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CHAPTER XIV

THE ILLUSTRATION AND THE GRAPHIC PRESS “ Picture journalism

furnishes the most available and the most

valuable materials for the historian of manners.” — C. Knight. “ When the history of our own age comes to be written the pictorial newspapers will form an inexhaustible storehouse for the historian .” — Mason Jackson.

“ The works of Gillray preserve an entire social revolution .” “ Art deals in illusion. Literal accuracy, even when possible, is art's undoing.” — J. L. Lowes. “ Journalism is the criticism of the moment at the moment, and caricature is that criticism at once simplified and intensified by a plastic form .” — Henry James.

IllUSTRATIONSare to- day a conspicuous feature of the daily press and of the weekly and the monthly periodicals. Their use was coincident with the invention of printing, but the illustration that in the early history of printing was a prominent feature of

the title page of the book has, in the periodical, been transferred to the cover, or it has become an important part of the text, or a still more important part of the advertising column. The attitude of the press itself towards illustrations has greatly

changed ; once in a state of amiable but passive receptivity, it has now become an active competitor for the best work of the 1 The Mercurius Civicus was the first regularly illustrated periodical. J. B. Williams, History of British Journalism, p. 44 . The first number appeared May 4 - 11, 1643, and it was published Thurs days until December 10, 1646. Ib ., p. 233. A reproduction of the first page

of No. 8 is given in Williams, p. 45. ? The early attitude of the press towards illustrations is indicated by this announcement: “ Harper 's Weekly has already reached a regular issue of

more than sixty thousand copies and the editions printed are steadily increas ing. The proprietors beg to say that they will be happy to receive sketches

or photographic pictures of striking scenes, important events, and leading

men from artists in every part of the world and to pay liberally for such as they may use .” — Harper's Weekly, June 13, 1857.

The Gentleman's Magazine of 1750 has a " List of Embellishments to the