The information respecting the Press in England is derived from The Sixth Annual Report of the Association for promoting the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge, and The Newspaper Press Directory.  The issues subjoined are taken from the Return ordered by the House of Commons, of newspaper stamps, which is “A Return of the Number of Newspaper Stamps at one penny, issued to Newspapers in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, for the year 1854.”

In England.

The Times                  15,975,739
The News of the World       5,673,525
Illustrated London News     5,627,866
Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper    5,572,897
Weekly Times                3,902,169
Reynold’s Weekly            2,496,256
Morning Advertiser          2,392,780
Weekly Dispatch             1,982,933
Daily News                  1,485,099
Bell’s Life in London       1,161,000
Morning Herald              1,159,000
Manchester Guardian         1,066,575
Liverpool Mercury             912,000
Morning Chronicle             873,500
The Globe                     850,000
The Express                   841,342
Morning Post                  832,500
The Sun                       825,000
Evening Mail                  800,000
Leeds Mercury                 735,500
Stamford Mercury              689,000
Birmingham Journal            650,750
Shipping Gazette              628,000
Weekly Messenger              625,500

In Scotland.

North British Advertiser      802,000
Glasgow Saturday Post         727,000
North British Mail            565,000
Glasgow Herald                541,000

In Ireland.

The Telegraph                 959,000
Saunders’s News Letter        756,000
Daily Express                 748,000
General Advertiser            598,000

Various reasons may be given for this great difference between the Press of the two countries.  Many are disposed to attribute it, very naturally, to the Government stamp, and the securities which are required; some, to the machinery of Government of this country being necessarily so complicated by ancient rights and privileges, and the difficulties of raising a revenue, whereof the item of interest on the national debt alone amounts to nearly 30,000,000l.; while others, again planting one foot of the Press compass in London, show that a half circle with a radius of five hundred miles brings nearly the whole community within twenty-four hours’ post of the metropolis, in which the best information and the most able writers are to be found, thereby rendering it questionable if local papers, in any numbers, would obtain sufficient circulation to enable the editors to retain the services of men of talent, or to procure valuable general information, without wholesale plagiarism from their giant metropolitan rivals.  Besides, it must he remembered that in America, each State, being independent, requires a separate press of its own, while the union of all the States renders it necessary that the proceedings in each of the others should be known, in order that the constitutional limits within which they are permitted to exercise their independence, may be constantly and jealously watched; from which cause it will be seen that there is a very simple reason for the Republic requiring comparatively far more papers than this country, though by no means accounting for the very great disproportion existing.