Two empires. the Roman and the Chinese, had from an early period issues similar to the news paper. The .1 eta I liarna (Daily occurrences) of aneient. Rome eontained reports of great military achievement, and of interesting events at Nome, as reports of elections. trials, games, tires, sacri fices, and miracles. They were written out by officers called act narii, and deposited among other public archive,. Copies were sometimes posted in public places. and sent at irregular intervals to the generals in the provinces, that the army might he informed of what was taking place in other parts of the Empire. They continued to be issued until the downfall of the Western Empire, The Peking Gazette. T / of Capital•" has appeared since 713 to 741 in the Tang dynasty at the Chinese capital. and has for many centuries been issued daily. It is printed in a (;o•ernnnent edition sent to officials, and in a popular edition with regular subscribers, reprints also appearing in the provinces. both having been furnished from an early period. It consist s exclusively of Imperial reseript, coun cil decrees, and official news. It is undoubtedly the earliest daily in existence.
Neither of these official issues has any relation with till' modern newspaper by example. still less by (Urea descent. The newspaper, as known to day. is of composite origin. In the sixteenth century it was represented by news sheets. single folio pages sold by peddlers and criers giving news of a single occurrence. The first dated ex nmples of these appeared in 1I9S. awl some S00 examples are preserved which appeared Iefo•e 1310, '1•hese news sheets appeared in Augsburg. "Vienna. Rat isbnn, Nuremberg, Ant werp. and many other plaees, generally in tino form of letters. The
extant numbers contain. among other !natters, meounts of the discovery of Ameriea. of the con of the Turks, of the French and Austrian War in Italy, with such local oceurrenees as exe cutions, inundations. earthquakes. burning, of witehes, and c•hild-nmr•ders. supposed to he com mitted by the .Iews. Of equal interest are the official .Voliz,ie established by the Vene tian flovernment in 1366, eontaining of the wars carried on by the Republic, and of other event, of general interest. At first they were not printed. but might be read in various public places 011 payment of a small coin. (•ailed a qa-cct1a. the name Ga:rtie These represented the issue of floating minor or it private letter by the presses of the day. As the press ceased to lie a personal, and became a business venture, and regular communication was established by various posts over European coun tries, these broad sheets of news and opinion developed into the journal regularly issued—of which the Frankfurter Journal, published by Ege nolph Emmet in 1615, suspended in 1902, was the first—the 'news-letter,' furnished to the cor respondent by men usually in official life at the different capitals, the prototype of the later despatch and correspondent, and the pamphlet, discussing opinion, which began treating public affairs all over Europe from the standpoint of the editorial in the seventeenth century. By the opening of the eighteenth century these became united in daily journals which combined the report of the broad sheet, the correspondence of the news-letter, and the polemics of the pam phlet, adding the advertisement in 164S, and the regular market report at the close of the eigh teenth century.