The Government discourages the dissemination of newspaper information in
other ways. For instance, it does not allow newspapers to be sold on the
streets: therefore the newsboy is unknown in Vienna. And there is a
stamp duty of nearly a cent upon each copy of a newspaper's issue. Every
American paper that reaches me has a stamp upon it, which has been pasted
there in the post-office or downstairs in the hotel office; but no matter
who put it there, I have to pay for it, and that is the main thing.
Sometimes friends send me so many papers that it takes all I can earn
that week to keep this Government going.
I must take passing notice of another point in the Government's measures
for maintaining tranquillity. Everybody says it does not like to see any
individual attain to commanding influence in the country, since such a
man can become a disturber and an inconvenience. 'We have as much talent
as the other nations,' says the citizen, resignedly, and without
bitterness, 'but for the sake of the general good of the country, we are
discouraged from making it over-conspicuous; and not only discouraged,
but tactfully and skillfully prevented from doing it, if we show too much
persistence.
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