43. ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS. In 1917 there were published in the United Kingdom 2,366 newspapers, distributed as follows: Lon don, 451 • provinces, 1,458; Wales, 126; Scot land, 254• Ireland, 186; in the surrounding islands, 17. Of these, 147 were daily papers published in England, 19 in Scotland, 16 in Ire land, eight in Wales, and three in the islands. There are over 60,000 newspapers in the world, and considerably more than half of them are printed in the English language; 13,000 alone to the British empire.
Origins.— The beginnings of English jour.
nalism can be traced to the so-called °news-let ters* of the 16th century—hand-written docu ments laboriously compiled by literary employes for wealthy and titled personages, statesmen and politicians, who maintained their corre spondents at court, in France, Ireland or else where abroad to keep themselves posted on the course of events. The British Museum contains many examples of these news-letters, among them some copies of the English Mercury, dated 1588, purporting to give first-hand information about the Spanish Armada. These latter, how ever, have been proved to be forgeries, executed about 1766. Although printing was introduced in England as early as 1477, the first periodical did not appear till nearly 150 years later. Noth ing could be printed except under the jealous eye of a censor appointed by the Crown, and the publication of news was an offense against the State. The vendor or distributor of news was regarded as a miscreant and punished as such. Yet this stringency did not prevent the importation and surreptitious circulation of corantos, novellas and gazets published in Latin and other languages on the Continent of Eu rope. In May 1622 the government sanctioned the publication of a weekly periodical dealing with the German (Thirty Years') war. About 1624 it was proposed to issue an official period ical, but nothing was done in the matter till 1665, when the Oxford Gazette — afterward re named the London Gazette (official) was founded. That publication has appeared regu larly ever since on Tuesday and Friday even ings. In 1642 a variety of publications ap
peared, but these were not entitled to the name of newspapers. The first real English news paper, The Public Intelligences, established by Sir Roger L'Estrange, appeared in 1662, and then only at irregular intervals. It lived about three years. In 1680, under Charles II, the printing of newspapers and•pamphlets was entirely prohibited, but on the abolition of the press censorship in 1695 regular newspapers sprang into existence. For the next 130 years the history of English journalism is that of a perpetual struggle against heavy and arbitrary imposts, for successive governments retained the powerful weapon of taxation. A stamp duty was imposed in 1711 charging a penny (2 cents) per sheet and a half-penny per half sheet. The duty was raised to three cents per copy in 1776, four cents in 1789, five cents in 1794, seven cents in 1797 and eight cents in 1815. The tax was reduced again to two cents (one penny) in 1836, and entirely abolished in 1855. In addition to the stamp duty, a tax (abolished 1853) had also to be paid on every advertisement which naturally made the news paper an expensive luxury. The price of the paper rose proportionally with the tax, and dur ing the first half of the 19th century the daily paper cost as much as seven pence (14 cents). Hence newsagents used to hire out papers to different clients at two cents per hour for the first two or three days, and then sell them in the provinces at a reduced rate, by which time the copies were well thumbed and a week old. The paper duty, another impost on blank paper — was finally repealed in 1861 and the last °tax on knowledge removed.
The first English daily paper, The Daily Courant, appeared in 1702; and the first Sunday papers, The British Gazette and The Daily Mon itor in 1780. The Dublin Newsletter (1685) was the first Irish newspaper, and the Mercu rius Criticus (1651), a reprint of a London Mercurius, the first to be printed is Scotland.