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 CHAPTER VIII. OLD AND NEW JOURNALISM— PROVINCIAL. I suspect that just as Sir Robert Walpole always read the letter first which came from his gamekeeper, when we have a local news- paper sent to us we always read that first. It contains the details in which we are most interested. — Earl of Rosebery. OTHING has been more remarkable during the past twenty-fiive years of newspaper history than the improvement of the Provincial morning papers. Distance from the metro- polis places them at a disadvantage, compared with the London Press, in supplying their readers with the gen- eral home and foreign news of the day. Published at the capital of the Empire, the London papers are able to collect intelligence and report proceedings at first hand, and, as many important communications are made to these newspapers exclusively, they are in an extremely favorable position for giving the news of the world. That they do this work well may be freely acknowledged, but the very disadvantages of their Provincial contemporaries are not without compensating benefits. The outlay necessary for the Provincial journal to stand on the same footing with the metropolitan paper is great ; but, with the telegraphic facilities of the present day, the Provincial daily is in many instances able 'to supply much later and fuller news of importance than appears in the country editions of the London morning papers. One reason for this is that the local railway arrangements for the dis- tribution of the Provincial morning journal admit of a much later going to press than is possible in London. Indeed, Provincial daily papers having private wires con- necting them with the metropolis, are actually able to print important exclusive items of intelligence, or expres- sions of opinion, from the London dailies of the same morning, because the latter are obliged to go to press one