We have dwelt chiefly upon the advertising sheet of the _Times_, because it is the epitome of that in all the other journals. It must be mentioned, however, that some of the morning and weekly papers lay themselves out for class advertisements. Thus the _Morning Post_ monopolizes all those which relate to fashion and high life; and the _Morning Advertiser_, the paper of the licensed victuallers, aggregates to itself every announcement relating to their craft. _Bell's Life_ is one mass of advertisements of various sports; the _Era_ is great upon all theatricals; the _Athenæum_ gathers to itself a large proportion of book advertisements. The _Illustrated News_ among the weeklies, like the _Times_ among the dailies, towers by the head above them all. A hebdomadal circulation of 170,000 draws a far more cosmopolitan collection of announcements to its pages than any of its contemporaries can boast. We have said nothing of the advertisements in the provincial journals; but it is gratifying to find that they have more than kept pace with those which have appeared in the metropolitan papers. Their enormous increase is best shown by the returns of the advertisement duty; from which it appears that in 1851 no less than 2,334,593 advertisements were published in the journals of Great Britain and Ireland--a number which has vastly augmented since the tax upon them has been repealed.
It is curious to see the estimate which the different journals place upon themselves as mediums of publicity, by comparing their charges for the same advertisement. Thus the contents of the _Quarterly Review_ for January, 1855, precisely similar as far as length is concerned, was charged for insertion as an advertisement by the different papers as follows:--_Times_, 4s.; _Illustrated News_, 1_l._ 8s.; _Morning Chronicle_, 5s. 6d.; _Morning Post_, 6s.; _Daily News_, 5s. 6d.; _Spectator_, 7s. 6d.; _Morning Herald_, 6s.; _Punch_, 15s.; _Observer_, 9s. 6d.; _English Churchman_, 5s. 6d.; _Examiner_, 3s. 6d.; _John Bull_, 5s. 6d.; _Athenæum_, 10s. 6d. Now the _Times_ did not "display" the advertisement as all the others did, it is true, and therefore squeezed it into half the space; but with this difference, its charge was absolutely the lowest in the list, with the single exception of that of the _Examiner_. How this moderation on the part of the Leading Journal is to be accounted for we know not; but the apparent dearness of the _Illustrated News_ meets a ready solution, and affords us an opportunity of showing how vastly the prime cost of an advertisement, during the present high price of paper especially, is augmented by a great increase of the circulation of the paper in which it appears, and what the advertiser really gets for his money. If we take the advertisement of our contents (_Quarterly Review_), it will be found to measure about one inch in depth; it is obvious, then, that we must multiply this measure by 170,000, the number of separate copies in which it appeared. Now 170,000 inches yield a strip of printed paper the width of a newspaper column--_upwards of two miles and three-quarters long!_ Thus we have at a glance the real amount of publicity which is procurable in a great journal; and with so remarkable a statement it will be well to close our paper.