LITERARY NOTES.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 456, 22 March 1890, Page 3

LITERARY NOTES.

(From Our London Correspondent.) Neither the “Daily Graphic” nor the “ Speaker ” have made decisive hits, at any rate yet. From the piles of the former left on the bookstalls in the evenings I don’t think the lower middle classes have “ caught on,” and if this should be so there isn’t a chance of the venture paying. The working expenses are almost incredibly heavy. Twenty thousand pounds were laid out by the Company before they opened their doors. The chief blemishes of the “Daily Graphic” appear to me the head pioee (a ludicrously feeble and ineffective design) and the lack of illustrations of contemporary metropolitan and provincial life. There are letters and sketches from all parts of the globe, many of which have been clearly standing ready in type for several days. For purely topical sketches, however, one looks in vain. The “R.M.G.” is quicker to date. I like neither the “ Speaker’s ” get-up nor its contents. The three narrow columns form, with type smaller than the “ Athenmum’s” and no breaks, strikes me as the reverse of an improvement on the “Spectator,” in fact, a distinct retrograde movement. Theonepointonwhichlthought all classes of readers were agreed was that two broad columns in medium type clearly leaded was the best form for a weekly review. The contents, too, require lightening. You don’t want tonjours politics in a journal of this class. But to-morrow’s issue may show an improvement.