A HUNDRED YEARS OF THE BENGALI PRESS
(First Period 1816–1820)
“The newspaper the chronicle of civilisation—the common reservoir into which every stream pours its living waters, at which every man may come to drink.”––Bulwer Lytton.
One of the saddest and strangest facts in the history of the Bengali Press, is the utter absence of any systematic attempt to chronicle its varied activities. Though more than a hundred years have rolled away since the first Bengali newspaper saw the light, no interesting history is there to arrest the attention of the learned Scholar. Bengali literature is fortunate in having captured the historical scholarship of men of the country of the type of the late Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt, Ramgati Nayratna and Mr. Dinesh Chunder Sen ; but with the history of the Bengali Press it is otherwise. A solitary article appeared on the subject about 78 years ago in 1850 in the Calcutta Review. The writer of the article in question displayed not only his
