The city clerk emerging through folding doors from bed to sitting-room, though thirsting for tea, and hungering for toast, darts upon that morning's journal with an eagerness, and unfolds it with a satisfaction, which show that all his wants are gratified at once. Exactly at the same hour, his master, the M.P., crosses the hall of his mansion. As he enters the breakfast parlor, he fixes his eye on the fender, where he knows his favorite damp sheet will be hung up to dry. When the noble lord first rings his bell, does not his valet know that, however tardy the still-room-maid may be with the early coffee, he dares not appear before his lordship without the "Morning Post?" Would the minister of state presume to commence the day in town till he has opened the "Times," or in the country till he has perused the "Globe?" Could the oppressed farmer handle the massive spoon for his first sip out of his Sevres cup till he has read of ruin in the "Herald" or "Standard?" Might the juvenile Conservative open his lips to imbibe old English fare or to utter Young England opinions, till he has glanced over the "Chronicle?" Can the financial reformer know breakfast-table happiness till he has digested the "Daily News," or skimmed the "Express?" And how would it be possible for mine host to commence the day without keeping his customers waiting till he has perused the "Advertiser" or the "Sun?" In like manner the provinces can not--once a week at least--satisfy their digestive organs till their local organ has satisfied their minds. Else, what became of the 67,476,768 newspaper stamps which were issued in 1848 (the latest year of which a return has been made) to the 150 London and the 238 provincial English journals: of the 7,497,064 stamps impressed on the corners of the 97 Scottish, and of the 7,028,956 which adorned the 117 Irish newspapers? A professor of the new science of literary mensuration has applied his foot-rule to this mass of print, and publishes the result in "Bentley's Miscellany." According to him, the press sent forth, in daily papers alone, a printed surface amounting in twelve months to 349,308,000 superficial feet. If to these are added all the papers printed weekly and fortnightly in London and the provinces the whole amounts to 1,446,150,000 square feet of printed surface, which was, in 1849, placed before the comprehensive vision of John Bull. The area of a single morning paper--the Times say--is more than nineteen and a half square feet, or nearly five feet by four, compared with an ordinary octavo volume, the quantity of matter daily issued is equal to three hundred pages. There are four morning papers whose superficies are nearly as great, without supplements, which they seldom publish. A fifth is only half the size. We may reckon, therefore, that the constant craving of Londoners for news is supplied every morning with as much as would fill about twelve hundred pages of an ordinary novel; or not less than five volumes.