Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/463

UNITED STATES.] NEWSPAPERS 433 NEWSPAPERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. The chief papers of the Cape Colony are The Evening (6000) and The Cape Argus (5000). At Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, in 1882, four papers were published three iu Dutch, one in English. NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES. Boston was the first city of America that possessed a local newspaper ; but the earliest attempt in that direction, made in 1689, and a second attempt, under the title Publick Occurrences, which followed in September 1690, were both suppressed by the Government of Massachusetts. Only one copy of the first and two copies of the second of these two pioneers are now known to exist. One copy of the Publick Occurrences may be seen in the State Paper Department of the Rolls House in London. The other was recently exhibited at Philadelphia. The paper is a small quarto sheet, one of the four pages of which is blank, while the other three contain a record of passing occurrences, not unlike the contemporary news of the English press ; and there is little in the paper to justify, in any sense, the governor s assertion that " it contained reflexions of a very high nature." Although it purports to be " printed by Richard Pierce for Benjamin Harris," it is probable that the latter was both printer and editor, as he had already been of a London paper (The Post), and was again at a subsequent period. Nearly fourteen years afterwards (April 24, 1704), the first number of The Boston News-Letter was "printed by B. Green, and sold by Nicholas Boone " ; but its proprietor and editor so far as it can be said to have had an editor, for extracts from the London papers were its staple contents was John Campbell, postmaster of the town. In 1719 he enlarged his paper, in order, as he told his readers, " to make the news newer and more acceptable ; . . . . whereby that which seem d old in the former half-sheets becomes new now by the sheet This time twelvemonth we were thirteen months behind with the foreign news beyond Great Britain [or, in other words, the attention of the Bostonian politicians was engrossed on the siege of Belgrade, when their contemporaries in the mother country were intent on the destruction of the Spanish fleet on the coast of Sicily], and now less than five months ; so that .... we have retrieved about eight months since January last "; and he encourages his subscribers with the assurance that if they will continue steady " until January next, life per mitted, they will be accommodated with all the news of Europe .... that are needful to be known in these parts." But Campbell s new plans were soon disturbed by the loss of his office, and the commencement of a new journal by his successor in the postmastership, William Brooker, entitled The Boston Gazette, " published by authority" (No. 1, 21st December 1719). The old journalist had a bitter controversy with his rival, but at the end of the year 1722 relinquished his concern in the paper to Benjamin Green, by whom it was carried on with higher aims and greater success. Green conducted the paper until his death, at the close of 1733, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, John Draper, who published it until December 1762. By Richard Draper, who followed his father, the title was altered to Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter:, and the maintenance of the British rule against the rising spirit of independence uniformly characterized his editorship and that of his widow (to whom, at a subsequent period, a pension was granted by the British Government). It was the only paper printed in Boston during the siege, and ceased to appear when the British troops were compelled to evacuate the city. The Boston Gazette began, as we have seen, in 1719. James Franklin, elder brother of the celebrated Benjamin Franklin, was its first printer. It lasted until the end of 1754, its editorship usually changing with the change of the postmasters. On the 17th August 1721 James Franklin started The New England Courant, the publica tion of which ceased in 1727 ; and two years later Benjamin Franklin established The Pennsylvania Gazette, which he continued weekly until 1765. To The Boston Gazette and the Courant succeeded The Neiv England Weekly .Journal (20th March 1727 ; incor porated with The Boston Gazette in 1741), and The Weekly Rehearsal (27th September 1731), which became The Boston Evening Post (August 1735), and under that title was for a time the most popular of the Boston newspapers, It aimed at neutrality in politics, and therefore did not survive the exciting events of the spring of 1775. Several minor papers followed, which may be passed over without notice. A new Boston Gazette, which began in April 1755, has, however, claims to be particularized. For a long time it was the main organ of the popular party, and expounded their policy with great ability, and in a dignified temper. Otis, John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Warren were amongst its writers. The Massachusetts 8/>y, under the indefatigable editor ship of the American historian of printing, Isaiah Thomas, did yeoman s service in this struggle, although of a different kind from that of The Boston Gazette. The latter spoke chiefly to the thinkers and natural leaders of the people. The Spy was a light and active skirmisher who engaged his antagonists Avhercver he met them, and frequently carried the war into tlio enemy s country. In July 1774, during the operation of the Boston Port Act, and soon after the landing of four British regiments, it adopted Franklin s odd device, representing Great Britain as a dragon, and the colonies as a snake divided into nine parts with the motto, "join or die." But Boston grew too hot for the patriotic printer, and he had to remove to Worcester on the day of the battle of Lexington. Here the paper continued to be published until 1786, the lack of the stirring revolutionary matter being occasionally supplied by the republication in its columns of entire books, such as Robertson s America and Gordon s History of the Revolution. This journal, like so many more, was for a time killed by a tax. The stamp duty imposed in March 1786, though amounting to but two-thirds of a penny, and very speedily repealed, led to the suspension of the Spy until April 1788. At that period it was resumed; and it still continues, being the oldest newspaper in Massa chusetts. The Boston Sentinel is on many grounds a memorable newspaper. It was founded and for nearly forty years edited by Major Bursell, a man who combined ability with singular moderation of temper, and with singular modesty and disinterestedness. He printed the Acts of Congress for a very long time without charge. William Lloyd Garrison s once well-known Boston Liberator was founded on New Year s Day 1831. For a time its editor was also writer, compositor, and pressman. In December of that year the assembly of his State offered a reward of 5000 dollars to any one who would cause him to be apprehended and brought to trial. He continued the paper to the last day of 1861, and lived to witness the abolition of negro slavery. At the commencement of the struggle for independence in 1775 Massachusetts possessed 7 newspapers, New Hampshire 1 (The New Hampshire Gazette, founded in 1756), Rhode Island 2, and Connecticut 3, making 13 in all for the New England colonies. Pennsylvania had 8, of which the earliest in date was The American Weekly Mercury (No. 1, 22d December 1719) ; and New York XVII - 55