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Rise of Metropolitan Joui-nalisvi 455 however, was filled with " News by the Ajax." Everybody said, "The Journal s ahead of the Courier 3.g2i.m," until the truth came out that the Aja.v had not arrived, and then everybody laughed at the Journal. From 1833 ^o 1835 the two papers, under the initia- tive of Hale and Hallock, proprietors of the Journal of Coniniercf, organized daily pony expresses from Washington, but that experi- ment was too enterprising to endure. The vitality of these papers was all expended in these spas- modic attempts to collect news and in a more serious effort to surpass each other in the size of their blanket sheets. They meas- ured success by the square foot of white paper in a page, and this ludicrous contest absorbed their energies for years. The Courier and Enquirer plumed itself in 1850 on being 68 square inches larger than the London Times and on containing more than twice as many ems of printed matter. In March, 1853, the Journal of Coninierec beat this record and measured 14,^3 square feet to the sheet, which meant that each page of the journal contained 76 ',b square inches more than a page of the Courier. The tone of these journals was very stately, except when refer- ring to each other. The political articles were long and labored, the references to current events were meagre and veiled in ample rhetoric. The same dignity characterized the business management. Papers were sold only over the counter or by the regular carriers. In those days, if Col. Webb had heard a ragged urchin bawling the name of the Courier and Enquirer in the streets, he would have cuffed the lad soundly for his presumption, and wondered what Machiavellian ingenuity had contrived this insult also. Annual subscriptions were universally accepted on a credit system and ad- vertisements were inserted for a long time in advance on the same plan of payment. " The result was that so late as 1850, when New York City had a population of half a million, a sixpenny blanket sheet like the Journal of Commerce had a daily circulation of 4500, and Hallock thought that a yearly increase of 500 in that circulation was something to boast of" James Watson Webb merited the laurels of Fame for the same reason that gave Louis XIV. the title of " Great," because of the eminent men whom he gathered around him. The Courier and En- quirer became the foster-mother of nearly all the bright young journalists of that generation, with the exception of Horace Greeley. Among these knights of the quill were Charles King, afterwards President of Columbia College, James K. Paulding, the novelist, afterwards Secretary of War, and Henry J. Raymond, the founder of the New York Times. But the most remarkable members of