The demise of Public Opinion is an indication of the
way things ire going in parts of the periodical world. It Causes regret more by reason of the paper's distant than of its recent past. Under Percy L. Parker, in the early years of this century. it had a great vogue, though it was simply a digest, with little or no original matter in it at all. The secret, no doubt, was that Parker had a genius for selection ; after his day the paper waned. Then some- thing over a year ago the Daily Mirror, surprisingly enough. took it over, turned it into something totally different, with one of its own staff as editor, and with the intention, according to rumour, of spending money lavishly till the journal was well established. The money may have been spent, but with no visible effect. Week after week Public Opinion came out with so negligible an amount of advertisements as to make a financial breakdown inevitable, the more so as the price of paper and printing went on .steadily rising. Though it described itself as " a Radical review," it invested itself with no particular character, and there was no very obvious niche for it among existing weeklies, which in general make-up it broadly resembled. The fact is that in the conditions that have prevailed for the last eighteen months or two years to launch a new paper (and Public Opinion was all new except the title) has been an almost hopeless undertaking.
Previous page
