Page:The Newspaper World.djvu/27

 CHAPTER IV. THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. 1815-1861. Make knowledge circle with the winds. — Tennyson. N 181 5, the year of Waterloo, the Stamp Duty reached its height, an additional halfpenny bringing it up to the oppressive impost of 4//. for every newspaper. In addition to this, advertisements were heavily taxed, and there was an intolerable duty on paper. With such fiscal burdens, it is surprising that newspaper enterprise was at all successful. The Government made the newspaper so costly that, as Mr Justin McCarthy, M.P., in his " History of Our Own Times," has aptly put it, " Its possession was a luxury of the rich ; those who could afford less had to be content with an occasional read of a paper. It was common for a number of persons to club together and take in a paper, which they read by turns, the general understanding being that the one whose turn came last remained in possession of the journal. It was considered ft a fair compensation for his late reception of the news that he should come into the full proprietorship of the precious joumal."(^) The heavy taxation led, as might naturally be supposed, to the surreptitious issue of unstamped papers, and the adventures of their printers and salesmen in eluding the vigilance of the revenue officers form a divert- ing episode in the romance of the Press. The issues of one smuggled newspaper were, for a long time, taken from the printer's house in coffins till the extraordinary " mor- tality " attracted the attention of the authorities. Between i._ History of Our Own Times, vol. iii., chap. xli.