We alluded last week, in our analysis of the London
Newspaper circulation, to the small number of stamps issued to the Liverpool Mercury, and intimated that some Metropolitan newspaper took credit for the sale f the Mercury. We find, I'roin the following paragraph in that paper, that we were right in our conjecture.
" By an official return of the number of stamps issued to the provincial press for forty-four weeks, ending April 30, 1836, we find the Limpid Mercury
bas credit only for 82000, whilst the her received was 175,071, and rhe total number of papers printed was 159,950. Our principal papet maker employs an agent connected with a London newspaper to get our paper stamped and repacked, and it is probable that that paper rosy have got credit for 143,000 of the stamps sent to us. So gross a misstatement is calculated to do as a most serious injury, as there are not wanting, in this country, proprie- tors or editors of newspapers who would not scruple to avail themselves of the inaccuracy, knowing it to be such with a view to injure their neighbours. Unless some measure could be adopte;I to insure accuracy in these returns, their public ition ought to he prohibited. If so capital a mistake as the substitutimi 0132,000 stamps for 175,071 (being an understatement of upwards of 143,000), has happened in our case, it is not improbable that others will have reason to complain on the same score."
We ask, with the Morning Chronicle, why the Liverpool Mercury does not publish the name of its agent, and that of the paper with which be is connected ?
The Standard has not informed the public how much of its circula- tion is to be set down to the St. James's Chronicle, and the two other papers published at the same office.
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