Chapter X

qualification. Exceptions to the rule are official and minor propagandist periodicals, and, in an uncertain measure, scientific journals. The profits of publication come from the sale of advertising space. The direct returns from sales and Bubscriptions are now a matter of wholly secondary consequence. Publishers of periodicals, of all grades of transiency, aim to make their product as salable as may be, in order to pass their advertising pages under the eyes of as many readers as may be. The larger the circulation the greater, other things equal, the market value of the advei> tising space. The highest product of this development is the class of American newspapers called " independent." These in particular — and they are followed at no great interval by the rest — edit all items of news, comment, or gossip with a view to what the news ought to be and what opinions ought to be expressed on passing events.'