James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[140] flare of lamp-light, unknown to any other part of the town. Along Chatham street, our medical student ofttimes took his way, musing on the instability of fifteen hundred dollars, and observing, possibly envying, the noisy merchants of the stalls. He was struck with the rapidity with which they sold their penny ware. A small boy would sell half a dozen penny cakes in the course of a minute. The difference between a cent, and no money, did not seem to be appreciated by the people. If a person saw something, wanted it, knew the price to be only a cent, he was almost as certain to buy it as though it were offered him for nothing. Now, thought he, to make a fortune, one has nothing more to do than to produce a tempting article which can be sold profitably for a cent, place it where everybody can see it, and buy it, without stopping—and lo! the thing is done! If it were only possible to produce a small, spicy daily paper for a cent, and get boys to sell it about the streets, how it would sell! How many pennies that now go for cakes and peanuts would be spent for news and paragraphs!

The idea was born—the twin ideas of the penny paper and the newsboy. But, like the young of the kangaroo, they crawled into the mental pouch of the teeming originator, and nestled there for months, before they were fully formed and strong enough to confront the world.

Perhaps it is possible, continued the musing man of medicine, on a subsequent walk in Chatham street. He went to a paper warehouse, and made inquiries touching the price of the cheaper kinds of printing paper. He figured up the cost of composition. He computed office expenses and editorial salaries. He estimated the probable circulation of a penny paper, and the probable income to be derived from advertising. Surely, he could sell four or five thousand a day! There, for instance, is a group of people; suppose a boy were at this moment to go up to them with an armful of papers, only one cent, I am positive, thought the sanguine projector, that six of the nine would buy a copy! His conclusion was, that he could produce a newspaper about twice the size of an average sheet of letter-paper, half paragraphs and half advertisements, and sell it at a cent per copy, with an ample profit to himself. He was sure of it! He had tried all his arithmetic upon the project, and he figures gave the same result always. The twins leaped from