All this is new, but it is also permanent.  Having once had daily papers, we can never again do without them; so perfectly does this great invention accord with the genius of modern life.  The art of journalism is doubtless destined to continuous improvement for a long time to come; the newspapers of the future will be more convenient, and better in every way, than those of the present day; but the art remains forever an indispensable auxiliary to civilization.  And this is so, not by virtue of editorial essays, but because journalism brings the events of the time to bear upon the instruction of the time.  An editorial essayist is a man addressing men; but the skilled and faithful journalist, recording with exactness and power the thing that has come to pass, is Providence addressing men.  The thing that has actually happened,—­to know that is the beginning of wisdom.  All else is theory and conjecture, which may be right and may be wrong.

While it is true that the daily press of the city of New York is limited by the telegraph, it has nevertheless a very great, an unapproached, national importance.  We do not consider it certain that New York is always to remain the chief city of the United States; but it holds that rank now, and must for many years.  Besides being the source of a great part of our news, it was the first city that afforded scope for papers conducted at the incredible expense which modern appliances necessitate.  Consequently its daily papers reach the controlling minds of the country.  They are found in all reading-rooms, exchanges, bank parlors, insurance-offices, counting-rooms, hotels, and wherever else the ruling men of the country congregate.  But, above all, they are, and must be, in all newspaper offices, subject to the scissors.  This is the chief source of their importance.  Not merely that in this way their contents are communicated to the whole people.  The grand reason why the New York papers have national importance is, that it is chiefly through them that the art of journalism in the United States is to be perfected.  They set daily copies for all editors to follow.  The expenditure necessary for the carrying on of a complete daily newspaper is so immense, that the art can only be improved in the largest cities.  New York is first in the field; it has the start of a quarter of a century or more; and it therefore devolves upon the journalists of that city to teach the journalists of the United States their vocation.  It is this fact which invests the press of New York with such importance, and makes it so well worth considering.

It is impossible any longer to deny that the chief newspaper of that busy city is the New York Herald.  No matter how much we may regret this fact, or be ashamed of it, no journalist can deny it.  We do not attach much importance to the fact that Abraham Lincoln, the late lamented President of the United States, thought it worth while, during the dark days of the summer of 1864, to buy its support at the price