BIRTH OF ENGLISH JOURNALISM

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 5, 30 January 1909, Page 3

BIRTH OF ENGLISH JOURNALISM

i We are so well accustomed to receive our morning and evening paper that il Tcipiircs some imagination to realise a time when newspapers did not exist at all. a-.id when even the woid "newspaper ■ had not been coined. Like much else !n the modern world, they were Italian in origin, "ga/.etti." or written newspapers, having been circulated ill Venice from ahoiit the middle of the sixteenth century. It was not, however, till 1022 that the lirst printed periodical began to appear iu England in the shape of "A Currant of Ccncrall News.'' which was translated from the Dutch, ivnd published in London. From that date "currants" or "corantos" beciime numerous, and persisted till the name disappeared about Kill, to be replaced by "newsbook." "diurnal," or a catch word such as Mercurius Aulicus, or the Scottish Dove, adopted by .particular periodicals. Mr. AVilliaius, in a work of great industry and decided value for students of the .seventeenth century, goes at length into the history of the more important of these prints, and has collected a great deal of information about them, their printers, and their authors. The lot of enrlv journalists was a chequered one. \pnii from (he restrictive regulations imposed iu 1580 by the Star Cliamb.-r (and abolished, together with that Court, iu 1041) on the publication of news, the Crown had at common law, as was nflirined by the unanimous "pillion of tbe judges in HjSO, the right to prohibit iinv such enterprise not licensed bv its authority; and. in fact, the. first license was not granted till nearly the. cud of ■lames T.'s reign, and then only in the case of foreign news, while until 11141 no periodical for disseminating domestic news appeared at all. This, however, did not prevent further statutory restrictions on what we now call trie freedom of the Press, and of these the most oppressive were undoubtedly those Imposed bv the Coinnionwenlth Parliament in l'li-Mb and by an ordi-.iaiicc of the Protector in lli.w, which for the time being practically killed newspaper enterprise. London journalism. II may bo said, began on a solid basis with the appearance in HUH) of the "London fln- . -/ctte," which had been started by Henry , Muddiniiin. a protege, of O.enernl Monk, the year before as the ''Oxford Cnzctlc,"

and'has continued down to the present day. But (he "riiizettc" was not at its outset a prominent paper, and the first "real English journalist was Sir Tsoger rEslrangc. a staunch High Church Tory, whose "Intelligencer. Xeivs, and Obscrvntor" bring us down lo comparatively modern times mid into touch with the generation of Defoe. 'Steele, and Addison,—"Morning Post."

'Professor Krederiek Slnrr. the head of Hie department of prehistoric archaeology nt the University of Chicago, asserts he has found remains in Ohio and Indiana that show that baseball was' plaveil bv the original inhabitants of the' United States. Instead of nine persons placing on one side, at least one hundred'players made up a team, and tiie bull used was either of stone or wood, enclosed In a skin, A trap baited with sim[|ower-secds is (he most efficacious means of catching