cated to thousands. It goes unchallenged, unless by
some accident another controller of such machines will contradict it
and can get his contradiction read by the same men as have read the
first statement.

These general characters were present in the Press even in its
infancy, when each news-sheet still covered but a comparatively small
circle; when distribution was difficult, and when the audience
addressed was also select and in some measure able to criticize
whatever was presented to it. But though present they had no great
force; for the adventure of a newspaper was limited. The older method
of obtaining news was still remembered and used. The regular readers
of anything, paper or book, were few, and those few cared much more
for the quality of what they read than for its amount. Moreover, they
had some means of judging its truth and value.

In this early phase, moreover, the Press was necessarily highly
diverse. One man could print and sell profitably a thousand copies of
his version of a piece of news, of his opinions, or those of his
clique. There were hundreds of other men who, if they took the pains,
had the means to set out a rival account and a rival opinion. We shall
see how, as Capitalism grew, these safeguards decayed and the bad
characters described were increased to their present enormity.

III

Side by side with the development of Capitalism went a change in the
Press from its primitive condition to a worse. The development of
Capitalism meant that a smaller and a yet smaller number of men
commanded the means of production and of distribution whereby could be
printed and set before a large circle a news-sheet fuller than the old
model. When distribution first changed with the advent of the railways
the difference from the old condition was accentuated, and there arose
perhaps one hundred, perhaps two hundred "organs," as they were
called, which, in this country and the Lowlands of Scotland, told men
what their proprietors chose to tell them, both as to news and as to
opinion. The population was still fairly well spread; there were a
number of local capitals; distribution was not yet so organized as to
permit a paper printed as near as Birmingham, even, to feel the
competition of a paper printed in London only 100 miles away. Papers
printed as far from London, as York, Liverpool or Exeter were the
more independent.

Further the mass of men, though there was more intelligent reading
(and w