Mr. F. K. Hunt in his ‘Fourth Estate’ remarks, ‘The moral of the history of the press seems to be, that when any large proportion of a people have been taught to read, and when upon this possession of the tools of knowledge, there has grown up a habit of perusing public prints, the state is virtually powerless if it attempts to check the press. James the Second in old times, and Charles the Tenth, and Louis Philippe, more recently, tried to trample down the Newspapers, and everybody knows how the attempt resulted. The prevalence or scarcity of Newspapers in a country affords a sort of index to its social state. Where Journals are numerous, the people have power, intelligence, and wealth; where Journals are few, the many are in reality mere slaves. In the United States every village has its Newspaper, and every city a dozen of these organs of popular sentiment. In England we know how numerous and how influential for good the Papers are; whilst in France they have perhaps still greater power. Turn to Russia, where Newspapers are comparatively unknown, and we see the people sold with the earth they are compelled to till. Austria, Italy, Spain, occupy positions between the extremes—the rule holding good in all, that in proportion to the freedom of the press is the freedom and prosperity of the people.’ Monthly Supplement of ‘HOUSEHOLD WORDS,’ Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS. _Price 2d., Stamped 3d._, THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE OF CURRENT EVENTS. _The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with the Magazines._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in 1^{st}).