ANCIENT HISTORY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 31 December 1926, Page 9

ANCIENT HISTORY

TN museums and such places it is possible to see and read newspapers published between three and four hundred years ago. Facsimiles of some of the more interesting of these have been printed in the past, and although, of course, not of the same value as the originals, are of great interest as giving an insight into the manners and customs of the times.

In an article in an exchange extracts are reproduced from a. collection of these reprints which have recently come into the hands of a Wellington resident, and they make extremely interesting reading with* their quaint method of recording the news of the day.

The oldest of those papers is “The English Mercuric. Published by A-u----thoritie. For thg Prevention of False Reportes.” Tt is dated July the 23rd. 1588, and its four pages are printed rather in the form of a letter, each page measuring about 10 by U inches, 'flte long “s” and, to our modern minds, the curious spelling add to the fascination of 1 his early record, which was published at the time when the Spanish Armada, or Arntado, as it is called, was actually sailing up the English Channel. “Xothin"p is now talked of in these Partes, but the intended Invasion of England,” is the beginning of a message from Ostend.

The nineteenth number of “The Weekely Neves." dated “Monday,” 3Jst January, HUlfi, is one of the most interesting of these early newspapers. The publication of “The Weekely News” marks the beginning of the English newspaper industry. All four pages of this number arc devoted to “A Brief Discourse upon the Arraignment and Execution of the eight traytors —iDigby, the two Winters, Graunt, Rookewood, Keyes, Bates, and Johnson. alias Guy Fawkes, four of which were executed in St. Paul’s Churchyard, in .London, upon Thursday, the 27t1» last, the other four* in the .Old Palace Yard, in Westminster, over against the Parliament House, and with a relation of the other tr,ay tors which were executed at Worcester.” No other item of news, and not even

IN EARLY PAPERS

LONDON OF FIRE AND PLAGUE

an advertisement, appears in this mini Iter.

“The Gazette, comprising the sum of Foreign Intelligence, with the affairs now on foot in the Three Nations of England, Scotland and Ireland, for information of the people,” is represented by a copy for the first week in September, 1(558. More than half of its eight small pages are devoted to the death of Oliver -Cromwell. Items of foreign news are brief, as the following example shows: “From Amsterdam: The Swedish stiddain invasion into Denmark brings no other hope to us, but that our trading is stopped: time may alter it." One or two books are advertised as newly published, one having the alluring title of “A Few. Sighs From Hell, or the Groans of a Damned Soule.” But by far and away the most interesting of all the advertisements is -the following: “That Excellent, and by all Phy.sitinns approved. China Drink, called by the Chineans Toll a, by other nations Tav, alias Tee, is sold at the Suit a ness Head, a cophee house in Sweetings Rents, by the Royal Exchange. London."

The next date is July the (sth, EG6S, the fifty-second number of “The Newes: Published for the Satisfaction and Information of the People, With Privilege.” This four-page publication makes gruesome reading, for it is concerned with nothing except the Great Plague. “Orders conceived and published by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London concerning the infection of the detail the steps to be taken to prevent the spread of infection, and one cannot help being amused by the gentleman who, amidst the awful sufferings, saw a chance of doing good business. The only advertisement in the paper is his; and he announces: “There is a powder to be burnt into a Fume ... of so sovereign effect against the Plague and all Contagious Diseases, that being conveyed, to divers houses as were visited as free there has not any person dyed since out of the houses where it. hath been used. ’ ’

Following on the heels of the-Plague came the Great- Fire of London in

166 G. This is described in “The London Gazette" of the week September 3to 10 of that year. “The London Gazette ’ ’ made its first appearance in the previous year, “The Oxford Gazette" being its predecessor. Ever since that date “The London. Gazette" has been, the official Governmnt orgau and still is. Jts publication during the recent general strike at Home was one of the features of that industrial upheaval.

“The ordinary.course of this paper," says “The London Gazette," rather quaintly, “having been interrupted by a sad and lamentable accident of iFire lately hapned in the ; City of London: it hath been thought fit. for satisfying the minds of so many of His Majestic ’s good Subjects who must needs Ibe concerned for the Issue of so great an accident, to give this short, but true, Aceompt of it. On the second instant, at one of the clock in the Morning, there hapned to break out. a. sad indeplorable Fire in Pudding-lane, ncer New Fish-. Street, which falling out at that hour of the night, and in a quarter of the Town so close built with wooden pitched houses spread itself so far before day, and with such distraction to the inhabitants and Neighbours, that care was not taken for the timely preventing the further diffusion of it, by pulling doune houses, as ought to have been; so that this lamentable Fire in a short time became too big to be mastered-by any Engines or working near it. It fell out most unhappily, too, that f i violent Easterly wind fomented it, and kept it burning all that day and the night following."

The fire raged all Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. “On Thursday by the blessing of God it was wholly beat down and extinguished. But so as that Evening it unhappily burnt out again a fresh at the Temple, by the falling of some sparks (as is supposed) upon a Pile of Wooden buildings; but His Loyal Highness, who watched there that whole night, in Person, by the great labours and diligence used, and especially by applying Powder to blow up the Houses about it, before day most happily mastered it."