The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People: An Historical ReviewBourinot, John George
History
The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People: An Historical Review
Bourinot, John George
Canada -- Intellectual life; Canadian literature -- History and criticism
Lovell's 'Canada Directory;' the figures for 1880 from the lists in
Commons and Senate Reading Rooms. The last census returns for the four
old Provinces give only 308 printing establishments, employing 3,400
hands, paying $1,200,000 in wages, and producing articles to the worth
of $3,420,202. Although not so stated, these figures probably include
job as well as newspaper offices--both being generally combined--and
newspapers where no job work is done are obviously left out.] The Post
Office statistics show in 1879, that 4,085,454 lbs. of newspapers, at
one cent per lb. passed through the post offices of the Dominion, and
5,610,000 copies were posted otherwise. Nearly three millions and a half
of papers were delivered under the free delivery system in the cities of
Halifax, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, St. John, and
Toronto. Another estimate gives some 30,000,000 of papers passing
through the Post Office in the course of a year, of which probably two
thirds, or 20,000,000, are Canadian. These figures do not, however,
represent any thing like the actual circulation of the Canadian papers,
as the larger proportion are immediately delivered to subscribers by
carriers in the cities and towns. The census of 1870 in the United
States showed the total annual circulation of the 5,871 newspapers in
that country to be, 1,508,548,250, or an average of forty for each
person in the Republic, or one for every inhabitant in the world. Taking
the same basis for our calculation, we may estimate there are upwards of
160,000,000 copies of newspapers annually distributed to our probable
population of four millions of people. The influence which the newspaper
press must exercise upon the intelligence of the masses is consequently
obvious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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