THE "WAR CRY."

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2494, 7 January 1887, Page 2

THE "WAR CRY."

General Booth is a clever man—he knows how to run a paper and make it pay. The War Cry is a wonderful proJuotio'u, in mora tenses than one. For the first twelve months of its existence the General did not pay for aline of copy-happy man!-and he had bis subscribers, all ready to his haad. The Pall' Mall interviewer has : been questioning Mr Railtou, the Goner&l's right hand man, and ho has furbished a fund of very interesting matter concerning the War Cry. "It was started by men who knew nothing of newspaper work (says the interviewer); its publisher was. equally ignorant of .the elementary facts of tho publishing business j am! the history of its gtowth from the first number to that vhich was issued this week is one continued bwica of surprises, and often of no little romance The' precursor ot the War Cry was a penny monthly magazine,which was started in 1868 under tho titlo of tho Christian Mission Magazino; or, the East London Evangelist, under which it continued to be .published for ten yoars, In 1879 it came out as the Salvationist, and in that year attained a mastmum circulation of 30,000 a month. At that time it was published by Messrs Morgan and Scott, and chronicled, in a style then very strange but now familiar enough, the doings of the organisations directed by',' General" Booth. The present writer saw the first number of I this stage monthly some eight years' ago, aud on reading it, laid it down with the remark that though if was hard and strange in many things, it reminded himinoro of the Acts of the Apostles than anything he ha] road for a long time. A circulation of .30,000 although not bad for a penny monthly magazine, was far below the needs of the Jinny; and at the close of 1879, ' General' Booth determined upon starting a penny weekly newspaper to be entirely devoted to reporting the work of tho Army.. Tho title of War Cry was selected, and. the first number was sent out on Christmas morning 0P1379, in order that it might be published on New Year's Day, 1880. Seventeen thousand copies were printed cf the first number. The circulation wont steadily up from one to four or five thousand a week, until Jn two years from the first publication of (ha'penny weekly they wore printing 230,000 copies. Owing to the press of matter, and tlie impossibility of publishing more than a fractional part of the reports reaching them from all stations it was decided to publish it twice a week, on Wednesdays aud Saturdays. This experiment met with a considerable amount of succtsi, asd.lhe circulation weut ut» to as much as 400,000 c■ pii.-a of the two issues of the War Cry. a week; 150,100 wtre printed on Wednesday's edition and 250.C00.0n Saturdays, But after a time, when the novelty of the paper had worn off, the circulation gradually decreased to about 300,000 for the two issues. It was then decided that, instead of bringing out two halt peimy.liVar.Crys every week, the size of tho paper shoiild bo doubled and one issue: made, every week at Id—a change which came into operation at the beginning of last year. .'The War Cry at the present moment is an illustrated paper, exactly the size of the Pall Mall Gazette, and has a circulation of from two hundred and ten to two hundred and thirty thousand per week, This, in itself, would bo phenomenal, but it is by no rncanß alone,- The original War Cry,-started six yoars ago, ha 3 increasedsnd multiplied, till, founded upon the same hues, branch War Crysjjave been established under the auspices of the Army in several countries.. Altogether, including the original War Cry, and all its affiliated publications, there are twenty' Crya of va-riousdoscriptions circulating regularly, of which 17 or 18 appear each week. In addition to the War Cry the Salvation Army publish at headquarters a monthly, giving in.a more literary form the results of the operations all round the world, Of this magazine, the titlo of which is All Round the World, they sell 35,000 par mouth at a penny. It has been fifteen months in existence,and theciicnlafcion is still going up. Great as has been the success attending the publication of the War.Cry.it by no means satisfies the" vaulting ambition" of 'General' Booth, Ho makes no secret of bis intention to be satisfied with nothing less than' a daily War Cry, though no signs of its advent are yet visible on tho horizon," The profit on tho War Cry ia about £IOO per week, which, as Mr Railton observed, is " not so bad if you remember wo have no advertisements." ■