The papers of the large
Atlantic cities are also remarkable for their detailed accounts of
arrivals, and the particulars of shipping news, interesting to the
commercial world, in which they are much more minute than the English.
From the immense number of different papers in the United States, it
results that the number of subscribers to each is limited, 2,000 being
considered a respectable list. One paper, therefore, is not able to
unite the talent of many able men, as is the case in France. There
men of the first rank in literature or politics occasionally, or at
regular periods, contribute articles. In the United States, few papers
have more than one editor, who generally writes upon almost all
subjects himself. This circumstance necessarily makes the papers less
spirited and able than some of the foreign journals, but is attended
with this advantage, that no particular set of men is enabled to
exercise a predominant influence by means of these periodicals. Their
abundance neutralizes their effects. Declamation and sophistry are
made comparatively harmless by running in a thousand conflicting
currents.
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