New-York tribune., 1921-01-30
First English Newspaper

great stimulus, for it was this war
that brought the newspaper into
England, just as it has been the
latest war that has put every news
paper to the supreme test of justify
ing its existence.
In 1920 the Thirty Years War
brought the corantos, or news-pam-
phlets, from Amsterdam into Eng
and. Next year they were printed
in London. So OF all the depart
inents Of a modern newspaper Office
the foreign editors can boast the
longest pedigree. Next comes the
Parliamentary Reporters; in l64l
we find 1.-THE Heads of several Pro-
ceedings in the Present Parliament,
printed in London for l. T." Under
the stress Of the civil war the home
and foreign reports were fused into
one. A later stress, chat of the
Great Plague, which drove the Court
from London to Oxford in 1865, IN
spired MIR. Muddiman to produce
there what shortly became and still
is The London Gazette. the vener.
able parent Of our existing periodi-
cal press.
The period following is one Of
growth and suppression. Newspapers
were encouraged so long as they
| checked and corrected mischievous
run1ors; they were themselves
checked and corrected so soon as thev
criticized authority. The Revolution
produced a food, both of rumors
and of writer's; time passed, and the
writer's established themselves, but
deadly means of correction was
found.
The stamp act is as dead now as
the Queen who enacted it, but it was
in force for a century and hall,
and it's effects upon the press were
evil and lasting. "The Observator is
fallen" writes Swift, in 17l2; "The
Medleys are junlbled up with The
Flying Post; The Examiner is deadly
sick; The Spectator keeps up, and
doubles its price, know not how
long it will hold. Have you seen tho
red stamp the papers aye marked
with? Methinks the stamping Is
worth halfpenny." Swift's name
and The Spectators remind us that
Just before the stamp act a new
partner, the Critical Editor, had
joined the newspaper board. This
act had two distinct effects, equally
bad. 1t enhanced artificially the
price &C newspapers in England and
so retarded their circulation and i'm
paired their efficiency; while the
pirate journalists who contrived to
escape the duty became, as conscious
evil-doers, writer's Of scurrility and
sedition. Even in the brilliant col
unlns Of The Anti-Jacobin, and there
not only in its quotations from rival
journals, the low tone of the eigh-
teenth century press is unpleasantly
evident.
The annals for this period record
frequent births and occasional mar
riages, but almost invariable deaths.
From the dark age of George III,
when, despite savage coercion, the
doctrine Of a ''free press" was per-
sistently preached. butfpreached in
vain, bare half dozen survivors
descend. The Morning Post Of
1872 and The Morning Advertiser
Of 1894, with The Mail, The Observ-
er and The Weekly Dispatch, and,
in 1885, The Daily Universal Regis
ter, Printed Geographically, which
in 1888 became The Times-each
CT these papers lives and can tell
its own story. Two have chosen to
remain in modest obscurity; the rest
have had their rivalries, their trou-
bles and their triumphs. They can
count the generations Of their own
ers, editors and printers. And yer
their span of life has been but q
short fragment of our history.
From the journalists Caesar and Ia
citus to the first journals in the lands
they wrote of, some fifteen centu-
ries; from these to The Mornine
Post and the topography OF Printt
ing House Square, three centuries
more; but even The Morning Poss
has not reached Its l50th birthday