic, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Strasburg, Dresden, Koenigsberg,
Breslau, with its Schlessische Zeitung, and the Rhine provinces and
the steel and iron industries represented by the Rheinisch-
Westfaelischer Zeitung, and other cities and towns have local
newspapers. A good example of such little-known provincial newspapers
is the Augsburger Abendzeitung, with its first-rate reports of the
parliamentary proceedings in Bavaria and its well-edited columns. The
circulation of these journals is, from our point of view, small. The
Berliner Tageblatt in a recent issue declares its paid circulation to
have been 73,000 in 1901; 106,000 in 1905; 190,000 in 1910; and
208,000 in 1911.

The custom in Germany of eating in restaurants, of taking coffee in
the cafes, of writing one's letters and reading the newspapers there,
no doubt has much to do with the small subscription lists of German
journals of all kinds, whether daily, weekly, or monthly. The German
economizes even in these small matters. A German family, or small cafe
or restaurant, may, for a small sum, have half a dozen or more weekly
and monthly journals left, and changed each week; thus they are
circulated in a dozen places at the expense of only one copy. Where a
family of similar standing in America takes in regularly two morning
papers and an evening paper, several weekly and monthly, and perhaps
one or two foreign journals, the German family may take one morning
paper. The custom of having half a dozen newspapers served with the
morning meal, as is done in the larger houses in America and in
England, is practically unknown. Economy is one reason, indifference
is another, provincial and circumscribed interests are others.

The German has not our keen appetite for what we call news, which is
often merely surmises in bigger type. Only the very small number who
have travelled and made interests and friends for themselves out of
their own country, have any feeling of curiosity even, about the
political and social tides and currents elsewhere.

An astounding number of Germans know Sophocles, Aeschylus, and
Shakespeare better than we do, but they know nothing, and care
nothing, for the sizzling, crackling stream of purposeless incident,
and sterile comment, that pours in upon the readers of American
newspapers, and which has had its part in making us the largest
consumers of nerve-quieting drugs in the world. All too many of the
pens that supply our press are witho