The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-06-27
The First Daily Newspaper.

One hundred and seventy-oue year
ago, on the 18th day of March, 1902
the first number of the first daily news
paper in the English language wa
published in London. It's appearanc,
was not heralded by advertisement, for
besides two or three weekly Journals
then published, and which were wholly
devoted to politics and court matters,
there was nothing in which to advertise.
The proposed publication of the Cour.
ant, for such the new venture was to be
called, was not looked upon with high
degree of favor by the monopolists OF
the London newspaper field, who affec-
ted to regard it with supreme contempt,
and spoke of it only as I" the pitiful
project of good printer" with all the
added weight that could be conveyed
by liberal use of italics and exclama-
ton points. But the publisher was a
shrewd fellow, and saw that this dis
play of spite would act as an irritant
1pon. public curiosity, and, Judging by
what sharp newspaper-man would do
nowadays, he went home, ordered his
pressman to "put ON two more quires, 4"
and awaited the result.
When the Courant did appear, upon
the aforementioned date, it was Gu
riosity. It was about the size of half
sheet of foolscap-paper, printed only
upon one side, containing neither edi-
torials, local, court news, political mat
ter, advertisements nor English intelli-
gence of any kind whatever. This last
omission was the more singular, not to
say significant, when the reader will re-
member that, upon that very date, the
11th of March, Queen Anne went to
the house of Peers to deliver her first
speech from the throne, King William
Ill having died upon the 8th, three
days before. We have said there was
no home pews in the first issue of the
Courant. The assertion was too sweep
ing In one corner there are seven lines,
four of which relate to the funeral Of
the deceased king, and three are devo-
ted to the condition of the English
army IN Flanders for war at that time
was raging between England and
France. The remainder of the con-
tents consisted entirely of quotations
from foreign papers, with the excep-
ton of half column in reference to
its future prospect and plans. "This
Courant," says the publisher, cas- the
title shows, will be published daily, be-
ing designed to give all the material
news as soon as every post arrives, and
is confined to half the compass to
save the publick at least half the i'm
pertinances of ordinary newspapers"
Six weeks after the first issue the
publisher announced in his largest type
that the project had been so success
full, that hereafter both sides will be
printed" The appearance of over a
column of advertisements in the same
is a sufficient Endorsement of
the statement, and from that time the
Courant increased in prosperity. Every
has its leading feature, and
that claimed by the Courant was foreign
Three months after its
first appearance the following notice
found conspicuous place in its col
umns, which leads to the belief that
newspaper publishers were much the
same in those days as now as regards
the dishing-up of news from abroad
''It will be found from the Foreign
Prints, which from Time to Time, as
Occasion offers, will be mentioned in
this Paper, that the Author has taken
Care to be duly furnished with All that
comes from Abroad in any Language.
And for an Assurance that he will not,
under Pretense of having Private Intel
ligence, impose any Addition of feign'd
to an Action, but give
his Extracts fairly and impartially, at
the Beginning of each Article he will
quote the Foreign Paper from whence
tbs taken, that the Public, seeing from
what Country a Piece of News comes,
with the allowance of that Government,
may be better able to Judge of the
and Fairness of the Rela-
ton. Nor will he take upon him to
give any Comments or Conjectures of
MS own, but will relate only Matter of
Fact, supposing other People to have
Sense enough to make Reflections fo1
Had we any intention of clarifying
the modern daily newspaper at the ex-
pense of the Courant, we might stop
here to draw very striking comparison
between the merits of the two. But
that was no part of our original plan,
and we leave it for those who have
nothing else to do. AS we have said,
and as is claimed in the above quota
tions, the strong point of the Courant
was its foreign intelligence. Clipper
ships, ocean-steamers and submarine
cables, were alike unknown in those
days, and the publisher was obliged to
depend upon the uncertain movements
of transatlantic shipping, so that the
news from America was sometimes two,
three, and occasionally even four
old. Even the news from across
the channel was often two and three
weeks old. But then this intelligence,
stale as it was, was undoubtedly read
with as keen an appetite, and discussed
with as much earnestness, as if it had
come hot from the wires an hour be-
fore. A fire might occur in New York,
and the destroyed buildings be repla-
ced, by the time the intelligence would
reach London or a colonial official in
Boston might die, and his widow be
spending her honeymoon with her sec
ond, before the news of the first event
would be published in the columns of
the Courant. But the preservative
power of time did not allow anything
in the news line to lose its SAVIOR, and
these moldy scraps, with others gath
cred from various parts of the world,
we'll served up, day after day, to the
public, with great seeming acceptance.
Every afternoon the same stream of
purchasers flowed into the narrow,
dingy street of publication, left its innu-
merable pennies, and bore away its in
Vulnerable copies through the fog and
smoke of London. At last there came
a day, as there comes a day to us all,
when the founder and the publisher OF
the first daily paper in the English
tongue, having achieved his work, shut
his eyes upon the world, and went out
of it. That work, looked at across the
hundred and seventy two years that
have elapsed since it's accomplishment,
seems poor enough; but, poor as it was,
imperfect as it was, absurd as it was, il
was the first placing of the lever, which
to-day moves the world.-HppLetOn's
Journal.
-Leprosy has turned up in New
A member of the Domin-
ion Parliament informed his incredu-
Ions colleagues, recently, that it had
existed in a certain district of that
province for sixty years, and the local
could not do more than con-