Connecticut western news., 1873-03-21
An Old Newspaper-InterestiHg Remin-
 iscences.

All OlO NeWSpaper-IntereSt hemln. iscences.
 What is more entertaining than an old newspaper? Yesterdays is stale and dull but to take up one that was printed hundred years ago, and scan it's dingy columns, its news, it's gossip, and still more it's advertisements, is like receiving direct communication from another world. Such paper lies be- fore me at this moment. It is copy of the NeW Jersey Gazette, printed by Isaac Collins, at Trenton, New Jersey, on the 24th of March, 1779. The con trast it presents with the papers of to- day represents the growth of more than century. It is yellow and dingy with age, of insignificant proportions, and Is printed on coarse paper in large but not inelegant type. Although pub lished in stirring times, it contains but little news, and that is packed away in odd corners, without any of the head ings or display now in vogue to call at- tention to important intelligence. The whole of the first page is taken up with a communication in defense of Conti- mental currency against the attacks of some sordid individual who preferred 'hard money" to the greenbacks of the period. It is very spicily written, and shows that newspaper vituperation is not altogether Q vice of modern growth. The writer accuses his antago- mist of being ''British spy''-the old story of British gold!'-calls him Gan awkward braggadocio" who has ''the ef- frontery to talk big of his birth, educa- tion, figure and breeding" whereas ''this Hard Money, amidst all his straining at high figure to cover real fact, and pretending to derive his gene alogy from the sunbeanas, is well known to be descended of as low, obscure, mongrel, and motley @ mixture as any to be met with. The old man of the family is mulatto; the mother an Indian," etc., etc. It is easy to i'm agine 'tHard- Moneys" feelings on talk ing up this number of the Gazette. We have no copy of the paper contain ing his reply; but who can doubt that it was pitched in the same lofty strain of scorn in which editors, Congressman, and belligerent correspondents of our own day are accustomed to ''hurl back" injurious accusations?
 Turning to the other pages, we find the latest news from London to be under date of December 9. Among its items is one to the effect that IF, ,000 British troops are to be sent to New York in the spring. Another announces that "all the bishops but four, to their immortal honor, declined voting for that diabolical engine of cruelty, the American proclamation, and avoided countenancing the vindictive shedding of Christian blood" We also learn that "the vacancies in the Hessian troops alone, now at New York, it is said, re- quire upward of 4000 to fill them up. l" A correspondent 'from camp at FazzePs place in Georgia" under date of Jan uary 27, gives a spirited account of the repulse of British attack upon the camp. A "personal" states that "Ma- ior-General Arnold hath obtained leave to retire while from the duties of his station to take charge of his domestic affairs"
 Some of the advertisements are very curious. Here is an amusing sample:
 Was found the day of the battle at Monmouth the w 2s of July, IT'S, by one of the company of'mil- litia under Capt: Parker, of Col. Freinghuysen's | gon, good shirt marked I. L., and pair of trow- | sers or drawers, inclosed in a knapsack. Whoever gives the further particulars and proves property shall have them by applying to me at Baskinridge. | HENRY DALGLIs.
 Shirts and trowsers were evidently scarce and precious in those days; and the honesty of MT. Henry Dalglis in ad- vertising them, at an expense of two dollars (that being the rate for "adver- tisements of moderate length" in the Gazette), deserves to be put on per- manent record.
 Several other advertisements carry us back to a phase of society which has long passed away in the Northern States, and from which the whole Union is now happily free. MT. Samuel Henry, of Trenton, offers twenty dollars reward for the return of !" 8 negro man named Tom, who is described as Ca wen-set fellow, about feet or inches high. " Tom did not leave his masters house empty handed he had on short bear skin coat, white vest, buckskin brooches, and round hat he likewise took with him @ brown coat lined with brown shalloon, one striped Damascus vest, and sundry other clothes" A post script to the advertisement states that he was supposed to have taken "the York road, with the intention of get. ting to the enemy" Most of the ad. vertisers of goods, lands, etc., state that the Continental emissions (of paper money) of May 20, 1777, and April Il, 1778, will be received in payment"
 No history could give so graphic and living Q picture of the time as this dingy, insignificant sheet affords. It is the time itself. And if newspaper not quite hundred years old is so precious 8 memorial of manners, customs, and events, what would we give if we could have as faithful & record of the older days of Greece and Rome? An eminent scholar has said that copy of the Athens Times Chad such paper evel existe6 of tte days of Pericles would out weigh in historical value all the re- searches and discoveries of the most learned of antiquarians. The old Ro mans had something of the kind, but nc copies have come down to us. The Chinese, who seem to have anticipated by ages many of the most important in ventions of the European nations, clain also to have been the first to establish { newspaper and if it be true that the files of the Pekin Gazette, preserved il the imperial library at the celestia capital, run back in unbroken success sion three or four thousand years, ac cording to the rather extravagant asser tions of Chinese historians, it may bt that they contain much that is curious and valuable, which the researches O. scholars may some day bring to hgh for the benefit of outside barbarians.