Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1849-05-25
MISCELLANEOUS,
VALUE OF A NEWSPAPER.

clerk of every county in the State, to
subscribe for, and preserve the files of
two newspapers printed, we believe, with
in their respective counties. This is
probably as wise measure as ever was
enacted by the Legislature of the En-
pire State, and the Evening Post of New
York city, gives good and sufficient reas-
ons to bear out the assertion. 1t says
that no historical monument that has
ever been devised has half the value for
future reference that belongs to a news.
paper, and no record can be made of eur
rent events nearly as truthful, as minute,
as systematic, or as accessible as the
"happy pages which no critics criticise,"
of a periodical journal But for them, in
this country, we should soon lose all evil
dence of events not strictly Legislative,
and fifty years hence our posterity would
be as much at loss to trace the interior
history of this generation, as we are in
attempting to recall the more delicate
iineaments of social life in the ages of
Elizabeth, or of the Edwards.
The newspaper is the common reposi-
tory of every thing of general concern
that is done, said, thought, and suffered,
within its range of active circulation. 1t
bears record of the peoples tastes and
of the means enjoyed for satisfying them;
of their industry and its results; of their
opinionssand the processes by which they
are formed, modified, and changed; of
their politics, their religion, their social
relations and habits, their virtues and
their vices; in a word, of their whole ex-
istence as community of men. We
think we are not speaking rasaly when.
we say that the advertisements alone of
popular daily newspaper, like the Times
OF London, or some of our most promin-
ent contemporaries in this city, for fifty
years, possesses intrinsically a higher
historical value than all the historical re-
cords which are embodied in the litera-
ture of ancient Greece; assuming, of
course, that the civilization of England
and of Greece, for that period, were of
aqual interest to tn, world. In them we
see, from day to day, what people buy
and what they sell, what they make,
what they eat, and what they wear,
what they enjoy, where they travel and
Where they seEd, when they are born
and when they die, when and whom
they marry, when and why they are
punished, and what are their rewards !;
what books are made and what books
are sold, what laws are enacted and what
laws are violated, what Gods are wor-
shipped, and in what new religion thew
are taught and how, by whom and how
the face of the earth is travelled, and
the great deep navigated, and the wings
OF the wind made to carry burdens. All
these things, and many more, are taught
by the advertisements of daily journal.
They disclose the civilization of people
with fullness and correctness to which
the most elaborate, the most authentic,
the most philosophical, the most ingeni-
us and faithfully written histories of anti
quity do not approach.
What would we not give for file of
Roman daily during the age of Angus
tus? How profitable might've exchange
for it all the histories of Rome which ey-
er have been or ever will be written?
Neither Livy or Tacitus, nor Dion Cassi
7us, nor Cicero, nor Suetonius, nor Pliny,
nor Beaufort, nor Nicbuhr have told us
1.-THE of whatwould have found its wav
into the teaming journals of that metrop
oils of nations. We should then be able
to turn to the date of Cicero's speech for
Milo, and read editorial comments from
the pen of Sallust or of Hortensius. In
another column we might find new
lyric inspired by the muse of Horace, or
a new lyric inspired by the muse of Hor-
ace, or IA new satire from the inexorable
pen of Juvenal Farther on we would
perhaps read of the first appearance of
Roscious in the Andrea of Terence, or Of
Esop, "for this night only, in the I'M
rhih1on of Plautus. The struggles of
the forum and in the halls of Justice, the
frequent and curious religious ceremoni
ais, the daily amusemcnts, the commerce
the agriculture, the army, the literature,
the industry, the very life of old Rome,
all might be found in such record as
fresh, and as full, and as satisfactory al
most as if we had been permitted our
selves to open the sheet yet da np from
the press, under the shadows of the Cap
itoline.
Compared with such record, of what
worth are, all the inscriptions, medals,
CONS, and monuments transmitted to us