The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MAY 81, 1892. Newspapers.

Manawatu Herald, 31 May 1892, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MAY 81, 1892. Newspapers.

— + On the sixth of March last the Bath ■ Journal completed its 150 th year of existence, and. curiously enough, the paper has been continuously in the possession of the same family. This old paper takes us back to the struggle to produce a newspaper loaded with heavy duties. In the year that the Bath Journal started publishing, th« duty was one penny for every sheet and a half-penny for every half sheet, heavy enough in all i conscience, but in 1776 the duty was i raised to l£d, in 1789 to 2d, in 1794 , to 2£d, in 1797 to 3£d, and to 4d in « 1815 ! In addition, a tax on every < advertisement was levied .' ! In spite i

of all these drawbacks we find that in 1851 there were 159 London newspapers, 222 Provincial newspapers, 110 Scottish, and 102 Irish newspapers. In 1853 the tax on adverments was abolished and in 1855 the tax on the papers. In 1860, the number of newspapers increased, from ' 593 to 1060, and steadily kept rising till the liiiinbar now stands at 2186. The papers published pridr to tile establishment of the Bath Journal Were tile Daily Courant in 1702, Lloyd's List in 1726. the Norwich Postman in 1706, Worcester Postman in 1709, Newcastle-on-T.yAe Courant in 1711 > add the Dublin News-letter m ITO3. The Gazette, which cannot be rightly classed under the head of newspapers, wa3 published in 1665. We trust that the Bath Journal may flourish as long again.