It is now time to trace some further steps in the development of the Strand business, and record circumstances which contributed to its success.

Besides the expansion of newspaper traffic resulting from the rapid increase of the population of the United Kingdom, and perhaps in a greater degree from the spread of education, the business of journalism, and its handmaid, news-agency, received a sudden and extraordinary impetus by the abolition of the newspaper stamp-duty by Mr Bright's Act of 1854. The immediate effect was a reduction in the price of newspapers, and an enormous increase in the demand for them.

The standing which the energy of the elder Smith had already secured for his business in the days when he worked it single-handed, the indefatigable pluck which he had shown in carrying out his principle of “first on the road,” and the perseverance which the new firm had maintained in deserving the confidence of the public as well as of publishers, enabled Smith & Son to reap the full advantage of the sudden expansion of the trade. On June 21, 1854, the most signal proof was given of their pre-eminence in this respect by a circular issued on that day from the ‘Times’ office, intimating that the proprietors of that powerful journal had determined that for the future “all papers required by Messrs Smith & Son for distribution in the country shall be delivered to them by the Publishers before any other Agent is supplied. ‘The Country’ is understood to include all railway stations, and to exclude London and the Metropolitan districts, as defined by the Post Office.