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It has been observed that the _Debats_ almost exclusively supplies the
Academy with its contingent of publicists--a circumstance accounted for
by that journal being jealous of the purity of its language, and in
other respects preserving a high and dignified standard. It has, indeed,
for an unusually long period enjoyed its reputation. French and Belgian
newspapers are very much of a mystery to an Anglo-Saxon. They seem to
flourish under conditions impracticable to American or English journals.
The _Independance Belge_ and the _Journal des Debats_ lie before us.
Neither of them contains sufficient advertisements to make up three of
our columns, yet their expenses must, we should suppose, especially in
the case of the _Debats_, published as it is where prices are so high,
be very large. Both these papers contain articles evidently the work of
able hands, and in the case of the _Independance_ the foreign
correspondence must be a very costly item, forming, as it frequently
does, five columns of a large page. The price of each is twenty
centimes--high, certainly, for a single sheet.
It has often been observed, too, that French newspaper-men seem
exceptionally well off. They frequent costly _cafes_, occasionally
indulge in _petits soupers_ in _cabinets particuliers_, and, altogether,
taking prices into account, appear to be in the enjoyment of larger
means than their brethren of the pen elsewhere. Of course, the success
of a French newspaper is, even in the absence of advertisements,
intelligible in the case of the _Figaro_ or _Petit Journal_, with their
circulation of 70,000 and 150,000 a day; but in the case of such papers
as the _Debats_, whose circulation is not very large, it is difficult to
explain.
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