Courant

“ The first regular issue, however, was on December 3, 1764. During the War of the Revolution The Connecticut Courant occupied a rather important place in the journalism of the time. The British troops who took pos- session of New York had driven from that city all the patriotic printers, with the result that the circulation of The Courant was greatly increased, so much so that in all probability it was greater than that of any other colonial newspaper then printed. The paper has continued down to the present time and now bears the title of The Hartford Courant. ”

“ In the past the Edinburgh Evening Courant, the chief organ of the Tory party, of which James Hannay was editor for a few years, had a high reputation. The Witness, edited by Hugh Miller, the Daily Review, edited first by J. B. Manson and afterwards by Henry Kingsley, and the Scottish Leader, were conducted more or less as Liberal organs with a distinct bias in favour of the then Free Church, but none of these was long-lived. Volunteering has always attracted the younger men, and the highest awards at Wimbledon and Bisley have been won by the Queen’s Edinburgh. ”

“ There are constant allusions in the newspapers to Greenbush. The Connecticut Courant of September 29, 1812, printed an extract dated Pittsfield, September 17: "Democratic Economy.—Within a few days past, several waggon loads of Vinegar and Molasses have passed through this village, on the way from Boston to Greenbush, near Albany. These articles were purchased at Boston for the use of the troops at Greenbush. The vinegar cost the government Five Dollars per barrel, in Boston; and according to the statement of the teamsters, the expence of transportation would be much more than the first cost. ”

“ In the long winter evenings we would sit around a blazing peat fire, in our stone-flagged kitchen, and listen while father and Mr. Lindsay discussed current topics of the day. An old college friend used regularly to send his copy of the Edinburgh “Courant” to the dominie, and the news it contained formed the subject of many a warm discussion. One matter which at this time was causing considerable disturbance, in certain circles, was the movement for the final extinction of the disabilities against Episcopalians. ”

“ If it is possible, a file of the Edinburgh Courant for the years 1811, 1812, 1813, or 1814. I should not care for a whole year. If it were possible to find me three months, winter months by preference, it would do my business not only for St. Ives, but for the Justice-Clerk as well. Suppose this to be impossible, perhaps I could get the loan of it from somebody; or perhaps it would be possible to have some one read a file for me and make notes. This would be extremely bad, as unhappily one man’s food is another man’s poison, and the reader would probably leave out everything I should choose. ”

“ Conclusion.—Of the two types of lead, the beginner is advised to attempt at first only the summary lead, relying on the excellence of the news to carry the story. This kind of lead is definite. A reporter always can know when his lead answers the questions who, what, when, where, why, and how. And if he has presented his facts clearly in the lead, he may feel a certain degree of assurance that he has been successful. In writing the informal lead, on the contrary, one can never be positive of anything or of any effect. ”

“ THE MISTRESS. I doubt if a daily newspaper is a necessity, in the higher sense of the word.
THE PARSON. Nobody supposes it is to women,—that is, if they can see each other.
THE MISTRESS. Don't interrupt, unless you have something to say; though I should like to know how much gossip there is afloat that the minister does not know. The newspaper may be needed in society, but how quickly it drops out of mind when one goes beyond the bounds of what is called civilization. ”

“ Chapter XXII The Sunday-School and the Newspaper
On several pages of this book I have hinted at the use of the newspaper in our teaching; but the theme deserves a chapter to itself. An up-to-date teacher is respected, and it is largely the newspaper that brings one up to date. We must put our lessons into touch with life, and the newspaper is our modern compendium of life—very faulty, but all we have. The best illustration of the lesson is one your scholars find; the next best, one you find yourself; and only the third best, one found for you by the skilful writers of your lesson helps. ”

“ In our study of newspaper writing up to this point we have been entirely concerned with forms, rules, and formulas; every kind of story which we have studied has had a definite form which we have been charged to follow. We have been commanded always to put the gist of the story in the first sentence and to answer the reader's customary questions in the same breath. ”

“ I am thinking about the same thing that you are thinking of—that I have proved you are thinking of—the same thing that drove you out into the street yesterday and this morning to buy the papers. These papers print news which is interesting many people just now, and some people a great deal. I am thinking of the same thing that was evidently in your thoughts as you peered out of the garden gate this morning, although you would not come out into the street. I know that you do not read even one newspaper regularly. ”

“ By far the most important and exacting task, which falls to its lot, is the provision of a daily—or weekly as the case may be—supply of news and that not of any news nor of enough news but of all the news. The distinction is of immense practical importance because it trebles the difficulty imposed on the conductors of a newspaper. ”

“ Or, we may fancy ourselves in the circle of listeners, all with necks stretched out towards an old gentleman in the centre, who deliberately puts on his spectacles, unfolds the wet newspaper, and gives us the details of the broken and contradictory reports, which have been flying from mouth to mouth, ever since the courier alighted at Secretary Oliver’s office. ”

“ But unfortunately a great many of these people read the newspapers very hastily, and sometimes they fail to grasp the real sense of the column beneath the catchy headlines. They need practice in the rapid and intelligent reading of a news article.
You may begin to have that sort of practice now, if you will read rapidly the following newspaper account of the homecoming, in September, 1919, of one of America's greatest soldiers, and be able to answer the following questions. Your teacher may ask each row of pupils to be responsible for two or three of the questions. ”

“ For periodicals—newspapers, magazines, reviews—are the Fools' Paradise of the commonplace, the mediocre, the orthodox, the respectable. As the strength of a chain must be measured by its weakest link, so the thought of a periodical must be measured by the thought of its most imbecile subscribers. ”

“ And now the final quarter was searching, searching the weak spots in their line. The final quarter it is that finds a man's history and habits; the clean of blood and of life defy its pitiless probe, but the rotten fibre yields and snaps. ”

