written the word 'Advertisements.' This
superscription is now supererogatory, for there
no advertisements are received; that branch
of the journal having been farmed out to a
Company at 350,000 fr. a-year. This is a
system which evidently saves a vast deal of
trouble. The Advertising Company of Paris
has secured almost a monopoly of announcements
and puffs. It has bought up the last
page of nearly every Paris journal which
owns the patronage and confidence of the
advertising public of the French Capital. At
the end of the same dark passages, are the
rooms specially used for the editors and
writers. In France, journals are bought for
their polemics, and not for their news: many
of them have fallen considerably, however,
from the high estate which they held in public
opinion previous to the last revolution. There
are men who wrote in them to advocate and
enforce principles; but in the chopping and
changing times that France lives in, it is not
unusual to find the same men with different
principles, interest or gain being the object
of each change. This result of revolution
might have been expected; and though it
would be unfair to involve the whole press
in a sweeping accusation, cases in point have
been sufficiently numerous to cause a want of
confidence in many quarters against the entire
press.

The doings of newspaper editors are not
catalogued in print at Paris, as in America;
but their influence being more occult is not
the less powerful, and it is this feeling
that leads people to pay more attention
to this or that leading article than to mere
news. The announcement of a treaty having
been concluded between certain powers of
Europe, may not lower the funds; but if an
influential journal expresses an opinion that
certain dangers are to be apprehended from the
treaty in question, the exchanges will be
instantly affected. This is an instance amongst
many that the French people are to be led in
masses. Singly they have generally no ideas,
either politically or commercially.

The importance of a journal being chiefly
centered in that portion specially devoted to
politics, the writers of which are supposed
right or wrong to possess certain influences, it
is not astonishing the editorial offices have few
occupants. The editorial department of the
' Constitutionnel' wears a homely appearance,
but borrows importance from the influence
that is wielded in it—writers decorated with
the red ribbon are not unfrequently seen at
work in it. In others, and especially in the
editorial offices of some journals, may be seen,
besides the pen, more offensive weapons, such
as swords and pistols. This is another result
of the personal system of journalism. As in
America, the editor may find himself in the
necessity of defending his arguments by arms.
He is too notorious to be able to resort to
the stratagem of a well-known wit, who kept
a noted boxer in his front office to represent
the editor in hostile encounters. He goes
out, therefore, to fight a duel, on which
sometimes depends not only his own fate, but that
of his journal.

With regard to the personal power of a
newspaper name, it is only necessary in order
to show how frequently it still exists, to state
that the Provisional Government of February,
1848, was concocted in a newspaper office, and
the revolution of 1830 was carried on by the
editors of a popular journal—that amongst
the lower orders in France, at the present
time, the names that are looked up to as those
of chiefs, belong to newspaper editors, whose
leading articles are read and listened to in
cheap newspaper clubs, and whose " orders"
are followed as punctually and as certainly as
those of a general by his troops. A certain
class of French politicians may be likened to
sheep:—they follow their "leaders."

The smallness of the number of officials in
a French newspaper office is to be accounted
for from the fact that Parliamentary Debates
are transcribed on the spot where the speeches
are made; and the reporting staff never stirs
from the legislative assembly. The divers
corps of reporters for Paris journals form a
corporation, with its aldermen or syndici,
and other minor officers. Each reporter is
relieved every two minutes; and whilst his
colleagues are succeeding each other with the
same rapidity, he transcribes the notes taken
during his two minutes' ' turn.' The result
of this revolving system is collated and
arranged by a gentleman selected for the
purpose. This mode of proceeding ensures, if
necessary, the most verbatim transmission
of an important speech, and more equably
divides the work, than does the English
system, where each reporter takes notes for half
or three-quarters of an hour, and spends two
or three hours—and sometimes four or five—
to transcribe his notes. The French Parliamentary
reporter is not the dispassionate
auditor, which the English one is. He
applauds or condemns the orators, cheers or
hoots with all the vehemence of an excited
partizan.

' Penny-a-liners ' are unknown in Paris; the
foreign and home intelligence being elaborated
in general news' offices, independent of the
newspapers. It is there that all the provincial
journals are received, the news of the
day gathered up, digested, and multiplied by
means of lithography; which is found more
efficacious than the stylet and oiled 'flimsy'
paper of our Penny-a-liners. It is from these
latter places too, that the country journals,
as well as many of the foreign press, the
German, the Belgium, and the Spanish, are
supplied with Paris news. England is a good
market, as most of our newspapers are wealthy
enough to have correspondents of their
own.

My first visit to the 'Constitutionnel' was
in the day-time, and I caught the editor
as he was looking over some of his proofs.