MERCURY EXTRAORDINARY!

We this week present our readers with Two Full Sheets and a Half of Newspaper matter, including an amount of letter-press unprecedented in the history of the provincial press. Our present day’s Paper contains TEN TIMES the quantity of print, for Sixpence, that it formerly contained when sold at Sevenpence; and we have adopted this temporary enlargement, in order that the advertisements flowing in upon us may not encroach too much on the space allotted to public news, politics, and miscellaneous intelligence.

In the case of a minor paper, circulating two or three thousand impressions only, the cost of an extra supplement is no very important affair; but when more than seven thousand have to be issued, free of charge, the amount we have to expend for paper and stamps, in addition to the wages for setting the letter-press and the printing off, forms a very considerable item against any profit which may appear to flow from extra advertisements, the pressure of which, we sincerely trust, will soon diminish. At all events, we will do our best not to deprive our readers of their usual variety of information and amusement.

PRESENT CIRCULATION.

Three months have now elapsed since we ventured on the bold experiment of permanently enlarging our Paper, by the issue of a Weekly Supplement, and of increasing the price from Fivepence to Sixpence, the additional penny being claimed in part repayment of the additional outlay we were incurring for extra paper, extra stamps, and extra printers’ wages; the balance of the cost, which is upwards of £700 per annum, even for a single weekly supplement, being undertaken to be borne by ourselves, for the sake of giving larger type and more general reading to our numerous patrons.

During the progress of the experiment many inquiries have been made with regard to the result; some of our friends having had serious doubts, and others having felt no doubt about it, whilst one of our contemporaries has been pleased to represent it as an entire failure. We are happy, then, to be enabled to state, that such has been the public approbation of what has been considered a decided improvement of our Paper, that its circulation has not only not fallen off, notwithstanding the advance of price, but has steadily increased, as will appear from the following statement from our publishing account:—

• Average Number of Papers issued every Friday during the half year, January to June, 1845: 7093
• Ditto, after the Enlargement during the quarter July, August, and September, 1845: 7244

This result calls for our most grateful acknowledgments to the public, and must be perfectly satisfactory to our advertising friends.