THE THUNDERER AND THE TIN HORNS A graduate of Smith, home from a stay in London, asked: "How can you read those London newspapers? Nothing but crime and sex--I couldn't find any news." Years ago Webb Miller, the great United Press correspondent, advised me: "Read _The Times_ every day, read all of it, if you want to know what is going on in this country and the world." Both Webb and the young lady from Smith were right: the British press contains some of what is best and a great deal of what is worst in daily journalism. Most Americans and many Britons, when they speak of the press, mean the London daily and Sunday newspapers. The London papers concern us most because they are national newspapers circulating throughout Britain and influencing and reflecting opinion far beyond the boundaries of greater London. One newspaper published in the provinces, the _Manchester Guardian_, may be said to have national--indeed, world--standing. One of the most influential, interesting, and well-written newspapers, it can also assume on occasion a highly irritating unctuousness. There are a large number of provincial newspapers--about a hundred morning and evening dailies and Sunday papers, and about eleven hundred weeklies. Many of them are read far more thoroughly than the London "national" paper that the provincial family also buys. Not long ago a British cabinet minister who represents a constituency in the western Midlands told me his constituents "got their news from the BBC, their entertainment from the London dailies, and their political guidance from the principal newspaper in a near-by provincial city." Other politicians have referred to the same pattern. Because most London daily and Sunday newspapers circulate all over the British isles, circulation figures are high by American standards. The _News of the World_, a Sunday newspaper that built its circulation on straight court reporting of the gamier aspects of British life, had a record circulation of about 8,000,000 copies. Recently its circulation has dropped slightly, a development that puzzles Fleet Street, for there is no lack of sex, crime, or sport--or interest in them--in Britain. Of the London dailies, the largest in circulation is the _Daily Mirror_, a tabloid whose circulation average between January and June of 1955 was 4,725,122. The _Daily Express_, the bellwether of the Beaverbrook newspapers, had a circulation of just over 4,000,000 during the same period, and three other London dailies, the _Daily Mail_, the _Daily Telegraph_, and the _News Chronicle_, all boasted circulations of better than 1,000,000. For every 1,000 Britons, 611 copies of the daily newspapers are sold each day. Compare this with the United States figure of 353 per 1,000. Britain is a good newspaper country, and the London press is lusty, uninhibited, and highly competitive.