The general conclusion to be deduced from these necessarily undemonstrable statements is that the fate of any given newspaper is in the hands of the advertisers. Editors choose to address themselves exclusively to their readers, and maintain a splendid official ignorance of the advertiser. This is the only _pose_ possible to the well-regulated editor. Did he for a moment admit, even to himself, that his professional emoluments were derived from Oxbridge and the British and foreign tradesman generally, he would no longer be able to take the Press quite so seriously as he does; indeed, he would scarcely be able any longer to take himself quite seriously, and that would surely be a great pity. Suppose for a moment that some other channel were discovered—we live in an age of surprising discoveries—which the advertisers regarded as more suited to their requirements than the present system. What happens? The small advertiser, whose three-and-sixpences form the real backbone of every newspaper enterprise, follows the big one. The papers shrivel up in dimensions, and down comes the price, or, in the alternative, up go the shutters. I am glad to reflect that the owners of newspapers have made such fortunes out of their enterprise that they can calmly face the future. I have shown how the pressure of advertisers has affected the penny papers. It has induced them to increase their space and the quantity of their “reading matter.” On the chief of the halfpenny morning papers the pressure has had an entirely different effect. The astute proprietor has met increased pressure by an increased tariff. The advertiser’s scale on the principal halfpenny paper is, I believe, higher than that of the _Times_. Even at this prohibitive rate the public presses on with a demand for publicity for its wants. This impinging on the domain of the mere reader is skilfully masked. Always the advertiser is asking for, and obtaining, more space. The tabloids of news are more scientifically compressed. Unconsidered trifles are snipped off the stodgy chunks of negligible fiction; for the newspaper _feuilleton_ is but a sickly growth in Fleet Street soil. The leading article is squeezed into a paragraph to admit the prospectus of a pill. Yet the paper is made to look the same as usual. There is never anything _décolleté_ about its appearance, no matter how much it may have been stripped. But here also there is an appointed limit beyond which it will be impossible to step without incurring the suspicion and arousing the resentment of the long-suffering reader. That limit, I apprehend, may at any time be touched.