Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/274

248 of Herschel's report, credited to the Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science.

It purported to give an account of the astronomical observations of Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope, made through an enormous telescope. For the next four days the articles grew in interest until finally they were describing the appearances of man-bats and the most minute vegetation on the moon. They were so well written that even the scientists were deceived and most of the Sun's contemporaries, even the six-cent sheets which pretended to despise it, took for granted the truth of the reports.

In the office of the Sun, after the close of the Mexican War, a meeting was held to provide means for lessening the expense of gathering news. General Hallock, editor of the Journal of Commerce, presided, and the Sun, Herald, Tribune, Express and the Courier and Enquirer were represented. The Harbor Association was formed, by which one fleet of news-boats would do the work which half a dozen had been doing, and the New York Associated Press was formed to gather news in the large cities.

To the success of the Sun may be traced the founding of two of the most important papers in the country, at least among those of later times. When Benjamin Day first conceived the plan of a popular penny paper, it was with two fellow printers, Arunah S. Abell and William M. Swain, that he first discussed it. They ridiculed Day's hopefulness, and Swain is said to have prophesied that the idea would be the ruin of Day. Swain later became foreman of the Sun, and three years after it was founded, with Abell and another printer named Azariah H. Simmons, decided to try the popular penny paper idea in other cities.

The three went to Philadelphia and there brought out, s