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[245]

Greeley and McElrath, we observe, are engaged, somewhat extensively, in the business of publishing books. The Whig almanac appears every year, and sells from fifteen to twenty thousand copies. It contains statistics without end, and much literature of what may be called the Franklin School—short, practical articles on agriculture, economy, and morals. “Travels on the Prairies,” Ellsworth's “Agricultural Geology,” “Lardner's lectures,” “Life and speeches of Henry Clay,” “Tracts on the Tariff” by Horace Greeley, The farmers' library, are among the works published by Greeley and McElrath in the years 1843 and 1844. The business was not profitable, I believe, and gradually the firm relinquished all their publications, except only the Tribune and Almanac. September 1st, 1843, the Evening Tribune began; the Semi-Weekly, May 17th, 1845.

Carlyle's Past and Present, one of the three or four Great Books of the present generation, was published in May 1843, from a private copy, entrusted to the charge of Mr. R. W. Emerson. The Tribune saw its merit, and gave the book a cordial welcome. ‘This is a great book, a noble book,’ it said, in a second notice, ‘and we take blame to ourself for having rashly asserted, before we had read it thoroughly, that the author, keen-sighted at discovering Social evils and tremendous in depicting them, was yet blind as to their appropriate remedies. He does see and indicate those remedies—not entirely and in detail, but in spirit and in substance very clearly and forcibly. There has no new work of equal practical value with this been put forth by any writer of eminence within the century. Although specially addressed to and treating of the People of England, its thoughts are of immense value and general application here, and we hope many thousand copies of the work will instantly be put into circulation.’

Later in the year the Tribune introduced to the people of the United States, the system of Water-Cure, copying largely from European journals, and dilating in many editorial articles on the manifold and unsuspected virtues of cold water. The Erie Railroad—that gigantic enterprise—had then and afterwards a powerful friend and advocate in the Tribune. In behalf of the unemployed poor, the Tribune spoke wisely, feelingly, and often. To the new Native American Party it gave no quarter. For Irish Repeal, it fought like a tiger. For protection and Clay, it could not say enough. Upon

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