Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/23

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The Boston Herald.
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lars, which, in those ante-war times, was a large sum. The circulation averaged over forty thousand per diem. In 1859 the system of keeping an accurate account of the circulation was inaugurated, and the actual figures of each day's issue were recorded and published. From this record it is learned that the Herald, from a circulation of forty-one thousand one hundred and ninety-three in January, rose to fifty-three thousand and twenty-six in December. Twelve compositors were regularly employed this year, and the weekly composition bill was two hundred dollars. The year 1860 brought the exciting presidential campaign which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln. Great pains were taken to keep the Herald's readers fully informed of the movements of all the political parties, and its long reports of the national conventions, meetings, speeches, etc., in all parts of the country, especially in New England, brought it to the notice of many new readers. The average daily circulation for the year was a little over fifty-four thousand, and the issue on the morning after the November election reached seventy-three thousand seven hundred and fifty-two, the largest edition since the Webster trial. E. B. Haskell, now one of the proprietors, entered the office as a reporter in 1860, and was soon promoted to an editorial position. A year later R. M. Pulsifer, another of the present proprietors, entered the business department.

The breaking out of the Civil War in the spring of 1861 created a great demand for news, and an increase in the circulation of all the daily papers was the immediate result. It is hardly necessary to say here that the Herald warmly espoused the cause of the Union, and that the events of that stirring period were faithfully chronicled in its columns. To meet a call for news on Sunday, a morning edition for that day was established on May 26; the new sheet was received with favor by the reading public, and from an issue of ten thousand at the outset its circulation has reached, at the present time, nearly one hundred thousand. The Herald's enterprise was appreciated all through the war, and as there were no essential changes in the methods of its management or in the members of its staff, a recapitulation of statistics taken from its books will suffice here as a record of its progress. In 1861 the average circulation was sixty thousand; the largest edition (reporting the attack on the sixth Massachusetts regiment in Baltimore), ninety-two thousand four hundred and forty-eight; the white paper bill, one hundred and eight thousand dollars; the salary list, forty thousand dollars; telegraph tolls, sixty-five hundred dollars. In 1862 the average circulation was sixty-five thousand one hundred and sixteen; the largest edition, eighty-four thousand; the white paper bill, ninety-three thousand five hundred dollars; the salary list, forty-three thousand dollars; telegraph tolls, eight thousand dollars. In 1863 the average circulation was thirty-six thousand one hundred and twenty-eight; the largest issue, seventy-four thousand; the paper bill, ninety-five thousand dollars; salaries, forty-six thousand five hundred dollars; telegraphing, eight thousand dollars. In July the four-cylinder Hoe press was replaced by one with six cylinders, from the same maker. In 1864 the average circulation was thirty-seven thousand and eighty-eight; largest issue, fifty thousand eight hundred and eighty; paper bill, one hundred and twenty-