Of these 87 weekly publications the prices vary, being ld., lid., 3d., 4d., id.; the total retail value of their sale, inde pendent of the supply of them in monthly parts, we assume, upon the authority of an experienced bookseller, to be 2,500/. per week or 130,000/. per annum. Other authorities would set the number higher. A minute ana lysis of these Weekly Periodicals is, to some extent, satisfactory; for it shows that of the low publications—ineluding those which may be called Guides to Newgate,'—the number sold is about an eighth of the innoxious pub lications.
The issue of monthly periodical publications from London is unequalled by any similar commercial operation in Europe. 287 monthly periodical works were sent out of London on the last day of December, 1850, to all parts of the United Kingdom, the bulk of them de parting from Paternoster-row; to which must also be added 41 periodical works published quarterly, making a total of 328.
A wholesale bookseller, who has been thirty years an attentive observer of the progress of periodical literature, and has been nearly all that time in the midst of it in Paternoster row, has made a variety of computations of the work of the great literary hive of industry in London on Magazine-day; ' the results of his examinations are as follow:— The total of the new numbers of the monthly and quarterly periodical works sold in London on December 31, 1850, was about 000,000. The total retail price of these works was 38,000/.
Three thousand five hundred parcels were despatched into the country by the various wholesale agents in London on this day.
The total returns of these monthly and quar terly periodical works must exceed annually 1,000,0001., the selling prices varying from id. to 7s. 6d. It must be observed that the sale on Magazine-day' does not by any means represent the total sale.
In addition to the monthly periodical works issued through the regular booksellers—' the Trade'—an amount quite unequalled at any former period is circulated throughout the country by a class of persons known as can vassers.' We are induced to think that the annual returns of such works cannot be less than 150,0001.
The number of newspapers published in the United TUngdom in 1819 was 003. They consumed nearly 79 millions of stamps at one penny, besides halfpenny stamps for supple ments. At fivepenee each their annual re turns would be nearly 1,500,000/.
We recapitulate the estimated annual re turns of the commerce of the press: ]. New books and reprints—one set 1,000/. ..
.6750,000 Estimated average number sold of each work 750 .-.
2. Weekly periodicals .. £130,000 Monthly periodicals 1,000,000 Canvassers' numbers 150,000 1,280,000 3. Newspapers .. 1,500,000 £3,530,000 The English books exported in 1840 were returned as entitled to drawback of duty on 12,000 cwts.—in value 190,000/.
The foreign books imported in 1840 paid a duty of 7,751/.
The writer of this article considers that the paper duty enters into the selling price of books, (tc., in the following proportions :— 1. New books-4 per cent. .. £30,000 2. Periodicals-8 per cent, .. 102,400 3. Newspapers .. 56,250 Estimated total of duty on printing paper £188,650