“ But we all love our dear common country better than all that belongs to district and climate; and so loving my country, and so being proud of its best fame and honor, its literary advancement, I was decidedly pleased with your periodical. The writing, the printing, the revision of the proofs, the ensemble, are all unquestionably creditable to you. I am too old and too much hackneyed in the style of periodicals to compliment. The Richmond Messenger gives respectable promise. Periodicals have to me a kind of physiognomy. Some look sickly and death-doomed from their birth. ”

“ Very early in its career the Weekly Chronicle selected the criminal records as favourite subjects for illustration. Perhaps some memory of the profits realised by the Observer on the occasion of the Weare murder induced the conductors to cultivate this class of news. Certainly nothing more repulsive ever figured in the pages of an illustrated newspaper than some of the woodcuts published by the Weekly Chronicle. ”

“ Has the time come, or is it near at hand, when we can point to a person who is alert, superficial, ready and shallow, self-confident and half-informed, and say, “There is a product of the American newspaper”? The newspaper is not a willful creation, nor an isolated phenomenon, but the legitimate outcome of our age, as much as our system of popular education. And I trust that some competent observer will make, perhaps for this association, a philosophical study of it. ”

“ Conducting a Local Column.—When conducting a column giving the news of a particular locality or neighborhood, the one thing not to write is that there is little news in the community this week or to-day. The readers of a column should not be allowed to suspect that one has little information to present. All about one are unnumbered sources of news if the correspondent can only find them—humorous incidents, reminiscences of old pioneers, stories of previous extremely wet, dry, hot, or cold seasons, recollections of Civil, Spanish American, and European War battles, etc. ”

“ It is not a breathless courier who comes back with the report from an army we have lost sight of for a month, nor a single bulletin which tells us all we are to know for a week of some great engagement, but almost hourly paragraphs, laden with truth or falsehood as the case may be, making us restless always for the last fact or rumor they are telling. ”

“ In our own day there is still another source of information, which, agreeably or odiously according to the temperament of the reader, keeps us in touch with courts and what goes on there—the periodical press; while afar off in the future one can imagine the historian bent over his desk, surrounded by books and knee-deep in newspapers, selecting and weighing events, studying characters, developing personalities, and passing what he hopes may be a final judgment on the court and period he is considering. ”

“ The news columns of the papers are largely written by young fellows just out of high school, who will declare the whole gospel on subjects with which they have a half hour's acquaintance, yet most people never question their statements. The printed page, whether of a hook, a magazine, or a newspaper, casts a spell on our judgment. ”

“ NINE O’CLOCK P.M.: HOUSE OF CALL FOR THE VICTORIA AUDIENCE.
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Do you ever read the supplement of the “Times” newspaper? Of course you do; at least, you must diurnally peruse one column at least of that succursal to the monster journal, specially interesting to yourself. Almost every one who can read is anxious to consult the “Times” every morning for one purpose or other. ”

“ In its closely-printed columns the Herald has, during the last decade, given to its readers a cyclopædia of the world's daily doings. Portraitures of men of affairs done by skilled writers, the fullest records of contemporaneous events, the gossip and news of the chief towns of the globe,—all this has made up a complete record to which the future historian may turn. ”

“ Oh, the newspapers exaggerate dreadfully—shamefully, to get up a sensation in the interest of their own flimsy sheets. There is some disturbance, but nothing like what people are made believe by the newspaper reports. ”

“ If it happen to be seven o’clock, and a Friday morning, not only the doors of the great newsvenders—such as Messrs. Smith and Son and Mr. Vickers—but the portals of all the newspaper offices, will be crowded with newsmen’s carts and newsmen’s trucks; and from the gaping gates themselves will issue hordes of newsmen and flying cohorts of newsboys—boys with parcels, boys with bags, boys with satchels, men staggering under the weight of great piles of printed paper. Mercy on us! what a plethora of brainwork is about, and what a poor criterion of its quality the quantity manifestly affords! ”

“ The newspapers announce that they are “sitting to examine witnesses”—a brief correspondence appears at intervals, to show that they have a secretary and a correspondent, a cloud then wraps the whole concern in its dark embrace, and not the most prying curiosity is ever able afterwards to detect any one feet concerning the commission or its labours, nor could you hear in any society the slightest allusion ever made to their whereabouts. ”

“ These events, recorded in the newspaper, are as much history as events which happened in the days of 46 Roman power, as recorded by Julius Caesar, Livy, and other writers of those times. Thus the man who reads a daily newspaper, or a weekly newsmagazine, is making definite use of history—otherwise he wouldn’t bother to read!
Equally, events which happened to us in our daily work last year, last week, even today, are as much historical events as things which occurred centuries ago. ”

“ In our profession, when travellers have caught, let us suppose, ten subscribers to the ‘Children’s Journal,’ they say, ‘I’ve got ten Children,’ just as I say when I get ten subscriptions to a newspaper called the ‘Movement,’ ‘I’ve got ten Movements.’ Now don’t you see? ”

“ You saw a real man last Sunday, and so did I. I had almost forgotten what they were like—that quality. Well, we had a lot of talk, and he told me what they are doing on some of the other stations. They are holding services, something like what he held here, every Sunday night for themselves. ”

“ A couple of days later, on a Sunday, before the closed door to the editorial offices I encountered a poorly clad man with hands as black as a chimney sweep's, and with him a slip of a girl carrying a box of old books. ”

“ If ever the eyes of youth read anything rightly in the stare of mature middle age, a month's notice was delivered by the glance of mingled amazement and indignation which the proprietor of the leading county paper cast upon his new recruit. ”