This vigorous growth is the true cause of that wonderful determination of advertisements to its pages, which have overflowed into a second paper, or supplement, as it was formerly called. That this success has been fairly won, we have never ourselves doubted; but a fact has come to our knowledge which will pretty clearly prove that this great paper is conducted on principles which are superior to mere money considerations; or rather its operations are so large that it can afford to inflict upon itself pecuniary losses, such as would annihilate any other journal, in order to take a perfectly free course. In the year 1845, when the railway mania was at its height, the _Times_ advertising sheet was overrun with projected lines, and many a guess was made, we remember, at the time as to their probable value; but high as the estimates generally were, they came far short of the truth. We give the cash and credit returns of advertisements of all kinds for nine weeks:--
Sept. 6 £2839 14 0 " 13 3783 12 0 " 20 3935 7 6 " 27 4692 7 0 Oct. 4 6318 14 0 " 11 6543 17 0 " 18 6687 4 0 " 25 6025 14 6 Nov. 1 3230 3 6
During the greater part of the time that the proprietors were reaping this splendid harvest from the infatuation of the people, the heaviest guns were daily brought to bear from the leading columns upon the bubbles which rose up so thickly in the advertising sheet. The effect of their fire may be measured by the falling off of nearly 3,000_l._ in the returns for a single week. A journal which could afford to sacrifice such a revenue to its independence, certainly deserved some consideration from the Government; but, on the contrary, it appears to have been singled out for annoyance by the act which relates to newspapers. We see certain trees on our lawns whose upshooting branches are by ingenious gardeners trained downwards, and taught to hold themselves in a dependent condition by the imposition of weights upon their extremities. The state gardeners have applied the same treatment to the journal in question, by hanging an extra halfpenny stamp upon every copy of its issue--a proceeding which, in our opinion, is as unfair as it is injudicious: and this they will find in the future, when the crowd of mosquito-like cheap journals called forth by the measure, and supported by the very life-blood of the leading journal, begin to gather strength and to attack Whiggery with their democratic buzz.
